What schools did you reject, or who rejected you?

I don't know about its standing today, but an era ago, Point Park was considered one of the top J-schools around -- especially for sports journalists. They had a summer camp for teenage sportswriters that I went to as a HS junior. One of the nights, they took us to Three Rivers Stadium to "cover" a Pirates game in the press box, on deadline.

 

Applied to five - Notre Dame, Syracuse, NYU, Boston University and Hometown U. Got rejected by ND, wait listed and then accepted at NYU and accepted at Syracuse, BU and Hometown U.

Despite getting offered good financial packages at Syracuse and BU, I chose Hometown U because I still hadn't decided on a career path. I figured I'd spend two years at Hometown U and get general credits out of the way before transferring, but I became pretty well entrenched at the school and decided to stay.

In hindsight, it's easy to wonder what might have been if I'd decided to be a sportswriter sooner and gone to Syracuse, but I can't complain about where I've ended up. My alma mater was very good to me and I'm now actually working a second stint in an official capacity for the school.

 

Well, Harvard wanted me but wasn't offering enough for me to go there. Brown? Pa-shaw. Child, please. And I'll be caught dead before I'll be a Yaley.
No, seriously, the closest I could come to those schools was having our class valedictorian get into Harvard. The fact people on this thread are even throwing them around makes me feel like a dumbass.

My list (went 4-for-4):
1) LSU - Where I ended up going. Application fees were averaging $50 a pop. I narrowed it down to a handful of major state schools that looked good (Ohio State, Tennessee and Colorado were on the list), knew I had the test scores to get in, and was happy but not surprised when I got the acceptance letter.
LSU also had a ridiculously low out of state tuition rate at the time. It was about $10,000 a year, whereas most of the others I was looking at were around $15,000. That played a big part in my decision.

2) Tusculum College (Greeneville, Tenn.) - Free application. Had to write an essay. Got in, got a T-shirt and a soft spot in my heart that I kept for years whenever I see them on the list of D-II football scores, but the closest I came to setting foot on campus was when I passed the Greeneville exit on I-81 on the way to Baton Rouge.

3) Johnson & Wales (Providence, R.I.) - Another free application I picked up from a college fair. No essay. Got a scholarship, but all it did was knock off $2,000 from a fairly hefty price tag, so I didn't go. Still, it was nice to get a scholarship offer. Only one I got. And considering what I now know about journalism, a business/cooking school might not have been a bad option.

4) The DeVry Institute (Edison, N.J.) - Got suckered in by a recruiter, not really realizing what it was. I even asked the recruiter about going to a different campus to the local one and whether they had a football team. He somehow did not bust out laughing. A true pro there.
Went on a Saturday and took the admission exam, which consisted of 50 mostly fourth-grade level math problems. I think it was to make sure the applicant has a pulse. I got two wrong (never can remember which fraction to flip when dividing) and had the highest score in my exam group. Figured I'd go elsewhere when, the following Monday, a guy in my homeroom who also took the exam remarked how difficult it was.
Felt bad for the recruiter, though. He was a nice guy who really worked hard to land me. My decision probably kept him from eating that week.

 

I was at a JC 6 blocks from my home. I decided I wanted to go to the prominent downtown private university. My counselor at the JC (who was also my 8th grade homeroom teacher) said to go ahead and apply but also send in applications to the state schools, too. I said I didn't want to go to any of them, if I didn't get in I would skip a semester and try again.
All moot, I sent in the ap, got accepted and that was it.
As an aside, there were 60 Journalism majors when I got there. Over the next few months, Watergate occurred and the number of Journalism majors ballooned to 240.

 

I applied to Brooklyn College, SUNY-Binghamton, Cornell and Penn. I was told relatively early by Cornell that I was likely to get in given my grades/scores and I was likely to get a tuition scholarship so I didn't bother applying anywhere else. I wanted to go to Penn the most, but was rejected and I think it was the best thing for me on every level to go to Cornell.

For law school, was accepted by Michigan, Georgetown, Penn, Cornell. Wait listed then rejected by Harvard and rejected so fast by Yale that they barely had time to cash my check. Oddly, was wait listed by Fordham and they only accepted me after the school year started.

 

I was set to go to Penn. They were recruiting a player who was a year ahead of me on my football team, so when the Ivy schools were recruiting him (he went to Princeton) my coach was selling them on me.

It was $26K a year to go there back in 1992 and they were going to give me scholarship/financial aid so it would basically cost me $6-$8K a year to go there. Then, I flew out there on my visit and the second they found out my dad was a doctor, they started backing off how much $$$ I was going to get. My parents were feuding over who going to pay for college and I kind of felt that ultimately, I wasn't going to get much help, and I was right, so I went to the cheaper public school and then to another cheap public school for grad school.

 

Only applied to two, WAZZU and Pacific Lutheran University. Had looked at a third (Linfield College in Oregon). Lovely campus but when I went on a visit the guy who would have been my advisor was an idiot. WAZZU was always my first choice for a number of reasons, plus it was six hours from home (as opposed to 30 minutes in PLU's case).

 

The world of Ivy League scholarship money would make a great expose one day.

 

Most, if not all, of the Ivies award financial award based strictly on need. There is no merit factor involved. At Harvard, Yale, Penn and Princeton (those are the ones I know for sure, the others probably do the same thing), if your income is less than $65,000, the family's expected contribution is zero.

 

Applied (and was accepted) at Northwestern, Quincy (Ill.) College, Northeast Missouri State (now known as Truman State). Really wanted to attend Northwestern, but scholarship applications fell through, and couldn't afford it.

Had thoughts about playing football at D-III Quincy, met with their coach, but thankfully decided against it. And again, cost was a factor.

Ended up in Kirksville, Mo., with much of my costs covered by an academic scholarship. Liked the small-town atmosphere, which was good because more than half the NEMO students went home to St. Louis or KC every weekend. Had a lot of fun with the people who stayed behind.

Despite that, transferred to University of Iowa for my sophomore year. A young lady now known as "Mrs. Coco" was a student there. Best decision I ever made.

 

Applied to Alabama and got in, '99. A few years ago, applied for Boise State grad school (because multiple years of unemployment will have you trying most anything) but didn't get in.

 

Well, that too. I couldn't milk it for extra pay.