

Before They Were Successful, These People Were Rejected  - ozres1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704211704575139891390595962.html?mod=rss_Todays_Most_Popular#printMode

======
fnid2
I'm not surprised a lot of successful people are rejected by Harvard and Yale.
They reject, what?.. Ninety Percent or so of applicants? and those are self-
selected achievers who think they might have a shot getting in, so there are a
lot of exceptionally talented individuals in the rejected pool from those
schools.

What's that say about Matt Damon and Bill Gates who _essentially_ rejected
Harvard? You must respect someone who, at such an early age, is wise enough to
know that even _Harvard_ isn't going to make them better off.

Looking back, 18 is so young. Just babies. It'd be really hard at that age to
predict who among them will succeed.

~~~
csomar
Actually they could do better. They are selecting students depending on SAT
results and I really doubt they are reviewing in depth the achievements,
situation of the student.

~~~
ramchip
I'm not sure about that, unless you're talking specifically about undergrad at
Yale and Harvard. The prof at my previous laboratory worked on the admission
committee for the MIT and told us that having research publications done
before graduate studies was a large factor. So was doing special stuff like
going to Africa and building a library, getting a grammy award, etc. Everyone
who applies has excellent grades, so they can't really use them to distinguish
people.

~~~
hga
I have a good friend who's been part of the MIT admissions process in times
past (on a time available basis). They look at _lots_ of things.

Before the SAT changes in 1994 that made them worthless, they found that class
ranking was strangely enough one of the best predictors of future success (MIT
does longitudinal study of the admissions and resulting success of failure,
the number one imperative is to accept _no one_ who they don't think can do
the work (which is a pretty high bar for MIT, with it's core math and science
requirements)).

And, yeah, having an almost published paper probably helped me (I sent the
original draft with a note that half the results were unusable due to a
contaminated culture that was only discovered after the work). Plus a well
designed (structured programming) program (this was back in 1979).

My SAT (very high verbal, OK but not so much for MIT math) and class standing
weren't too great, but they correctly said yes. My friend said that being from
deep in flyover country certainly made a difference in terms of a desire for
geographic diversity.

Anyway, a bottom line today for MIT is that if you can do the work, you have a
raw 1/3 chance of acceptance (self-selection of applications is _fierce_ ).

The very most important thing you can do is to demonstrate to them that you're
a "go-getter", the sort of person who naturally does projects and the like.
Mens and manus (mind and hand) as the school motto goes.

~~~
codexon
_Before the SAT changes in 1994 that made them worthless_

I've heard this a couple times, but there is not much reasoning to back this
up. Having taken the SAT after 1994 and receiving a high score, I think it is
a bit disingenuous to claim that the SAT after 1994 are useless.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAT#1994_changes>

The mean SAT score remained virtually unchanged, while the removal of antonym
questions and non-multiple choice questions seems to be an improvement. There
were many times where the analogy questions were quite ambiguous, I could
think of a dozen reasons to support each answer.

------
impeachgod
Heh, amusing this comes to me right after my rejection to MIT, Caltech, Olin
and Harvey Mudd.

~~~
aptimpropriety
It's not over. I got rejected from nearly everywhere I applied as a freshman,
then transferred to Cornell as a Sophomore where I'm now a very happy junior.
Looking back I'm actually very glad I transferred as opposed to entering as a
freshman. I've instead taken so much more advantage of opportunities compared
to where I went my freshman year (UCLA) after essentially getting to
'restart'.

~~~
impeachgod
I did get into UCLA though. I am going to be hearing from Berkeley tomorrow,
but I think I'll go to UCLA. I really, really like Los Angeles, and know a lot
of security hackers there.

------
pvg
It's a beautifully useless metric since no employer gives a hoot that you did
not get into Harvard. They might be impressed that you did, but I've yet to be
in a hiring interview where the candidate has been responsive, intelligent and
knowledgeable and a glance at their resume led to the question 'well, with all
that talent, how come you did not go to Harvard?'. Nobody gives a whit about
how good you were at competing in the Ivy League admissions process. People do
care about how well you can contribute to their business.

~~~
neilk
It's not that the employer cares about your failure to get into Harvard; it's
that they may be impressed with the Harvard grad more.

I have seen cases where, given a choice between candidates, an Ivy-leaguer
picked another Ivy-leaguer solely on that basis. You could argue that such a
manager would be an idiot (and you'd be right) but the brand-name-school
phenomenon affects even smart employers like Google and Microsoft. Someone
with MIT, Stanford, or Waterloo credentials rises to the top of the resume
pile more often.

------
jballanc
What I've come to realize about the "elite" universities is that they can make
an average performer into a slightly above average performer, but the people
that are really going to stand out from the crowd will stand out no matter
where they go to school.

------
holdenc
College admission is very much up to chance. My graduate school applications
went to 10 very mediocre schools with money for teaching fellowships, all
located in nice relaxing places. I figured they'd leave me alone and I could
concentrate stress-free. My parents gave me $75 to apply to Yale since I
otherwise refused. Got into Yale, but got rejected by 8 out the 10 other
schools.

~~~
netcan
I applied to ten Australian Universities that looked interesting without much
real knowledge of their relative prestige. I got rejected by 8. The one I went
to turned out to be the consistent no. 1 in the country. Until about my third
year, I dismissed all of this as insider nonsense assuming that every Uni says
this about themselves.

Admittedly, I don't think they really knew what to make of my application
being one of presumable very applicants with those qualifications. In my case,
it probably was close to random.

~~~
nailer
> The one I went to turned out to be the consistent no. 1 in the country.

For technology or business?

If the former, RMIT or ANU?

~~~
demallien
RMIT? Really? Whilst researching things for work, I tend to run into more
references to papers from UNSW than RMIT, although I tend only to see IT-
related papers, not general technology. I know that RMIT is the best for
Aeronautics.

~~~
nailer
Yeah, most of my RMIT knowledge has come from aeronautics students, but
apparently they have a good rep in mechatronics too. Otherwise it's ANU all
the way. Don't know much about UNSW.

------
jaymon
This reminds of the Evan Williams quote from "Founders at Work" pg 124:

"luck comes in many forms -- and often looks bad at first. I always look back
on the deals that we didn't do and the things that didn't work out, and
realize what seemed like a bummer at the time was really lucky [...] if you
have some plan and it doesn't go that way, roll with it. There's no way to
know if it's good or bad until later, if ever."

~~~
wallflower
If you ever want an interesting look into the psyche of a person / have them
reveal themselves, ask them to describe to you situations in which they were
'lucky'.

------
ErrantX
find me a successful person who has never been rejected from something
important to them... :)

------
pingou
I don't really see the point of this article. Of course some people who were
rejected get successful, and some who get into Harvard don't, it's not like it
was possible to predict anyone success with 100 % accuracy. It would be
interresting to have the percentage of people who get into the best
universities and succeed in their life, and the percentage of people who were
rejected but still managed to succeed. But we'll have to find a way to measure
"success" first... (Sorry for the spelling or grammar mistakes, I really need
to improve my english)

~~~
dabent
> some who get into Harvard don't

For every Gates, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Page, or even Patzer, there are many who
went to a top school who never did much or even really blew it. Part of me
wants to see a post-mortem on their careers, much the way we review failed
startups for "lessons learned"

------
andyjenn
"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two Impostors just
the same" - Kipling.

------
askar_yu
* "The truth is, everything that has happened in my life...that I thought was a crushing event at the time, has turned out for the better," Mr. Buffett says *

I hear such things a lot ('whatever happens is for better', etc.), and in fact
- agree. but it's really hard to accept a failure/rejection as a _lesson_ or a
_bad-tasting-medicine_ at the time it happens to you...

but I guess knowing this at the very least gives motivation and helps one to
remain more 'determined' <http://www.paulgraham.com/determination.html>
(especially in the long run where your chances of giving up are pretty high)

------
10ren
Reminds me of <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1212519> ("Hey, what was
the good news and what was the bad news?")

I've heard it said that comp sci students who get a 2b in honours, do better
in their career than those who get a 1st. Makes sense for business (with
prominent exceptions like Sergey and Larry.)

~~~
arethuza
Isn't that just because in ye olden days before grade inflation relatively few
people got 1sts in CS?

------
croby
So, in summary, loads of famous and successful people got rejected from
various Harvard, Duke, and Stanford schools, yet attended still attended top-
tier universities and had a great experience. Not getting into your top choice
for school? Hardly rejection...

------
fauigerzigerk
Taking away someone's fear is always a good thing, but I'm afraid any
conclusion from that article would be an exemplary case of survivor bias. Any
conclusion other than that success is possible in spite of rejection anyway.

------
necrecious
The mark of a successful person is how they deal with rejection, not that
they've never been rejected.

As long as you keep trying and learn from your failures, chances are you will
succeed in the long run.

------
rick_2047
One question about admission system and rejection
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1215456>

------
python123
Good thing for Warren that he got to learn under Graham directly. Getting
rejected from med school isn't quite the same as getting rejected from
college.

~~~
ozres1
The other interesting thing is that Warren tried to work for Graham straight
after graduation. Graham essentially said no until years later when Graham
finally offered Buffett a job.

