There is Life After Being Rejected

Senator John Kerry was rejected by Harvard not once but twice.

For the Class of 2014, Harvard University received 30,489 applications and accepted 2,110 students. If you’re one of those 28,379 students who applied and were rejected, you may find some comfort in knowing that Harvard does indeed make mistakes from time to time. Take U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), for example. He was rejected not once but twice by Harvard. After he was rejected by Harvard, he went to Yale University, graduated, and then enlisted in the U.S. Navy where he requested duty in Vietnam and earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts (although whether or not he truly earned this recognition was called into question by the Swift Boat campaign). He then applied to Harvard Law School and once again Harvard said…you guessed it…no. And one has to wonder what Harvard was thinking when they rejected Warren Buffett! With the $30 billion that he donated to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, maybe just maybe Harvard regrets that they’re not on the receiving end for just a little something. In any case, wondering who are some big names that Harvard has rejected over the years? Wonder no more as Sue Shellenbarger of The Wall Street Journal is out with a new piece entitled “Before They Were Titans, Moguls and Newsmakers, These People Were…Rejected” that we just had to bring to the attention of our readers. So here goes!

List of Well-Known Harvard Rejects Through the Years

Lee C. Bollinger – President of Columbia University

Tom Brokaw – Journalist, Former White House Correspondent

Warren Buffett – Investor and Philanthropist

Art Garfunkel – Singer and Songwriter

Matt Groening – Creator, “The Simpsons”

John Kerry – United States Senator

Scott McNealy – Chairman and Co-founder, Sun Microsystems

David Remnick – Editor, “The New Yorker,” Pulitzer Prize Winner

Ted Turner – Founder, Turner Broadcasting System, Creator of “CNN”

Harold Varmus – President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine

Meredith Vieira – Co-Anchor, “Today” and Host, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.”

Jann Wenner – Founder, “Rolling Stone” and Chairman, Wenner Media