Did Harvard reject you to be a member of the Class of 2028? Fear not! You’ve joined the ranks of some esteemed company. Harvard University is composed of human beings, just like you and me. They make mistakes! And anyway, a Harvard degree is not necessary for a prosperous career, as the following list quite emphatically demonstrates. Before our faithful readers chime in with concerns that this topic is sacrilege to such a place as Ivy Coach, where we understand the importance of attending elite schools like Harvard, we would like to clarify that we don’t believe that one must attend a highly selective school to become a positive contributor to society. 

Sure, we recognize that an Ivy League degree has many lifelong benefits, including higher projected salaries by mid-career and access to a network of exclusive professional opportunities. However, an education from any school has the potential to open doors. A rejection from Harvard is not a professional or social death sentence. Many of the people on this list ended up at equally prestigious institutions! So, without further ado, let’s look at this list of Harvard rejects who still managed to make a name for themselves.

11 Famous Rejections and Where They Wound Up

Famous Harvard Rejects	Known For	Where They Ended Up
Art Garfunkel	Simon & Garfunkel (band)	Columbia University
David Remnick	The New Yorker (editor)	Princeton University
Harold Varmus	Discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes (Nobel Prize)	Amherst College
Jann Wenner	Rolling Stone (magazine co-founder)	University of California, Berkeley (Dropped Out)
John Kerry	Former Secretary of State and U.S. Senator	Yale College
Lee Bollinger	Former president of Columbia University	University of Oregon
Matt Groening	The Simpsons (co-creator)	Evergreen State College
Meredith Vieira	The Today Show, The View (former host)	Tufts University
Ted Turner	CNN, TBS (founder)	Brown University
Tom Brokaw	NBC Nighly News (former anchor)	University of South Dakota
Warren Buffett	Berkshire Hathaway (CEO, philanthropist)	University of Nebraska

Sometimes a Rejection Lights a Fire Under Your Behind

This list dispels the idea once and for all that success no longer lies ahead of you once you get rejected from the school of your dreams. Take the case of media icon and newscaster Meredith Vieira. Business Insider said, “When Meredith Vieira didn’t get into Harvard, she was heartbroken. “I was so devastated that when I went to Tufts [University] my freshman year, every Saturday I’d hitchhike to Harvard,” she told The Wall Street Journal. “These trips stopped once she met a mentor who got her started in on her impressive journalism career.”

Imagine how that heartbroken college student would feel to know that an esteemed career as a broadcast journalist and television personality lay ahead of her. While attending lectures at Tufts, she might not have been able to shake her grief, but once her career started taking off, those feelings of rejection faded into distant memory. And they will for you, too! Time (and a lucrative, decorated legacy of success) heals all wounds, as they say.

This list also unequivocally dispels the notion that only alums of elite universities become titans of industry. The Harvard rejection sparked Matt Groening, a creator of The Simpsons, and Lee Bollinger, a Columbia president, to work hard to achieve their dreams. Moreover, quite a few who were accepted into Harvard went on to contribute very little to society. Sometimes, an elite college acceptance causes nothing but complacency! And in rare and unfortunate cases, Harvard accepts someone who goes on to cause a whole lot of harm. We’re looking at you, Unabomber!

How Ivy Coach Helps Applicants and Rejectees Alike

Over the last ten years, the Harvard acceptance rate for Ivy Coach’s package clients who applied in the Early Round is 94%. Our team of former elite college admissions officers knows how to help Harvard applicants convey themselves with an enticing mix of grit and humor they go nuts for over in Cambridge.

We also provide a suite of services to those rejected or deferred from admission to Harvard, including a PortMortem, in which one of our former elite college admissions officers goes through every section of The Common Application to Harvard, including the seemingly insignificant parts, identifying what works, what doesn’t, what needs to change, and how students should reposition their cases for admission so they can expect better results.

If you want to optimize your child’s case for admission to Harvard or your child’s position during those precious days after a Harvard deferral or rejection, fill out our complimentary consultation form, and we’ll be in touch.