Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm starting to wonder if the people who operate the Common App screwed up somewhere? With all of the less qualified kids getting in (even other Asian boys interested in CS) it seems like they should be asked to show their hand?

you are assuming it's all based on stats. It isn't. Even UCs can use something else to bypass Prop 209 to get the DEI they want.

[Anonymous]

Respect UMD for not being racist

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm starting to wonder if the people who operate the Common App screwed up somewhere? With all of the less qualified kids getting in (even other Asian boys interested in CS) it seems like they should be asked to show their hand?

you are assuming it's all based on stats. It isn't. Even UCs can use something else to bypass Prop 209 to get the DEI they want.

Not at all. This kids stats are as perfect as they come. I am looking for where all of the rejections / reasons for rejection converge.

Either all 16 colleges don't like this kids for the same reason. Unlikely
All 16 colleges don't like this kids for the 16 different reasons. Less likely.
The Common App screwed up and sent incomplete or bad data. Seem possible
He is super unlucky and or actually cursed. Unlikely

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stanley Zhong graduated from high school in June 2023. Starting in 2020, he built an e-signing startup (details below) that is featured in an Amazon Web Services case study. That led to multiple companies interviewing him for full-time jobs despite the slow IT job market. Shortly after he turned 18, Google hired him as an L4 software engineer, a position typically offered to candidates with multiple years of professional experience as well as a college degree.

In contrast, his college application results were underwhelming. He applied to the Computer Science programs. All but two colleges (listed below) rejected his application.

MIT
CMU
Stanford
UC Berkeley
UC LA
UC San Diego
UC Santa Barbara
UC Davis
California Polytechnic State University
Cornell University
Univ of Illinois
Univ of Michigan
Georgia Tech
Cal Tech
Univ of Wisconsin
Univ of Washington

Only Univ of Texas and Univ of Maryland accepted his application.

Here are some highlights of his application.

Advanced to the Google Code Jam Coding Contest semi-final.

Led his team to the 2nd place in MIT Battlecode''s global high school division (1st place in the US). Invited to MIT with expenses paid.

Created an e-signing startup (RabbitSign.com) that has grown to tens of thousands of users organically.

An Amazon Web Services Well-Architected Review concluded that it "is one of the most efficient and secure accounts" they have reviewed.

Amazon Web Services is publishing a case study featuring RabbitSign for its exemplary use of AWS Serverless and compliance services.

Designed, implemented and operated the web frontend, RESTful APIs, workflow orchestration, metrics and alerting, horizontal scaling, CDN, rate limiting, security hardening (including intrusion detection and DDoS protection), compliance monitoring, internationalization, and disaster recovery.

Passed multi-week whitebox pentest with no major security issues discovered.

Wrote comprehensive unit tests, continuous API Postman tests, and end-to-end Selenium tests.

Negotiated a 90% discount (worth $40K+) for compliance audits. After working with the auditors over several quarters, RabbitSign is now the world''s only provider of unlimited free SOC 2-, ISO 27001- and HIPAA-compliant e-signing.

Co-founded a non-profit that brings free coding lessons to kids in underserved communities. He recruited and built a volunteer team made of 20+ industry professionals, Stanford postdoc and high schoolers. Over 2 years, the team taught 500+ kids in California, Washington and Texas.

National Merit Scholarship finalist

SAT: 1590

GPA (UW/W): 3.97/4.42

Wow OP - it is unbelievable that so many colleges rejected him with all his academic talents, computer brilliance and entrepreneurship.

I hope he chose U Md - he would be a great asset for our state’s flagship.

Hopefully he will have his pick of grad schools if chooses to go that route.

Also I hope this experience is a source of comfort to other students who have experienced so many college rejections despite being excellent students .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stanley Zhong graduated from high school in June 2023. Starting in 2020, he built an e-signing startup (details below) that is featured in an Amazon Web Services case study. That led to multiple companies interviewing him for full-time jobs despite the slow IT job market. Shortly after he turned 18, Google hired him as an L4 software engineer, a position typically offered to candidates with multiple years of professional experience as well as a college degree.

In contrast, his college application results were underwhelming. He applied to the Computer Science programs. All but two colleges (listed below) rejected his application.

MIT
CMU
Stanford
UC Berkeley
UC LA
UC San Diego
UC Santa Barbara
UC Davis
California Polytechnic State University
Cornell University
Univ of Illinois
Univ of Michigan
Georgia Tech
Cal Tech
Univ of Wisconsin
Univ of Washington

Only Univ of Texas and Univ of Maryland accepted his application.

Here are some highlights of his application.

Advanced to the Google Code Jam Coding Contest semi-final.

Led his team to the 2nd place in MIT Battlecode''s global high school division (1st place in the US). Invited to MIT with expenses paid.

Created an e-signing startup (RabbitSign.com) that has grown to tens of thousands of users organically.

An Amazon Web Services Well-Architected Review concluded that it "is one of the most efficient and secure accounts" they have reviewed.

Amazon Web Services is publishing a case study featuring RabbitSign for its exemplary use of AWS Serverless and compliance services.

Designed, implemented and operated the web frontend, RESTful APIs, workflow orchestration, metrics and alerting, horizontal scaling, CDN, rate limiting, security hardening (including intrusion detection and DDoS protection), compliance monitoring, internationalization, and disaster recovery.

Passed multi-week whitebox pentest with no major security issues discovered.

Wrote comprehensive unit tests, continuous API Postman tests, and end-to-end Selenium tests.

Negotiated a 90% discount (worth $40K+) for compliance audits. After working with the auditors over several quarters, RabbitSign is now the world''s only provider of unlimited free SOC 2-, ISO 27001- and HIPAA-compliant e-signing.

Co-founded a non-profit that brings free coding lessons to kids in underserved communities. He recruited and built a volunteer team made of 20+ industry professionals, Stanford postdoc and high schoolers. Over 2 years, the team taught 500+ kids in California, Washington and Texas.

National Merit Scholarship finalist

SAT: 1590

GPA (UW/W): 3.97/4.42

Wow OP - it is unbelievable that so many colleges rejected him with all his academic talents, computer brilliance and entrepreneurship.

I hope he chose U Md - he would be a great asset for our state’s flagship.

Hopefully he will have his pick of grad schools if chooses to go that route.

Also I hope this experience is a source of comfort to other students who have experienced so many college rejections despite being excellent students .

He pciked UT but is taking gap year at the moment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxvZGnRoY3E

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm starting to wonder if the people who operate the Common App screwed up somewhere? With all of the less qualified kids getting in (even other Asian boys interested in CS) it seems like they should be asked to show their hand?

you are assuming it's all based on stats. It isn't. Even UCs can use something else to bypass Prop 209 to get the DEI they want.

Not at all. This kids stats are as perfect as they come. I am looking for where all of the rejections / reasons for rejection converge.

Either all 16 colleges don't like this kids for the same reason. Unlikely
All 16 colleges don't like this kids for the 16 different reasons. Less likely.
The Common App screwed up and sent incomplete or bad data. Seem possible
He is super unlucky and or actually cursed. Unlikely

All 16 colleges are T20 and somewhat of a lottery for high stats kids, especially for Asian males majoring in CS (that's also my DS).

So many high stats Asian males get rejected at these T20. That's why so many end up at UMD, which is great for UMD.

[Anonymous]

He applied to too many. That's my theory.

I've noticed when these kids post their accepted/denied/deferred/waitlisted videos on social media each spring, it's always the kids with amazing stats and ECs that applied to like 15-20 schools that get sh!tty results.

No one needs to apply to 25 schools. Applying to 25 schools tells me that you don't care where you go to school, you just want to get accepted to college, preferably a T20-25. Applying to all Ivys tells me that you don't care which Ivy you go to, you just want to go to an Ivy.

Kids are no longer selective. They don't show interest in one school and they don't make that interest known like they used to.

DS has lower stats than Stanley Zhong but expressed his interest from the start in attending Cal Poly. He was accepted and is in his second year there. DS only applied to 6 schools and was accepted at all: Cal Poly, U Mich, UCSD, VT, Duke, and UNC.

[Anonymous]

That's the first time I've heard Zhong pronounced correctly in an otherwise American-accented English sentence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He applied to too many. That's my theory.

I've noticed when these kids post their accepted/denied/deferred/waitlisted videos on social media each spring, it's always the kids with amazing stats and ECs that applied to like 15-20 schools that get sh!tty results.

No one needs to apply to 25 schools. Applying to 25 schools tells me that you don't care where you go to school, you just want to get accepted to college, preferably a T20-25. Applying to all Ivys tells me that you don't care which Ivy you go to, you just want to go to an Ivy.

Kids are no longer selective. They don't show interest in one school and they don't make that interest known like they used to.

DS has lower stats than Stanley Zhong but expressed his interest from the start in attending Cal Poly. He was accepted and is in his second year there. DS only applied to 6 schools and was accepted at all: Cal Poly, U Mich, UCSD, VT, Duke, and UNC.

In fairness...he really only applied to 12 since you use one application for all the UC schools. I do know high stats kids "that phone in" their college applications and usually have mediocre results. Possible that happened here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He applied to too many. That's my theory.

I've noticed when these kids post their accepted/denied/deferred/waitlisted videos on social media each spring, it's always the kids with amazing stats and ECs that applied to like 15-20 schools that get sh!tty results.

No one needs to apply to 25 schools. Applying to 25 schools tells me that you don't care where you go to school, you just want to get accepted to college, preferably a T20-25. Applying to all Ivys tells me that you don't care which Ivy you go to, you just want to go to an Ivy.

Kids are no longer selective. They don't show interest in one school and they don't make that interest known like they used to.

DS has lower stats than Stanley Zhong but expressed his interest from the start in attending Cal Poly. He was accepted and is in his second year there. DS only applied to 6 schools and was accepted at all: Cal Poly, U Mich, UCSD, VT, Duke, and UNC.

Why do public schools care how much you are in love with them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stanley Zhong graduated from high school in June 2023. Starting in 2020, he built an e-signing startup (details below) that is featured in an Amazon Web Services case study. That led to multiple companies interviewing him for full-time jobs despite the slow IT job market. Shortly after he turned 18, Google hired him as an L4 software engineer, a position typically offered to candidates with multiple years of professional experience as well as a college degree.

In contrast, his college application results were underwhelming. He applied to the Computer Science programs. All but two colleges (listed below) rejected his application.

MIT
CMU
Stanford
UC Berkeley
UC LA
UC San Diego
UC Santa Barbara
UC Davis
California Polytechnic State University
Cornell University
Univ of Illinois
Univ of Michigan
Georgia Tech
Cal Tech
Univ of Wisconsin
Univ of Washington

Only Univ of Texas and Univ of Maryland accepted his application.

Here are some highlights of his application.

Advanced to the Google Code Jam Coding Contest semi-final.

Led his team to the 2nd place in MIT Battlecode''s global high school division (1st place in the US). Invited to MIT with expenses paid.

Created an e-signing startup (RabbitSign.com) that has grown to tens of thousands of users organically.

An Amazon Web Services Well-Architected Review concluded that it "is one of the most efficient and secure accounts" they have reviewed.

Amazon Web Services is publishing a case study featuring RabbitSign for its exemplary use of AWS Serverless and compliance services.

Designed, implemented and operated the web frontend, RESTful APIs, workflow orchestration, metrics and alerting, horizontal scaling, CDN, rate limiting, security hardening (including intrusion detection and DDoS protection), compliance monitoring, internationalization, and disaster recovery.

Passed multi-week whitebox pentest with no major security issues discovered.

Wrote comprehensive unit tests, continuous API Postman tests, and end-to-end Selenium tests.

Negotiated a 90% discount (worth $40K+) for compliance audits. After working with the auditors over several quarters, RabbitSign is now the world''s only provider of unlimited free SOC 2-, ISO 27001- and HIPAA-compliant e-signing.

Co-founded a non-profit that brings free coding lessons to kids in underserved communities. He recruited and built a volunteer team made of 20+ industry professionals, Stanford postdoc and high schoolers. Over 2 years, the team taught 500+ kids in California, Washington and Texas.

National Merit Scholarship finalist

SAT: 1590

GPA (UW/W): 3.97/4.42

Wow OP - it is unbelievable that so many colleges rejected him with all his academic talents, computer brilliance and entrepreneurship.

I hope he chose U Md - he would be a great asset for our state’s flagship.

Hopefully he will have his pick of grad schools if chooses to go that route.

Also I hope this experience is a source of comfort to other students who have experienced so many college rejections despite being excellent students .

He pciked UT but is taking gap year at the moment - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxvZGnRoY3E

Video confirms that textbooks are useless.

[Anonymous]

Shared the personal statement with the tv host but not to the chattering classes...

No way to conclude anything. Lots of ways to speculate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He applied to too many. That's my theory.

I've noticed when these kids post their accepted/denied/deferred/waitlisted videos on social media each spring, it's always the kids with amazing stats and ECs that applied to like 15-20 schools that get sh!tty results.

No one needs to apply to 25 schools. Applying to 25 schools tells me that you don't care where you go to school, you just want to get accepted to college, preferably a T20-25. Applying to all Ivys tells me that you don't care which Ivy you go to, you just want to go to an Ivy.

Kids are no longer selective. They don't show interest in one school and they don't make that interest known like they used to.

DS has lower stats than Stanley Zhong but expressed his interest from the start in attending Cal Poly. He was accepted and is in his second year there. DS only applied to 6 schools and was accepted at all: Cal Poly, U Mich, UCSD, VT, Duke, and UNC.

In fairness...he really only applied to 12 since you use one application for all the UC schools. I do know high stats kids "that phone in" their college applications and usually have mediocre results. Possible that happened here.

Any number of things are possible. We don't know all the facts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shared the personal statement with the tv host but not to the chattering classes...

No way to conclude anything. Lots of ways to speculate.

At least these colleges should take him. I saw many students with lower stats/accomplishment got in.

UC San Diego
UC Santa Barbara
UC Davis
California Polytechnic State University
Univ of Illinois
Univ of Michigan
Georgia Tech
Univ of Wisconsin
Univ of Washington

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shared the personal statement with the tv host but not to the chattering classes...

No way to conclude anything. Lots of ways to speculate.

At least these colleges should take him. I saw many students with lower stats/accomplishment got in.

UC San Diego
UC Santa Barbara
UC Davis
California Polytechnic State University
Univ of Illinois
Univ of Michigan
Georgia Tech
Univ of Wisconsin
Univ of Washington

Me too. I think the common app people owe him an explanation 🤔