a few dropouts who made it big

1. Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar never attended college.  

Photograph: Manjunath Kiran/AFP/Getty Images

2. Steve Jobs got himself enrolled in Reed College in Oregon, but one semester later, he dropped out. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

 

3. After scoring a near-perfect 1590 on his SATs, Bill Gates enrolled in Harvard but left without a degree to start Microsoft Corporation. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

 

4. Larry Ellison, Oracle co-founder, attended the University of Illinois but left at the end of his second year, as he skipped the exams following the death of his adoptive mother. He then went to the University of Chicago, but didn’t stay beyond a term.  

Photograph: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images

 

5. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange attended the University of Melbourne, majoring in physics and mathematics. He received only a minimum grade for math and left the university soon to start his own venture. Photograph: Oli Scarff/Getty Images

 

6. After the wonder effect of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg packed his dreams and left Harvard to relocate to Silicon Valley. Photograph: Kimihiro Hoshino/AFP/Getty Images

 

7. Hollywood film director Quentin Tarantino is a high school dropout who went to work in a video store for his love for movies. Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images

 

8. Hollywood director Steven Spielberg was not known for his academic excellence. Interestingly, he even failed to get admission into a film-making institute! 

Photograph: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

9. English business magnate, Sir Richard Branson, best known for his Virgin Group, had a difficult time in school because of his dyslexia. He left school when he was only 16. 

Photograph: Mark Wieland/Getty Images

 

10. Fashion designer Ralph Lauren, the founder of Polo, left the City College of New York business school to design ties for Beau Brummel. He launched Polo later that same year. Photograph: Peter Michael Dills/Getty Images for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week

 

11. Former American Idol judge Simon Cowell dropped out of school at age 16 and landed a job in the mailroom at EMI. At 23 he left to start his own record label, Fanfare. 

Photograph: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images

 

my sad note: dropouts list who don't make it just too long to write...