My Reverse College Application | Hacker News Reader

My Reverse College Application

reversecollegeapplication.com

38 pointsrmshea37 comments

>Third, the college application undermines my value as an individual. Over the past seventeen years, I pursued my passions, excelled at every task I set my mind to, and tried to give back to the community that got me to where I am today. I should be in demand.

You're conflating your value as an individual with your value to other people. Pursuing passions and giving back is great for your value as an individual, but most of the world doesn't actually care. Unless your passion is something that other people can use to make money, it's not going to be relevant to anyone else. I don't care if someone I hire to do a job is the world's greatest amateur ichthyologist if I'm hiring them to do a job that doesn't involve fish.

The sooner you learn this, the better off you will be. I used to believe similarly that if I worked hard, went to school, and got a degree, that would be enough to get me a decent job. I was wrong. Nobody cared about any of that. All they wanted to know was could I do anything for them that would make them more money than it cost to hire me.

By all means, pursue whatever passions you want, but don't think it's necessarily going to get you anywhere in the world.

All they wanted to know was could I do anything for them that would make them more money than it cost to hire me.

To this I would add "without a lot of drama or other management overhead."

I would say that's subsumed into the cost of hiring someone. The amount of drama/overhead that is tolerable depends on how much it costs to replace them. If you're going to spend a 5 figure amount interviewing someone, as a recent HN submission pointed out, you have an incentive to try and fix a few issues before you give someone the boot. If you can just literally hang a sign up and open your door and get qualified people coming in to apply, then you'll probably get rid of someone who's the least bit of trouble.

Guy has posted this every day for a week now

https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=rmshea

Well, it does say he's "relentless."

It also says he's "smart" or something similar I'm sure. Did not read entirely. Blatantly spamming suggests otherwise.

Smart and wise are not the same thing. It also says he's 17.

Alright, semantics. I still think a 17 year old could and should be aware enough to simply delete their past posts if they're trying to growth hack their website thing, even disregarding the ethics of it. But honestly and personally, I don't expect much from someone attempting this online stunt.

There's nothing wrong with this guy except for maybe the fact that he thinks he deserves to get into a top school. Top schools are really just as good as a lot of lower acceptance rate schools. The point is the piece of paper, not necessarily where you go. Where you go has ancillary benefits like connections and more opportunity, but that doesn't make you any lesser if you take a school with less of that. Some of the smartest people in the world didn't even go to college.

This is specious. It's pretty clear that if Ivy+ acceptance didn't mean anything nobody would go. There is a genuine bar here that admits pass that non-admits don't. As a non-admit, I realize this more and more every day after graduating from a non-selective college.

I never said there wasn't a difference. What I said was that the content you're taught is no different than what is taught at a school that accepts more people. Calculus doesn't change whether you go to Ivy or low tier. It's the same material.

What it means is that you get more opportunities. And literally, nobody cares once you get to the working world which is what the majority of people go to college for. In fact, the longer you work, the less your degree is even considered. Degrees only provide more opportunity and help get your foot in the door a lot easier.

Also, you're competing with all the other 1% so it wouldn't be a shocker if you didn't get in. Nearly everyone applying to those schools will have perfect grades, SAT/ACT scores, and extra-curriculars. Plus special interest applicants such as sports players, rich people, and disadvantaged minorities.

The OP doesn't even mention how many times he applied. And now he publishes a web page with the entire goal of being condescending toward everyone else and acting like he deserves to get everything he wants. Its like he's never learned the greatest lesson of life, that it's horribly unfair.

> Calculus doesn't change whether you go to Ivy or low tier. It's the same material.

I have doubts. The DS&A classes in top schools are probably better than mine and according to people I've met at top schools they make studying for tech interviews easy. They don't need to study Leetcode problems, they just need to study for their tests.

>Also, you're competing with all the other 1% so it wouldn't be a shocker if you didn't get in.

Obviously, but it implies if you don't get into any of the top schools that you're not 1%.

Obviously, but it implies if you don't get into any of the top schools that you're not 1%.

Are you saying that someone in the 1% can't choose to go to a non-top 1% school?

Now that is pretty specious to me because it doesn't imply anything. He could've simply been applying during a highly competitive time of year. And considering the college scandal and how money affects people getting in or not, clearly the "top 1%" really isn't the top.

I'd argue that most jobs don't require you to go to interviews that are as competitive as big tech companies. Most of my interviews have been pretty low key. It may help if you want to get into Facebook, Google, Amazon, MSFT, or Apple, but I'd argue plenty people work there that aren't the top 1% simply because the companies are so large that it would be impossible to have that many people at the top, otherwise the top would be the mean.

If you look at MIT Open Courseware, nothing out right shocked me with regards to the curriculum. In fact, they taught Scheme in their intro class for years. How many companies do you think use that language? I'd guess not a lot.

I can no way put myself into your shoes and behave like I understand. I don’t. If it was me, I would be heart broken at that age. Now that I’m older and done with college, I feel a sense of relief for him. But that’s maybe because I’m projecting my experience on to what I should’ve felt if I didn’t go to college.

Financial, parental, social stress aside, this is beautiful. It definitely seems like you have a better head on your shoulders than I did at your age.

What ever path you choose, just stay positive, work on yourself, shoot for things, let time do it’s thing.

> I would be heart broken at that age. Now that I’m older and done with college, I feel a sense of relief for him.

This is funny because for me it's the opposite. I didn't apply to Stanford, Harvard or any of the other Ivy+ schools he applied to - only applied to two elite schools that I got rejected from and I'm still heartbroken!

With that said, I'm impressed that Ryan did this instead of having a quarter life crisis like I did.

I guess his "stoic thoughtfulness" protects him from heartbreak.

Full disclosure, I did get into two schools in the fall which I am excited to attend.

How does that work? The whole lead in was specific about complete failure.

When I read "reverse college application" my first thought was of an application the college had to make to have the honor of the student's matriculation. Maybe they'd be accepted. Maybe they'd feel the sting of rejection, and they (in the form of their deans and presidents and regents or whatever) would start to question their own worth. Seemed like a cool idea, so I was rather disappointed to find that it was something else entirely.

The whole "getting into college" thing in the US sounds awful. I'm glad I did it elsewhere.

Go to plumbing trade school! College really isn't anything special now adays, and plumbers have better job security and make more than most college grads I know.

You seem like a self-starter. So consider taking a year off, moving to a cool city, and just getting a job in an industry that interests you. Try to move up the ladder. Try a bunch of stuff. If you're getting some traction, just stick with it--you might be way better off than your friends in 4 years (real work experience and no debt). If not, you can try applying to college again in a year or two.

Good luck.

I applied to colleges back in 2006/7. Did something drastic happen to college application competitiveness in the last decade or so? I'd understand getting only rejections if he only applied to Ivys or something; but, I have a hard time accepting that he's anywhere outside of the caliber of the top 10% of applicants. Is it because of the degree programs he applied to?

I'm not super impressed by his stats, I had a better class rank and GPA and SAT and I was never elite school material but his extra-curriculars are pretty good. The problem being that most of these schools want an overarching theme in their application.

Poor kid. No, literally. He must be a poor kid. Otherwise, his parents would have just bought his way in, right?

I'm not sure this is the proper forum for this content. Appreciate the effort though, great job

Hi all, thank you for the thoughtful comments. I apologize — this might not have been the best forum to share this. Regardless, thank you for reading my story. I wish you all the best.

Did he really put "Stanford" into his common app essay? If so, that explains why all the other top colleges rejected him.

How pretentious

"Modeling my it off of"

> Full disclosure, I did get into two schools in the fall which I am excited to attend.

Oh man, my eyes couldn't possibly be rolling harder back in my head.

Just go to a state school like a normal person.

I actually sort of agree; it comes out that he did, in fact, get in to a number of schools and he concedes that even if he'd gotten into one of his desired schools he would still have written something like this.

It might make sense to do this kind of thing as a personal reflection or inducement to growth, but the article itself makes the author seem mostly self-aggrandizing and smug.

But I was a real shit -- probably worse, honestly -- at 18, so who am I to judge the form that this reflection takes?

Yeah, a part of me agrees because I did it and never intended to go to an elite school (I was never good enough!) but at the same time it's still a more constructive way of handling rejection than I did so I can't really complain.

You could even go to a community college then transfer to a posh university for your final year or two.

What an absurdly unhelpful comment.

There's nothing abnormal about you Ryan. I hope you find something interesting and educational to do. I'm excited to see where you end up.

Nothing unhelpful about the comment. There are some excellent state schools: Georgia Tech, Penn State, UMass, Virginia Tech, just to name a few. The education is top-notch, the rest is indeed what you make of it.

"There's nothing abnormal about you Ryan".

What a horrible thing to say to someone! That is equivalent to saying "You are not unique in any way Ryan".

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