potential > prestige

last year, I got rejected from Oxford. and honestly, I thought it was the end of the world. as you can see from this clip here I recorded on the day of my rejection. today is January the 14th, 2025, and this morning I was rejected from Oxford for economics and management. still kind of feels empty inside, to be honest. everything I did last year, every essay competition, every work experience, every time I was glazing the teachers, it's just for this one moment. and none of the work paid off. and I think I was pretty close. in my mind, as many students do, I made myself believe that Oxbridge was the pinnacle of academic success. obviously, everyone knows Oxbridge is elite, but it's not the be all and end all. i thought Oxford was the only way that I could fulfill my vision, but it's only after coming to Imperial that I realised that was so far from the truth. when I stopped optimising for prestige and started optimising for what I actually wanted to do, i realised that getting rejected from Oxbridge was actually a blessing in disguise. you see, my interests lie in startups, and quant, and studying economics and management at Oxford wasn't really gonna maximise my potential in both of these areas. going to Imperial means that I'm in the midst of arguably the best startup ecosystem in the UK and finance recruitment becomes so much easier when you're friends with some of the most crack people from Imperial and UCL. what I'm essentially trying to say from my own experience is that when you're optimising for prestige rather than your own potential, you waste a lot of time, which I did in year 13. obviously, if you have other reasons, that's totally fair. but anyways, follow if you're interested in seeing how I scale my personal brand to 1 mil.