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

[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?

DP. Stanford is the same they don’t value entrepreneurship. It’s probably worse because there’s a misperception that they would, and too many take that tact. They only have a graduate business department. I understand he wants CS but it comes off like he doesn’t know the school he’s applying to.

[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.

TASP is still really good with a vast majority of participants going to Ivies. It just knows its focus.

[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.

I can’t quite tell from your message what he is most worried about, getting into Stanford, the longevity of his project, or AI. I’m not sure if he also has so many messages mixed together but I’d be crisper about what is most important here.

His academic stats are good, but so is everyone applying to those schools. Transparently the impact story with 1,000 users is not that compelling, especially in light of the effort he has devoted to this. I would rapidly shift to encouraging him to fall in love with more schools. I think as a parent it is worse for kids when we buy into their intense “one perfect true match” vision.

Lots of kids have dreams that don’t work out the way they hope. Those kids survive, yours will too if Stanford doesn’t happen. If you keep calm it will help your child.

[Anonymous]

This is duplicate thread.

"https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1283741.page"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

If he’s dreaming big, then he shouldn’t be worried about rejection. Lots of people who dream big will be rejected because most people don’t dream as big and may not understand the potential. He shouldn’t be focused on any particular school, but rather his ability to describe and show his passion and dreams. Someone will accept him, even if it’s not Stanford.

[Anonymous]

Entrepreneurship is 90% people skills. He should keep that in mind.

[Anonymous]

Just FYI…but Berkeley historically places a premium on kids that demonstrate the ability to become financially successful and appreciate entrepreneurs.

Penn is also a bit more overt in wanting those types as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would senior need or want to code?

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

learning how to code is learning how to think. you can use an ai to skimp out on the first part, but then you'll never learn the second part. also, some people actually like coding. liking things?? on this forum?? shocking, i know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why would senior need or want to code?

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

learning how to code is learning how to think. you can use an ai to skimp out on the first part, but then you'll never learn the second part. also, some people actually like coding. liking things?? on this forum?? shocking, i know.

DP. The statement was each middle school kids and seniors to code

Is that senior citizens? If they haven't gotten to the second part, well maybe skimping works.

[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.

This is true in our family's experience too. I went to a HYPSM (and got into others in this group). I was an alternate in a program akin to a state dept study abroad program that was very competitive. DS is at a selective LAC. He had state wide recognition from the Governor's school summer program in our state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You don't know how to prepare your child for adversity/rejection? Hes obviously a numbers person. For fall 2024 admission, Stanford had 57,000 applicants. 2,000 were accepted.

[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.

AI has nothing to do with the concerns his application will bring elite AOs:
1. implies he has less than top grades in other areas, not good for Ivy/stanford/MIT range
2. over 1550 superscore after FIVE times is not a true top 1% kid. He will be competing against all of those and will likely struggle to be top half if he were to get in. Most likely the AOs will figure out he is not a true top kid somewhere else in his apps (the less than top grades across the board, his AP scores are likely not straight 5s from your descripion
3. while his coding program and business sound as though they could be great, something about your description makes it seem as though he would not want to interact with classmates, be open to new ideas, find college meaningful enough to stay.

In sum our DC went to high school with a couple similar students, one was close to VAL one was not even top10%, Both had top rigor in stem. Both had some mildly lackluster grade/score/class choice outside of stem that indicated a minor issue in non-stem compared to top peers. Both had very similar unidimensional EC related to writing code and obsession with it. Lower ranked one did not get in to any T25 and the other one got into Umich and GT OOS but flat rejected every ivy and stanford, though they did not ED and Cornell ED may have worked for them. This is a private that sends 3-4 kids to IVY/MIT/stanford unhooked every year (and a few more hooked). The top schools picked the students who had the straight 5s, super high raw intelligence, easily above 1530 one sitting first try, and were driven and had impactful ECs but were not unidimensional.

Take this with a grain of salt maybe he is in a feeder school that sends 10-15% to ivy + your student will make the cut. high school matters a lot. Ask his college counseling dean.

[Anonymous]

^Adding the 3 who got into ivy/stanford unhooked were also stem kids and also got in to Umich and GT OOS which are no slouch but not what the very top chases at our school

[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?

NO. He needs to focus on his non-stem classes and being human and relatable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I'm pp. Your child sounds driven and brilliant and wonderful. There are lots of driven and brilliant and wonderful people with incredible accomplishments who will not gain acceptance to the school of their choice. I genuinely think therapy now, before all of the decisions come out, is critical. What may be the worst case scenario is that he does go to Stanford and realizes that he worked so hard for something that isn't a magic key to happiness. He needs to engage in something other than a goal that is not in his realm of control.