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

[Anonymous]

You say his global impact in terms of students taught is high. How many students are using his platform?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You say his global impact in terms of students taught is high. How many students are using his platform?

Almost 1000.

[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.

The college arms race has gotten out of control. I really don't know what else to say.

[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.

The college arms race has gotten out of control. I really don't know what else to say.

And nothing OP says indicates anything about wanting to actually experience college, other than the subject line and the first sentence about wanting to get into Stanford. It's all legacy and achievements (through a pretty standard "passion project" at that), nothing about learning. Of course, Zuckerberg didn't finish college either.

You're right to be worried, but not about AI and what it will do to his company.

[Anonymous]

Impressive but where did he get all the time for that.

[Anonymous]

I interview kids for the HYP (not S) I went to. I've seen several kids with passion projects of ~1000 users that did not get in. Entrepreneurship in and of itself does not seem to be valued by my school.

Accomplishments that have been in my observation more valued tend to be ones where the student is evaluated by a panel of experts, such as state or national science fairs, getting into a competitive state department study abroad program, prestigious summer programs like Ross - or TASP before it went off the deep end, etc. Adcoms value the input of panels that think and behave like adcoms.

[Anonymous]

If it's said in the way you say it, he won't get in. Colleges want clear community impact, not LinkedIn speak.

[Anonymous]

Your child should seriously consider Johns Hopkins. They value entrepreneurship a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I interview kids for the HYP (not S) I went to. I've seen several kids with passion projects of ~1000 users that did not get in. Entrepreneurship in and of itself does not seem to be valued by my school.

Accomplishments that have been in my observation more valued tend to be ones where the student is evaluated by a panel of experts, such as state or national science fairs, getting into a competitive state department study abroad program, prestigious summer programs like Ross - or TASP before it went off the deep end, etc. Adcoms value the input of panels that think and behave like adcoms.

What if he can get to 2000 users by the time he sends in his application? Would that added impact help? Stanford is his top choice so maybe they will apply different criteria than H-Y-P?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I interview kids for the HYP (not S) I went to. I've seen several kids with passion projects of ~1000 users that did not get in. Entrepreneurship in and of itself does not seem to be valued by my school.

Accomplishments that have been in my observation more valued tend to be ones where the student is evaluated by a panel of experts, such as state or national science fairs, getting into a competitive state department study abroad program, prestigious summer programs like Ross - or TASP before it went off the deep end, etc. Adcoms value the input of panels that think and behave like adcoms.

What if he can get to 2000 users by the time he sends in his application? Would that added impact help? Stanford is his top choice so maybe they will apply different criteria than H-Y-P?

PP here. I don't know about Stanford but I wouldn't bank on it. Cornell might be a better bet. They value grinding more than the other ivy+ schools. I'd also look up what schools actually value entrepreneurship. There must be some.

[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.

The college arms race has gotten out of control. I really don't know what else to say.

+1

And wanting to be Zuckerberg ... I can't even. If my kid said he wanted to be Zuckerberg, I would feel I had failed as a parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I interview kids for the HYP (not S) I went to. I've seen several kids with passion projects of ~1000 users that did not get in. Entrepreneurship in and of itself does not seem to be valued by my school.

Accomplishments that have been in my observation more valued tend to be ones where the student is evaluated by a panel of experts, such as state or national science fairs, getting into a competitive state department study abroad program, prestigious summer programs like Ross - or TASP before it went off the deep end, etc. Adcoms value the input of panels that think and behave like adcoms.

What if he can get to 2000 users by the time he sends in his application? Would that added impact help? Stanford is his top choice so maybe they will apply different criteria than H-Y-P?

NP. It doesn't matter if it's 1,000 or 2,000 users. Those are the same order of magnitude.

I know a kid sort of like this. Managing her peers to do public service work IS hanging out with friends to her.

How people spend their time is culturally determined. Your kid is exposing himself to a stressful lifestyle but Silicon Valley thrives on young people behaving this way. So it might later become his norm anyway. Just make sure he seems cheerful and resilient and gets enough sleep.

I would advise looking into CMU. Cornell might be a fit. Nobody is guaranteed Stanford or MIT.

[Anonymous]

OP doesn't come off as a tech grinder. He is more into the business side, like "wanting to be Zuckerberg". Perhaps should go to Harvard.

He can change his narrative to align with for example, providing better STEM education to underresourced population. Harvard would love to take a change-the-world guy.

[Anonymous]

Why would senior need or want to code?

Ai is really changing how students study. It sounds like something AI could do now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You say his global impact in terms of students taught is high. How many students are using his platform?

Almost 1000.

Yeah, this is fake.

— someone who is very familiar with the free coding tools and websites available.