I recently had an unexpected experience with Discover. I had no credit history a few months ago, and Discover was one of the first cards I applied to. I was instantly denied, and my denial letter came back with a credit score of 70 (they did not give me a FICO score though, because they used a different company for my score). That was about 4 months ago. Now on my credit report, I have 2 months of credit history because of the Capital One secured card.
Suddenly, a few days ago, Discover sent me a letter regarding that application from 4 months ago, saying that the company who provided my credit score has updated my score to 660 now and that the denial letter was sent in error. Discover told me to call them and verify information to process the application. I did, and I got approved today.
Even though you were denied, they will monitor your credit score, and if it improves significantly, they will contact you I think. I don’t know how long they monitor the scores for. I do not know if they do that to every denied application, but there’s some hope for those who were denied.