I don't know if people have seen this before, but it is a useful reminder that rejections are inevitable and can often usefully lead you to better paths.
www.uni-goettingen.de/de/document/download/bed2706fd34e29822004dbe29cd00bb5.pdf/Johannes_Haushofer_CV_of_Failures[1].pdf
I have posted on the current LSE thread that eight years ago DS was rejected by Cambridge, Warwick and UCL, despite A* predictions. LSE suited him and he chose LSE over Oxford for his Masters. He then had a choice of working as a research assistant for a well respected Princeton professor or taking up an offer of six years full funding to read for a PhD at another good US University. (He chose the latter.) Along the way, though, his path has been littered with rejections: internships, jobs, PhD applications.
The useful learning from the early Cambridge rejection was that there are other ways to the same place, or indeed different places to go. That said if he had not got an offer from any of his four preferred Universities, he would have taken a gap year and reapplied. He believed he was good enough to cope with challenging course content. In practice LSE has a very strong international reputation, if anything better than Cambridge's in his discipline.
We, rather belatedly, realised that this was our DS' first experience of rejection. (His LSE offer did not come through until mid March, so by then he was fairly gloomy.) DC who narrowly miss Oxbridge offers are very bright indeed, and will have already built up a track record of success, both academically within their schools, or by gaining places at selective schools. Choosing a University will probably be the first major adult decision they will have made. To fall at the perceived first hurdle is discouraging. But they will learn that they can pick themselves up and get on with things. And I personally am happy that this learning happened early whilst DS was still at home.
On Universities and diversity, I think it is a personal preference. The LSE, and indeed DS's friendship group, is overwhelmingly international. It is such a pity that visits are not allowed. I think most young people would know instinctively whether this appealed more than Durham's traditional feel or Warwick's campus or St Andrew's beauty. DS once commented that he thought one of his LSE friends would have been happier at a campus University like Warwick. Equally he felt that a Korean friend at Cambridge would have less isolated in London, in part because the LSE and Imperial campuses tend to stay busy over Christmas and Easter. That said, most are delighted where they end up, and in time will see the Oxbridge rejection as a positive.