Status of TXprogrammer

I was denied entry into the http://dmoz.org/Business/Marketing_and_Advertising/Advertising/Promotional_Items/Business_Items/Labels,_Stickers,_and_Decals/
I work for a tag and label company, developed their website, and have submitted it to this category. I put all this information on the application and yes; I listed our site along with 2 direct competitors, as sites I would add to this category. I wanted to be honest. I do not want to do this for self-promotion, but I will admit that I do have selfish reasons. I would really love the experience this project has to offer. I am working on my Masters and within 2 more years hope to become an instructor at Texas A&M in Commerce in the Computer Science department. I feel this experience would help expand my knowledge base.

So, does anyone have any suggestions for my next step? I want to be an editor but I feel in order to be a competent one I picked best category that fit my current knowledge and experience.

Thank you in advance for your feedback!

First thing I would suggest would be to read the FAQ and General Advice thread at the top of the Becoming an Editor forum. If you're truly serious about this then do the research up front and submit the best application that you possibly can.

Did you get any feedback on the previous rejection? What did it say? There are only 6 items on the standard reject letter so it shouldn't be hard to figure out what the problem was and how to correct it.

I would also suggest not applying for the category that you are trying to get your site listed in. There is no guideline against it, but sometimes it does appear that you are only being self-serving. If you are interested in becoming an editor, then you should be doing it for the right reasons, not because you want to get your web site listed faster.

Maybe you would be interested in a category like http://www.dmoz.org/Regional/North_America/United_States/Texas/Localities/C/Commerce/ ?