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Applications Oxford Cambridge Leuven

I am rejected by all the three institutions that I applied to: Oxford, Cambridge and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. However, the KU-Leuven has offered me the chance to do an abridged Bachelor of Philosophy in one year, after which I can enter their Master.

Of course it made me feel quite shitty for a day. I need the time and chance to penetrate through the history and current knowledge of philosophy, to be able to do what I want to do with my life. Becoming an academician is the easiest and most appropiate way but it is extremely hard to secure a spot, and Oxford or Cambridge would have helped me greatly. Naturally, I want to be good, but clearly, being rejected is a sign of lacking quality. I am not moving forward, rather I am moving a year backwards. Also, I have a huge student-loan that I used to pay for an almost entirely worthless Bachelor of Science. Not only did I waste money on learning the minutest details of cell chemistry and mathematical modelling, I wasted energy and narrowed my character down to a blind strive for success. For three years, I closed myself off to an unrestrained and developing relation with girls, family and friends. Three years of ice-cold stasis. In vain I tried to resist the influence of academic bitterness, deadenings abstractions and petty elitism. Well, life punishes me now and in my eyes rightheously so, for I have never been so stupid and disoriented in my whole life.

With the rejections, my life slowly starts to reorient itself, becoming more meaningful the more I realize the outcome. I will spend next year building a broad and strong foundation on which to continue my education. I can break through my fake contempt for the Dutch language and culture. The plan is to stay for at least two years in Leuven, doing the BA and MA and if all goes well, I will learn ancient Greek and I will be free to write my thesis on the subject that really interests me, logic and metaphysics. I know so well that Cambridge and Oxford would have been an unbelievable paradise for my philosophy education but a down-right hell for who I am. Many years ago, I had the supposed potential to enter an esteemed Gymnasium, however I went to the Waldorf School (Vrije-school) instead, which proved to be the perfect environment in all possible ways. Now I will again take a - hopefully - healthy detour and I have the feeling it might be for the best.