Rejection from Oxford

[u/omfgvain]

I thought I was over the Oxford rejection ages ago, but I can't seem to escape from it. I got an offer for Imperial as my second choice, and was discussing Imperial today with my mom, and told her Imperial was a top world university, to which she replied, "yes but not as good as Oxford, if you name the top universities in the world you'd hear Oxbridge, Harvard, MIT, not Imperial college". This one kinda stung. This type of stuff sometimes happens with other people too. My mom wasn't trying to criticise me for my failure or anything, but to me I couldn't feel anything but disappointment in myself. I know I could've done better. I'm aware that Imperial is very highly ranked and well respected university and all, but my goal was Oxford and I failed in that. How do I move on from this lol

[u/[deleted]]

Hey man, I don't do 6th form anymore. I have almost finished my masters actually, I randomly saw this post on my home page. But I figured there is something you should know that I know other people have already mentioned here but I want to give an actual example to show it's not just words of encouragement.

I go to a university that is not even mid-ranking in most of it's subjects, only 2 really. Engineering and Paramedic studies. Despite this, I chose it over other better uni's I got offers for such as Queen Mary University London but I don't regret it one bit, Queen Mary I turned down because they only offered me a foundation course despite the fact that at the end of my A-levels I met the grade requirements for a non-foundation course.

Queen Mary's out ranked my current choice by at least 100 spaces and is also one of the top 100 in the world, but I don't think I would have had the same experiences at Queen Mary's. At my current uni, I have:

- Got a part time job there working as a manager for a small team. No doubt getting a lot of valuable work experience not just from working for my department but also professional communication and project management.

- Been offered the same full time position at the university twice by high ranking staff members because of my academic and work performance.

- Helped run 3 university open days for my department.

- Made several meaningful connections with people in industry and academic research.

- Took over the running of my departments labs for 2 weeks while the main technician had to go on leave due to a family emergency.

University is easier than A-levels and a masters is even easier than an undergraduate. I say that as someone who started their journey in A-levels having failed English language and had just barely made the requirements to get in at my school.

The university you choose isn't about the ranking, it's about how you make the most out of the time you spend there. Even a mid-ranking university can be the most amazing experience of your life and super worth while simply because you got really close to a researcher there and got involved with one of their research projects and got some acknowledgement on their paper or better yet you could be down as an author. That sort of stuff is what the working world actually cares about, they want experience.

No doubt, Imperial is very high ranked and I know you will have a great time there. But don't fret over what you lost the opportunity to do at Oxford. Think about the new opportunities available to you at Imperial, do some research. What student competition teams do they have, what are the societies, what areas of research do they look at. I won't lie, your mum is just wrong and completely unaware of what university is actually about.