

Ask HN: I just got rejected from my dream college, what now - Aeolus98

Hi HN,  I&#x27;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?
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!!

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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

