Dude there's a million students who appear for these exams and only about 20k get some good college. Rest of us are doomed to believe we're worthless. I've been in the same situation. Coming from a lower-middle class family, I didn't have any option but to score a government college. I studied day and night for the exams and on the exam day, the computer I got was malfunctioning. I told the faculty and they moved me to another malfunctioning computer that another student had left. You know the stress of exam. I froze and decided to do whatever I can. Ofcourse, I didn't do well. I complained to my dream University which organised the exam that year and the response I got was "ye sab to chalta rehta he". I was furious at them. They really don't care about students lives. To them we're just another roll number. I decided to file a court case against them but the lawyer said you'll waste many years of your life on this and the most you'll get is another chance at appearing for the exam. That was the most sane advice I ever got. Though I was dead inside, I promised myself I won't kill myself till I'm 30. I'll prove those a**holes my worth. I wanna see how bad life can be. I believed in myself and wanted to test my limits. I had read stories of a lot of engineers from good colleges pursing a totally different career after their degree. I enrolled in a 4 year degree program in an art college in another city. The fee was just 10k which is less than most schools. I knew art wouldn't be much work so I'll have a lot of time to focus on what I really wanted to learn. With websites like edx, I assure you, you'll get better education than most of colleges in this country. After my second year I landed a job of 10k, it might not sound impressive but it was still more than what most engineers earned. From then on, I worked really hard on my portfolio. Even won a hackathon hosted by University of California. The art school really helped me improve my communication skills. I now have a degree, knowledge and communication skills. I'm working with a FOSS project now. They really don't mind where you came from. I just wanted to share this cause although I've only shared the milestones after introducing myself, I've still been through a lot of trouble, restarted my life thrice, ran away from house twice, and now I finally have some stability in life and a good therapist to treat my trauma. I've finally felt normal after so many years and I hope you'll believe in yourself too and use your brains to plan how you're gonna beat this wretched system. I still don't know if I'll want to live after 30 but I hope to leave the world a better place then when I was in it. Take care. You got this!