Colleges' Rejects Who Made it Big

[Bloodshot Scott]

Colleges' rejects who made it big
Teenagers turned down by their first-choice colleges are in good company: Warren Buffett, Tom Brokaw and other prominent Americans also received rejection letters.

By The Wall Street Journal
Few events arouse more teenage angst than the springtime arrival of college rejection letters. With next fall's college freshman class expected to approach a record 2.9 million students, hundreds of thousands of applicants will soon be receiving the dreaded letters.




Famous college rejects
Teenagers who face rejection will join good company, including Nobel laureates, billionaire philanthropists, university presidents, constitutional scholars, best-selling authors and other leaders of business, media and the arts who once received college or graduate-school rejection letters of their own.

Both Warren Buffett and "Today" show host Meredith Vieira say that while being rejected by the school of their dreams was devastating, it launched them on a path to meeting life-changing mentors. Harold Varmus, the winner of the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1989, says getting rejected twice by Harvard Medical School, where a dean advised him to enlist in the military, was soon forgotten as he plunged into his studies at Columbia University's med school.

con...

Buffett: 'Turned out for the better'
"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," Buffett says. With the exception of health problems, he says, setbacks teach "lessons that carry you along. You learn that a temporary defeat is not a permanent one. In the end, it can be an opportunity."

Buffett regards his rejection at age 19 by Harvard Business School as a pivotal episode in his life. Looking back, he says, Harvard wouldn't have been a good fit. But at the time, he "had this feeling of dread" after being rejected in an admissions interview in Chicago and a fear of disappointing his father.


As it turned out, his father responded with "only this unconditional love . . . an unconditional belief in me," Buffett says. Exploring other options, he realized that two investing experts he admired, Benjamin Graham and David Dodd, were teaching at Columbia's graduate business school. He dashed off a late application, where by a stroke of luck it was fielded and accepted by Dodd.

From these mentors, Buffett says, he learned core principles that guided his investing. The Harvard rejection also benefited his alma mater: His family gave more than $12 million to Columbia in 2008 through the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, based on tax filings.

The lesson of negatives becoming positives has proved true repeatedly, Buffett says. He was terrified of public speaking -- so much so that when he was young he sometimes threw up before giving an address. So he enrolled in a Dale Carnegie public-speaking course and says the skills he learned there enabled him to woo his future wife, Susan Thompson, a "champion debater," he says.

"I even proposed to my wife during the course," he says. "If I had been only a mediocre speaker I might not have taken it."

...

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.co...rCollege/college-rejects-who-made-it-big.aspx

I cool article, I think.

 

[shayd]

A good portion of the most successful Internet start-ups were college dropouts too.

 

[PlasmaTwa2]

Hitler was rejected from school. He made it pretty big for a few years.

 

[bustybbwlover]

have you ever seen any of hitler's paintings? he didn't do very many with people in them, it seems his vision was of empty cities i see why the vienna academy of fine arts rejected him but as to the college reject factor...well...school is a game and it doesn't matter what your potential is but rather how you've played the game

 

[D-rock]

As far as actual knowledge and ability goes college is highly overrated (not to mention a huge waste of money at a societal level) in almost all of it's non-highly technical and non scientific courses. It's just to get a piece a paper that will allow a business an excuse to hire you. In all likelihood somebody that's trained well on the job a month or two could probably do just as well as most college graduates in most jobs.

As far as success goes college or any type of education takes a back seat to dumb ass luck whether that's being born to the right family, being in the right place in the right time that somebody else didn't have happen to them, or some other reason.

Despite what some successful people like to think about how they did it all themselves, the truth is if they switch a few things around in their life with somebody that was poor, often very minor events, in their past there would be millions of people that would have ended up were they are and they would have ended up where those poorer than them are at.

 

[Bloodshot Scott]

As far as actual knowledge and ability goes college is highly overrated (not to mention a huge waste of money at a societal level) in almost all of it's non-highly technical and non scientific courses. It's just to get a piece a paper that will allow a business an excuse to hire you. In all likelihood somebody that's trained well on the job a month or two could probably do just as well as most college graduates in most jobs.

As far as success goes college or any type of education takes a back seat to dumb ass luck whether that's being born to the right family, being in the right place in the right time that somebody else didn't have happen to them, or some other reason.

Despite what some successful people like to think about how they did it all themselves, the truth is if they switch a few things around in their life with somebody that was poor, often very minor events, in their past there would be millions of people that would have ended up were they are and they would have ended up where those poorer than them are at.

I agree. Which is why the article in spot-on: the moral? don't give up - follow your dreams. Yeah it's petty cliche bullshit, but I like to hear stories like this nonetheless. Too much negativity goin' around nowadays.

 

[Rey C.]

Especially before the 1900's, college wasn't seen as just a way to improve your chances of having a snazzy career and a fat paycheck - like it is now. College was a place to "gain knowledge". Even during my mother's generation, in the 30's and 40's, kids still took Latin and studied the Classics. Why? Just for the sake of gaining knowledge. Hard as it is to believe now, there was a time in this country when that was appreciated and sought.

Now people only think of college as a way to get "THE" job. And I understand that. Things and times change, for better or worse. But anyway, offering a list of people who were intellectually set apart from the norm, probably at birth - born with near genius level I.Q.'s, that shouldn't give average people an excuse not to go to college... IF THEY CAN. A local college in my area has been giving away full scholarships to kids from this county for several years. All they have to do is show up and pass with a 2.0 or above GPA - and trust me, it ain't that hard. They can take anything they want. They can major in anything they want. They can use their credits and transfer to another school whenever they want. I don't know what the percentage is this year. But the first couple of years, they could barely give away half the scholarships. And of those they did give away, the dropout rate was phenomenal.

From what I've seen in this area, high school is now more like elementary school was in my day. And college (a lot of them) is probably more like high school was in my mother's day. Pampered oversized babies playing with toys (cell phones), and having to be talked to gently, otherwise you might damage their delicate inner child and cause their ADDHDXYZ to kick in and kill them. Just last week they fired some punk kid where I work for not showing up half the time. He would have qualified for the scholarship program that I mentioned above. He could have walked in with a degree in Machine Technology (or something!), and gotten double where he started out. But 21 years old and barely made it out of high school, 2 kids (that I know of) and now, no job... because he was not only too sorry to attend basic kiddie college, he was too sorry to show up for the job that he was barely qualified to do anyway. He would have probably still been a sorry little shit. But at least if he'd had that piece of paper, that would have told us something more (something positive) about him. Having a degree doesn't guarantee anything. But it does tell you something in entry level jobs. Later on, it has more to do with references and work experience. Me, I would have never hired that kid in the first place. If a younger person is interviewing with me and it's entry level, I want to see a piece of paper - from somewhere. Doesn't matter if it's from a technical school or a 4 year university. But if all he's been doing is "hanging out" since high school, working at McD's part-time and trying to find himself... he needs to find his way out of my office. I'm not a babysitter or a psychologist. And since I don't gamble, I don't take a lot of chances.

Life ain't fair. That's just the way it's always been. Once upon a time, if you were born in Rome, you spoke Latin and you were a civilized human being. If you were born anywhere else and didn't speak Latin, you were a lowlife barbarian and your life didn't count for much. Luck has always had a role in that sort of thing. But anyone who is lucky enough to be born in the U.S. (and certain other developed nations) and doesn't take full advantage of the opportunities afforded, should NOT always be hunting for an excuse not to do what makes the most sense... but WILL take some amount of work and effort. Fair or not, having at least a B.A/B.S. degree (whatever it is in) means being part of a demogrsaphic group that has an unemployment rate that's around 4% right now. For those without at least that, the rate is north of 10%. Those are just the facts. I'm not a gambler, but I learned at an early age to go with the best odds. Fair or not, that's just the way it is.

 

[bennihanna]

C's get Degrees

 

[Ulysses31]

Over here we have mega rich entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Alan Sugar who not only left education at the age of 16 but started their first businesses selling goods out of the boots of their cars. In those days there were so many emerging industries and technologies that the opportunity was there to make it big (not saying it was easy) but nowadays there is little left undone and the chances of college dropouts (as well as most graduates) making it big in next to nothing with the exception of maybe the sports of entertainment industries.

 

[rizwano]

everyone can succeed. there are many college rejects who make it big.

 

[Baill Inneraora]

There are smokers who live to be 100, but that doesn't mean that statistically you are better off smoking.