Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You really don't need a CS degree to get a job in big tech. Look at the person this post is about! Take a few eng courses, get a well-rounded education that will help you beyond your first SWE job, and prep a lot for your coding & algorithm interviews!

Ummm, I’m at Google do you have any idea how hard it is to get hired as a L4 SWE at Google? The kid is obviously brilliant. L4s have an average salary of 250k/yr and 4 years work experience after grad school. We are talking hundreds of applicants for one L4 slot.

You people are spectacularly ignorant. Stick to counting beans in your cubicle, not pontificating on “big tech” (boomer word as well).

They're not necessarily ignorant. They're just maliciously racist, intentionally twisting the facts towards their own narrative.

There is nothing racist about saying he attended a very high-performing high school and was competing against 40-50 other kids with a better rank.

Is he impressive compared to the average HS kid? Absolutely. Is he impressive compared to his classmates? Maybe not so much.

That's just how college admissions work. Colleges don't want to fill their classes with kids from only a handful of schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

He attends a high-performing high school, ranked #1 in the SF area, so many of the kids will very competitive. Enough to grab acceptances.

If he’s 10% rank out of 460 kids, there are 45 kids with better GPAs. And the vast majority of those will have impressive applications as well. Potentially better essays and recommendations as well.

Top colleges aren’t typically accepting 40-50 kids from one high school.

True, he was competing with a lot of other accomplished kids but he applied and got rejected from a wide range of schools. There is a problem when a really bright, accomplished kid gets rejected from multiple simply because he attends a competitive high school. The college admission system is struggling since SAT became optional and grade inflation became common.

This is exactly why attending a private school or a magnet like TJ may decrease your chance of admissions at top schools.

We can't see this kid's application or the applications of the 40-50 other kids from his HS who were ranked higher.

And we can't read too much into this one kid's experience. It sucks, but no one is entitled to admission.

BINGO! Nobody is entitled to admissions. CS is a tough admit at most schools---schools with a 25% admission rate normally will often have 4-5% admit rate for CS. UC have plenty of highly qualified in-state applications for CS at the top schools---most of the 45-50 kids ranked higher than him at his HS likely applied to those same schools.
He had this experience because he applied to a highly rejective major at mostly highly rejective schools. Not hard to do the math and figure out this outcome can easily happen. He could have chosen many excellent schools that have a higher admit rate or do no restrict admission to CS/Eng/any majors. But he didn't. Had he it would look very different

Sure. But it's not the excuse for school to exercise racism and cover it under that statement. This is always what the petition is about: to find out whether there were admitted students who were clearly less qualified.

You should read this thread because his situation has been investigated pretty thoroughly. The kid had the bad luck of graduating from a school where there were dozens of other high achieving students. Shi**y outcome. Not acceptable. But not too many people believe it was bald faced racism. His HS is nearly 60% Asian and his classmates are accepted to all the colleges that he applied to.

[Anonymous]

I know Gunn well having lived in SV for most of the last decade and it is a great school. The student must not have stacked up all that well to have the results they did. Even then, I do wonder if there is a little more to the story of the student's background with so many rejections, especially given the UC system doesn't directly consider race (as a few have pointed out).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

He attends a high-performing high school, ranked #1 in the SF area, so many of the kids will very competitive. Enough to grab acceptances.

If he’s 10% rank out of 460 kids, there are 45 kids with better GPAs. And the vast majority of those will have impressive applications as well. Potentially better essays and recommendations as well.

Top colleges aren’t typically accepting 40-50 kids from one high school.

True, he was competing with a lot of other accomplished kids but he applied and got rejected from a wide range of schools. There is a problem when a really bright, accomplished kid gets rejected from multiple simply because he attends a competitive high school. The college admission system is struggling since SAT became optional and grade inflation became common.

This is exactly why attending a private school or a magnet like TJ may decrease your chance of admissions at top schools.

We can't see this kid's application or the applications of the 40-50 other kids from his HS who were ranked higher.

And we can't read too much into this one kid's experience. It sucks, but no one is entitled to admission.

BINGO! Nobody is entitled to admissions. CS is a tough admit at most schools---schools with a 25% admission rate normally will often have 4-5% admit rate for CS. UC have plenty of highly qualified in-state applications for CS at the top schools---most of the 45-50 kids ranked higher than him at his HS likely applied to those same schools.
He had this experience because he applied to a highly rejective major at mostly highly rejective schools. Not hard to do the math and figure out this outcome can easily happen. He could have chosen many excellent schools that have a higher admit rate or do no restrict admission to CS/Eng/any majors. But he didn't. Had he it would look very different

Sure. But it's not the excuse for school to exercise racism and cover it under that statement. This is always what the petition is about: to find out whether there were admitted students who were clearly less qualified.

You should read this thread because his situation has been investigated pretty thoroughly. The kid had the bad luck of graduating from a school where there were dozens of other high achieving students. Shi**y outcome. Not acceptable. But not too many people believe it was bald faced racism. His HS is nearly 60% Asian and his classmates are accepted to all the colleges that he applied to.

Don't attend an elite HS in Silicon Valley if you want to be a CS major and attend an elite university. Because you will be competing with 50-100 other students in your class who are all equally impressive, with minor differences in SAT/GPA/ECs. It's not a racist thing that he got rejected....it's a sheer numbers issue. Most elite school are not taking more than 10 or so kids from any single HS, let alone 40-50 of them.

it is acceptable. He now has a choice: attend one fo the two universities he got accepted to or take the Google job or continue with his own business (if it's really a viable business). All excellent choices for life's next chapter.

[Anonymous]

Ummm, I’m at Google do you have any idea how hard it is to get hired as a L4 SWE at Google? The kid is obviously brilliant. L4s have an average salary of 250k/yr and 4 years work experience after grad school. We are talking hundreds of applicants for one L4 slot.

You people are spectacularly ignorant. Stick to counting beans in your cubicle, not pontificating on “big tech” (boomer word as well).

This exactly. And I want to add that the fact he got hired by google should negate the ideas suggested on this board, such as he lied about his app, he had bad essays and teacher recs and that his grades weren't stellar compared to classmates.

This kid is brilliant and his work must be "real" or google wouldn't have hired him (I am assuming the folks at google are smart enough to figure out if his father designed the program). I assume he had to pass numerous interviews and that his high school transcript was scrutinized.

The problem isn't Stanley, it is the college admission system that is the problem. I wish that this was the focus of this discussion instead of trying to rationalize why a kid like this got rejected from so many schools.

[Anonymous]

I don't trust comments about "tech" or from someone who doesn't know how to use the quote feature.

So what is the solution here? Kids should lower expectations and have more safety school options if they are applying from high-performing HS, competing against a bunch of "brilliant" peers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ummm, I’m at Google do you have any idea how hard it is to get hired as a L4 SWE at Google? The kid is obviously brilliant. L4s have an average salary of 250k/yr and 4 years work experience after grad school. We are talking hundreds of applicants for one L4 slot.

You people are spectacularly ignorant. Stick to counting beans in your cubicle, not pontificating on “big tech” (boomer word as well).

This exactly. And I want to add that the fact he got hired by google should negate the ideas suggested on this board, such as he lied about his app, he had bad essays and teacher recs and that his grades weren't stellar compared to classmates.

This kid is brilliant and his work must be "real" or google wouldn't have hired him (I am assuming the folks at google are smart enough to figure out if his father designed the program). I assume he had to pass numerous interviews and that his high school transcript was scrutinized.

The problem isn't Stanley, it is the college admission system that is the problem. I wish that this was the focus of this discussion instead of trying to rationalize why a kid like this got rejected from so many schools.

This happens on all discussions about college admissions unfortunately. Everyone likes to pick apart the specific kid and not the process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ummm, I’m at Google do you have any idea how hard it is to get hired as a L4 SWE at Google? The kid is obviously brilliant. L4s have an average salary of 250k/yr and 4 years work experience after grad school. We are talking hundreds of applicants for one L4 slot.

You people are spectacularly ignorant. Stick to counting beans in your cubicle, not pontificating on “big tech” (boomer word as well).

This exactly. And I want to add that the fact he got hired by google should negate the ideas suggested on this board, such as he lied about his app, he had bad essays and teacher recs and that his grades weren't stellar compared to classmates.

This kid is brilliant and his work must be "real" or google wouldn't have hired him (I am assuming the folks at google are smart enough to figure out if his father designed the program). I assume he had to pass numerous interviews and that his high school transcript was scrutinized.

The problem isn't Stanley, it is the college admission system that is the problem. I wish that this was the focus of this discussion instead of trying to rationalize why a kid like this got rejected from so many schools.

It is not hard for me to both believe he is very talented and a great fit for Google, and that he also could have written crap essays and just "phoned in" his college applications. In fact, that seems more likely as to what happened.

He likely would be bored at college and the real value is building his peer/social network...but I am not sure he needs that since he probably has a decent network in the SV area.

[Anonymous]

The kid is clearly amazing if he got hired in as an L4 at Google at age 18.

I have a friend who was hired at Google in the first 50 employees while he was in high school. He was low income, not particularly stellar in HS, and had a busy single mom. They hired him because he had built out multiplayer gaming servers in his free time. So clearly a hardware "cloud" expert before he finished high school in the early 00s.

Crazy if you think about it.

[Anonymous]

Ok? So? Many great students get rejected from those schools. Schools select the students they want. It is not a reflection of your intelligence. Move on and do great things! It was their loss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The kid is clearly amazing if he got hired in as an L4 at Google at age 18.

I have a friend who was hired at Google in the first 50 employees while he was in high school. He was low income, not particularly stellar in HS, and had a busy single mom. They hired him because he had built out multiplayer gaming servers in his free time. So clearly a hardware "cloud" expert before he finished high school in the early 00s.

Crazy if you think about it.

That is crazy amazing!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The kid is clearly amazing if he got hired in as an L4 at Google at age 18.

I have a friend who was hired at Google in the first 50 employees while he was in high school. He was low income, not particularly stellar in HS, and had a busy single mom. They hired him because he had built out multiplayer gaming servers in his free time. So clearly a hardware "cloud" expert before he finished high school in the early 00s.

Crazy if you think about it.

That is crazy amazing!!

Right place at the right time. Growing up low income in northern Central Valley, just south of the Bay Area. I think he had met Googlers through the multiplayer gaming chat rooms and tech forums; they knew he was hosting servers but no one had any clue he was only 16. He built out Google's first server farms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ummm, I’m at Google do you have any idea how hard it is to get hired as a L4 SWE at Google? The kid is obviously brilliant. L4s have an average salary of 250k/yr and 4 years work experience after grad school. We are talking hundreds of applicants for one L4 slot.

You people are spectacularly ignorant. Stick to counting beans in your cubicle, not pontificating on “big tech” (boomer word as well).

This exactly. And I want to add that the fact he got hired by google should negate the ideas suggested on this board, such as he lied about his app, he had bad essays and teacher recs and that his grades weren't stellar compared to classmates.

This kid is brilliant and his work must be "real" or google wouldn't have hired him (I am assuming the folks at google are smart enough to figure out if his father designed the program). I assume he had to pass numerous interviews and that his high school transcript was scrutinized.

The problem isn't Stanley, it is the college admission system that is the problem. I wish that this was the focus of this discussion instead of trying to rationalize why a kid like this got rejected from so many schools.

It is not hard for me to both believe he is very talented and a great fit for Google, and that he also could have written crap essays and just "phoned in" his college applications. In fact, that seems more likely as to what happened.

He likely would be bored at college and the real value is building his peer/social network...but I am not sure he needs that since he probably has a decent network in the SV area.

I disagree. I think he was probably amazing. But there are a lot of amazing kids applying to those schools. Being rejected doesn’t mean you aren’t smart or amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ummm, I’m at Google do you have any idea how hard it is to get hired as a L4 SWE at Google? The kid is obviously brilliant. L4s have an average salary of 250k/yr and 4 years work experience after grad school. We are talking hundreds of applicants for one L4 slot.

You people are spectacularly ignorant. Stick to counting beans in your cubicle, not pontificating on “big tech” (boomer word as well).

This exactly. And I want to add that the fact he got hired by google should negate the ideas suggested on this board, such as he lied about his app, he had bad essays and teacher recs and that his grades weren't stellar compared to classmates.

This kid is brilliant and his work must be "real" or google wouldn't have hired him (I am assuming the folks at google are smart enough to figure out if his father designed the program). I assume he had to pass numerous interviews and that his high school transcript was scrutinized.

The problem isn't Stanley, it is the college admission system that is the problem. I wish that this was the focus of this discussion instead of trying to rationalize why a kid like this got rejected from so many schools.

It is not hard for me to both believe he is very talented and a great fit for Google, and that he also could have written crap essays and just "phoned in" his college applications. In fact, that seems more likely as to what happened.

He likely would be bored at college and the real value is building his peer/social network...but I am not sure he needs that since he probably has a decent network in the SV area.

I disagree. I think he was probably amazing. But there are a lot of amazing kids applying to those schools. Being rejected doesn’t mean you aren’t smart or amazing.

Wasn’t the Valedictorian of his school which means if you separate out the “I started a business” element he was beaten out by several kids stats-wise at his own school.

The dissonance between the schools saying “well we actually want to see leadership and real world achievements from applicants” and then they reject a kid who started a real commercial business (not a tiny nonprofit or a lemonade stand) and could demonstrate skills mastery to the extend that Google onboarded him as a senior hire at age 18.

He will be fine, but would love to know what happened in those Admissions Committee meetings where they went “hard pass”.

They see a lot more applicants than I do so I’m unwilling to second guess them, but to outsiders it looks like we are missing part of the story. From both sides.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok? So? Many great students get rejected from those schools. Schools select the students they want. It is not a reflection of your intelligence. Move on and do great things! It was their loss.

+1000

The level of entitlement among high stats kids is strange. Just because you have high stats does NOT guarantee you admission to an elite school. And all of the schools he applied to are elite and highly selective for CS---most have admission rates in single digits for CS, many in the low single digits. So yes, it is entirely possible to get rejected by all---he did well and got accepted to two Elite CS schools!
For kids who are seemingly so smart, it is shocking they do not understand statistics and the admission process.