Oracle of Omaha Warren Buffett was rejected from Harvard University as a 19-year-old, but came to regard the rejection as one of the best things that ever happened to him.
What Happened: Speaking at the University of Nebraska in 2003, the Berkshire Hathaway CEO shared how he obtained the Nathan Gold Scholarship, which offered $500 to attend any graduate school. “I went there to this room at 3:00 that day or whatever it was and I walked in the room and there were the professors and I was the only student that showed up,” he recalled.
“I won $500 by default… those are usually my biggest triumphs when nobody else shows up.”
With the scholarship, Buffett applied to Harvard, but after meeting the interviewer, his Harvard hopes came crashing down. “After about 10 minutes he said, ‘Better think about something else.’ I was 19 at the time and I looked about 12 and I acted about eight. It was not a great combination.”
The rejection hit hard. “All the time I’m thinking, you know, what do I tell my parents? It’s kind of embarrassing.” But what followed, Buffett said, was “the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.”
Why It Matters: After this failed interview, Buffett applied to Columbia Business School, where he enrolled in a one-year master’s program. “I got to meet Ben Graham, which had an enormous effect on me,” he said. It also allowed him to graduate early, and find a partner as well: “I probably got my wife that way… I got her before the competition showed up.”
In Buffett’s view, such detours are crucial in life. “You will get some disappointments, but the future is what counts,” he said. “It would not be fun if I knew every decision I was going to make was going to be perfect. It’d be like playing golf and knowing you’re going to hit a hole-in-one on every hole.”
He stressed that failures—or what seem to be failures—are simply part of the game. “If you take big swings, you may miss sometimes.” About the rejection, he said, “It worked out wonderfully. It couldn’t have worked out better,” He even joked about Harvard’s ‘mistake’ of rejecting him: “Now that I’ve met the people that got in the class, I’m really sure they made a mistake.”
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