Colleges I got rejected from:

 

Many people think that most of us, who are studying in some renowned colleges of the US, had no failures along the way. Atleast that's what it seems from the surface. I am here to prove you wrong.

Also, my EFC was around $70k USD, so I was not rejected due to financial reasons.

Colleges I got rejected from:

Duke 

UC Berkeley 

Stanford 

Carnegie Mellon University

Waterloo ( Did not finish application )

Colleges I got waitlisted from:

Vanderbilt ( later rejected )

Harvard (later rejected) 

Pomona 

Claremont McKenna 

Bowdoin College 

I applied in Computer Science to all of them. Some of my top acceptances (UMich, GTech, UCLA, KCL,NTU) have a way higher Computer Science reputation than the colleges above. So why was I rejected?  Here are my thoughts.

1. There were better candidates than me. The biggest problem with Bangladeshis is that, at one point, after we give a lot of effort, we think we are THE BEST. This world is huge and there will 100% be people who will be more qualified than you. You were just unlucky to be within the same application pool.

2. The allocated Admissions Officer just didn't like my overall story, or thought others stories were better cut off than mine.

3. There was “something” I just completely missed while writing essays or doing the applications. Now come on. I am a human being. It doesn't matter how many students I have mentored or how many acceptances I have received. But you can never guarantee and say, “ I did everything I could.” because there is always something remaining.

4. A few colleges reject you to maintain a better yield rate. If you are more qualified than the college average thresholds, they will reject you just because they know you will never study there. Pretty sure this didn't happen with me as all colleges aforementioned are top tier 

5. My Major. For some colleges listed above, I had a better shot to get in if I applied in a different major. But I didn't want to get acceptances that way and just went with my gut. CS or any engineering field is very competitive.

6. At the end, there's a bit of luck involved. But, don't make it an excuse. “Amar luck bhalo chilo na.” is just an excuse. Remember the quote: “The harder you work, the luckier you get.”

Embrace your rejections. Work harder towards your goals. In the next 15 days, apply with all your heart. You'll make it for sure!

We have all struggled.