It’s important to believe in yourself, but there’s definitely such a thing as overconfidence.

So when one ambitious high school senior brushed off warnings from a sibling who’d already been through the admissions grind, he bet everything on a handful of top-tier colleges.

That gamble didn’t pay off the way he expected.

Keep reading for the full scoop.

AITA for laughing at my brother when he got rejected from every college?

My younger brother was applying to colleges this past admissions cycle.

He applied exclusively to top schools—Ivies, Stanford, MIT, CMU, etc.

Even with his safety school, he shot exceptionally high.

His “safety” was Berkeley because he felt confident he’d get into a top school due to being valedictorian and winning a few debate competitions.

My parents asked me to help his application because I got into a few of those schools last year.

This sibling thought he had a lot to share, but still, his brother ignored it.

I don’t think that makes me an expert, but from getting in and meeting lots of others that did too, all I can say is it’s completely freaking random.

I’ve met Olympians, kids who’ve published full-length novels, kids who run successful companies.

I’ve also met kids who have essentially good grades and normal extracurricular activities.

So essentially, there’s no formula to guarantee that you’ll get in, and it’s always common sense to apply to actual safeties.

I told him this, but he laughed it off and said unlike me, his application was good enough not to need to apply to safeties.

I said fine, his funeral.

Then reality hit hard.

He ended up getting rejected by every college he applied to, had to scramble to apply to colleges with rolling admissions dates, and ended up having to go to community college for two years.

I heard this when I came home to visit during summer break.

This sibling just didn’t have much sympathy for him.

Given the context of him being so arrogant about his application and denigrating mine, I found it incredibly funny.

So I started laughing about it.

He got angry and called me an AH for laughing at him instead of being supportive.

I honestly think he had it coming.

AITA?

Talk about an ego check.

What did Reddit make of all this?

This commenter agrees this brother really did have it coming!

If his brother is humble enough to learn from this, he’ll definitely be better off for it.

This commenter thinks there’s more than enough blame to go around.

At the end of the day, you are still supposed to look out for family.

This story just goes to show that the college application process can humble even the most accomplished students.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.