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Uhm… that would be me.., The Ordinary Spaceman.15 applications, submitted over 15 years, would give me the dubious distinction of being the astronaut who applied the most times before being accepted.As things turned out, I served as an aerospace engineer for 15 years and as a U.S. Astronaut for 15 years. Oh, did I mention I flew on Expedition 15? Or that there are 15 letters in CLAYTON ANDERSON? Or that I landed on Earth after Expedition 15 on my 15th wedding anniversary?I digress.Keep lookin’ up!

Shashi tharoor had explained this very well in one of his motivational speeches.In 1975, every single graduate from IIT was guaranteed scholarship in America. Just getting into the IIT showed that candidate quality was higher than that of the average applicant. That's the reputation these institutions have!There is this famous story about Infosys founder Sir Narayan Murthy who was asked by American television reporter that what his son is going to do and where he applied.He said, “Well my son has applied for the IITs but I am not sure he will get in”And the reporter asked - “So, what will you do?”To this Mr Narayan Murthy replied- “His safety is Harvard. He will go to Harvard”And this actually created some chaos and astonishment in America but the footnote of this story is that after this interview, son actually didn't get into the IIT but got full fellowship in Harvard. The reason is Harvard takes 10% of the application submitted whereas the IITs take 0.1% of the total applications submitted after one of the rigorous tests in India.Edit : Son went to cornell institute and then Harvard for PhD.Thanks Vivek Vikram Singh for editEdit 2:This one is too good so I am bound to put it here. Comment by Mitul Modi :Reason for getting into IIT is tougher because :“Reservation plays it roleEdit 3 :Out of 10 lakh (1 million), 10000 gets selectedTherefore it is .1%

I once saw Carl Sagan's CV, near the end of his highly productive life. It was about 250 pages. It demonstrated clearly why he was one of the great astronomers of his time -- not for his public communication (great though that was, and the part of his career that most interested me), but for his planetary science. He had been part of every major planetary mission for 30 or 40 years. Every major planetary scientist had passed through his lab as a student, post-doc, colleague, or visiting researcher. He had received THE major award from the planetary division of the American Astronomical Society, explicitly for his science and not his public communication.