Warren Buffett was rejected by Harvard – Here’s why he calls it ‘the luckiest thing that ever happened to me’

American businessman Warren Buffet was once rejected from Harvard with the admissions committee urging him to ‘think about something else’ within 10 minutes. The Chairperson of Berkshire Hathaway — arguably one of the best-known investors in the world — however insists that this was the “luckiest thing that ever happened to me”. He had subsequently gone on to attend a one-year master’s program with Columbia Business School.

“I got to meet Ben Graham which had an enormous effect on me subsequently. And I probably got my wife that way because she was going to Northwestern…and I was able to put on sort of a full court press because I got out in one year. Otherwise she may have met some other guy. I got her before the competition showed up and so it worked out wonderfully. It couldn’t have worked out better…and that’s been…that’s been my life basically,” he explained during a 2003 address.

Speaking at the University of Nebraska in 2003, Buffett recalled getting the $500 Nathan Gold Scholarship by default before applying to Harvard. He had studied at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania before graduating from the University of Nebraska. Buffett said he had used the scholarship to apply to Harvard.

“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. I won $500 by default… those are usually my biggest triumphs when nobody else shows up,” he recalled.

But his Harvard plans went awry within minutes with the interviewer suggesting that it would be better for him to “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. All the time I’m thinking, you know, what do I tell my parents? It’s kind of embarrassing. But it was…it was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me. Because if I’d gone to Harvard, I would have gone to a two-year business school,” he added.