DS spent 5 years building a passion project. Perfect profile for CS at Stanford, Cornell, MIT. Or AI a threat?

[Anonymous]

My son has worked sooo hard and has the most incredible drive. He wanted to get into Stanford for CS so he thought of a practical passion project around coding. He created his own program to teach middle school kids and seniors to code for free, employed classmates to help teach the classes for him and scale the business model internationally and to other schools. He built his own website, launched global company as founder in multiple countries. His global impact in terms of students taught is high.

On top of that passion project, he took maximum load of APs in all subjects at private school. Top grades esp in STEM and music. Studied and took SAT five times over two years and now over 1550 super score. Played varsity sports, and instrument, no video games or hanging out with friends. He reads every STEM and business magazine he can find and spends all his free time outside of school and ECs scaling and managing the business he founded and his website. He wants to be Zuckerberg.

I am worried despite all his achievements, what if AI can replicate some of the achievements his company is teaching and scale it far beyond what he is doing? He's worried about his impact and legacy. I'm worried that he is so driven to get into a great college that he's missing a lot of social development. It's all he think about.

[Anonymous]

Get in MIT or Stanford first and worry later.

[Anonymous]

He will be successful whether or not he gets in Stanford. Stop worrying.

[Anonymous]

I would worry more about not spending time with friends. That is very upsetting.

Stanford will take him or not. You need to prepare him for the unpredictability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My son has worked sooo hard and has the most incredible drive. He wanted to get into Stanford for CS so he thought of a practical passion project around coding. He created his own program to teach middle school kids and seniors to code for free, employed classmates to help teach the classes for him and scale the business model internationally and to other schools. He built his own website, launched global company as founder in multiple countries. His global impact in terms of students taught is high.

On top of that passion project, he took maximum load of APs in all subjects at private school. Top grades esp in STEM and music. Studied and took SAT five times over two years and now over 1550 super score. Played varsity sports, and instrument, no video games or hanging out with friends. He reads every STEM and business magazine he can find and spends all his free time outside of school and ECs scaling and managing the business he founded and his website. He wants to be Zuckerberg.

I am worried despite all his achievements, what if AI can replicate some of the achievements his company is teaching and scale it far beyond what he is doing? He's worried about his impact and legacy. I'm worried that he is so driven to get into a great college that he's missing a lot of social development. It's all he think about.

Cornell??!

[Anonymous]

His business may eventually be supercecded. But what he had built, done, achieved, are invaluable foundations for a successful future.
Many entrepreneurs don't get a unicorn first try. What matters and what matters to investors and yes, admissions officers is the plan to use what you did to do the next thing.
Now, that requires maturity, resilience, the ability to rebound not mope and obsess over failing. Betamax didn't fail. Something better came along.
Ever heard of Zip2? Look it up. SDL? Facemash?
He can sell his company to on the ground people, exit, focus on school and his next thing. They can nurture it along until it is superceded and teach more folks than he can.
He may turn out to be a better company builder than product builder. That's a good thing. Jobs knew what he wanted he didn't build the whole thing.

His company could fizzle tomorrow and it wont make any difference in his college admission prospects. He did it. What they will look at is how he reacts to fizzle and how he sees the school fitting his plans.

[Anonymous]

He never hangs out with friends??

[Anonymous]

I hope he did this because he believes in it and is driven and wanted to build his company. If those are the reasons, he’s going to be super successful. Don’t worry if he’s going to be replaced by AI. That drive can’t be taught. He must be somewhat okay at social skills and have some friends if he was able to hire classmates.

If he only did this to get into college and nothing else, then be worried.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son has worked sooo hard and has the most incredible drive. He wanted to get into Stanford for CS so he thought of a practical passion project around coding. He created his own program to teach middle school kids and seniors to code for free, employed classmates to help teach the classes for him and scale the business model internationally and to other schools. He built his own website, launched global company as founder in multiple countries. His global impact in terms of students taught is high.

On top of that passion project, he took maximum load of APs in all subjects at private school. Top grades esp in STEM and music. Studied and took SAT five times over two years and now over 1550 super score. Played varsity sports, and instrument, no video games or hanging out with friends. He reads every STEM and business magazine he can find and spends all his free time outside of school and ECs scaling and managing the business he founded and his website. He wants to be Zuckerberg.

I am worried despite all his achievements, what if AI can replicate some of the achievements his company is teaching and scale it far beyond what he is doing? He's worried about his impact and legacy. I'm worried that he is so driven to get into a great college that he's missing a lot of social development. It's all he think about.

Cornell??!

Absolutely Cornell.

[Anonymous]

You know what bothers me about this? He did all of this not because he wanted to, but because he thought it would look good for Stanford.

Colleges often see through that.

[Anonymous]

that's not a passion project. it's just a project.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know what bothers me about this? He did all of this not because he wanted to, but because he thought it would look good for Stanford.

Colleges often see through that.

Stanford doesn't look for entrepreneurship, this is just something families think will work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You know what bothers me about this? He did all of this not because he wanted to, but because he thought it would look good for Stanford.

Colleges often see through that.

100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would worry more about not spending time with friends. That is very upsetting.

Stanford will take him or not. You need to prepare him for the unpredictability.

I am the OP. I don't know how to do this. I feel he will take a rejection very badly.

I keep asking him to spend more time with friends as I did at his age. But he says if you dream big there's no time for that. I do worry.

[Anonymous]

MIT. Or talk to Greg Pass at Cornell Tech https://as.cornell.edu/people/greg-pass