Ask HN: I just got rejected from my dream college, what now

[Aeolus98]

Hi HN, I'm a high school student in India ( US citizen ) and I just got rejected from the college that I had pinned a lot of my hopes and dreams on, Olin in Needham, MA. Any advice as to how to deal with this and further gloomy college prospects?

[nostrademons]

Pick your second-most-dream college and go there. Or if you really hate all your options, go work for a year and reapply, possibly to different colleges (you might be surprised how much your preferences can change in a year...let them). In the grand scheme of things, the college you go to matters little.

FWIW, I was also rejected from Olin (I applied to be in the very first class of Olin Partners, back in 2000), it was also my first choice, but I learned that if your top choice is an engineering school don't say that you want liberal arts. ;-) I ended up going to Amherst, had a decent-but-not-great time there, and then had a very successful career as a software engineer, working at 2 startups, founding one, ending up at Google for 5+ years, and now founding my second. If I had to do it all over again, I might not have done liberal arts (actually, I regret not applying to big schools like Stanford, CMU, or MIT), but it turns out you can recover from most mistakes you make as a teenager. Good thing, too, because you make a lot of them.

[byoung2]

You find another college make the best of your experience there. Lots of people don't get into their first choice school, but it may be a blessing in disguise. My first choice was Stanford, but I was rejected. I ended up at UCLA, and had the best years of my life there.

[MalcolmDiggs]

Well... don't give up. Ask for an appeal. Show up in person, network, try to pull strings, don't take no for an answer. Meet with admissions and ask them about transferring in as a junior. (Acceptance rates are often much higher for transfer-students than freshman, so you might have a better chance 2 years from now).

But all in all, if you try and fail...that's life! Sad but true. You win some, you lose some. It's how you react to the losses that really counts. Pick yourself up off the floor and find something new to fight for.

[owly]

Don't give up or put your hopes in one possible timeline. It's often easier to transfer in as a sophomore if you've done well elsewhere. I'd suggest trying for somewhere in the same area with the possibility of even taking a class at Olin. Then you'll have a faculty member to support your transfer too. Good luck!!

[mc_hammer]

you can go take 2or3 local college classes and try to do something else great to write about in your entry form (volunteer or open source or charity or public speaking or something), and apply again next year. you could also ask someone why they think u got denied and try a different approach next time