He thought missing his dream college meant his life was over. He wrote to Ankur Warikoo about his heartbreak. 5 years later, he made it to IIM Calcutta

Missing a dream college can feel like a life-changing failure when you are 17 or 18. For one Class 12 student from Kolkata, not getting into his preferred college felt like all his hard work had been wasted. He wrote to entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo about his disappointment, convinced he would have to settle for less. Five years later, however, his perspective had completely changed. He had studied at St. Xavier's Kolkata, worked at McKinsey and secured admission to IIM Calcutta.

Ankur Warikoo took to social media to share the story of a Class 12 student from Kolkata who had contacted him five years earlier. The student was devastated after failing to get into his dream college. In his email, he described how he kept thinking about the college he would not attend and feared he would have to “settle for something less” despite working extremely hard. He told Warikoo that while other students were binge-watching web series, he had been studying. His disappointment led him to question whether hard work was really rewarded.

Ankur Warikoo shared his own experience

Warikoo responded by telling the student that he understood what he was going through. He recalled his own experience of scoring poorly in Class 12 despite working hard and said that, at the time, it had also felt like everything had been wasted. But Warikoo reminded him that a 94% score was still excellent and that there would be plenty of good colleges available to him. Most importantly, Warikoo encouraged the student to make the most of whatever opportunity came next. He predicted that “a few years down the line”, the student would look back and laugh at how devastating the setback had seemed.

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Five years later, the student sent Warikoo another email

The prediction appears to have come true. According to Warikoo, the student recently rediscovered their old email exchange while searching through his inbox for a document. This time, his message carried a completely different perspective. He told Warikoo that he was now “genuinely grateful” for how things had worked out.

Instead of attending his dream college, he joined St. Xavier's Kolkata. From there, his career took him to McKinsey, where he worked in a front-end role for two years. Interestingly, he acknowledged that he might not have ended up at McKinsey had he attended his original dream college. His journey did not stop there. He had now moved on to IIM Calcutta to pursue his MBA.

‘Small setbacks’ can look bigger than they really are

Looking back at the disappointment from five years earlier, the student admitted that people can “overemphasise the significance of small setbacks” in their lives. What once felt like a permanent failure had eventually become just one part of a much bigger journey.

The missed college admission had not prevented him from building an impressive academic and professional path. In fact, the alternative route had led him to opportunities he may never have experienced otherwise.

Ankur Warikoo’s lesson on setbacks

Warikoo used the story to make a broader point about failure and disappointment. A score, an interview or a failed opportunity can feel enormous in the moment. But none of these events necessarily determines where a person will eventually end up. His message was that “that score, that interview, that failure” does not define someone. What matters is what they choose to do afterwards.

For the student who once feared his future was over, the next few years brought St. Xavier's Kolkata, McKinsey and IIM Calcutta. Sometimes, the path that feels like a detour at 17 can turn out to be the route that takes you somewhere you never originally planned to go.