Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges
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Anonymous
| College cost is a non-issue because wealthy don't care and need based aid recipients don't care. Inly people who hurt and protest are donut hole families. |
Anonymous
Interesting interview of the student and the father by the local TV station ABC7 News: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzHK8E-k91k |
Anonymous
The HS teachers can REALLY cut you off at the knees. Did this kid say something socially awkward that p****d off his teacher or counselor writing the recommendation? |
Anonymous
I think they were just biased against Asians. |
Anonymous
No, he just applied to mostly highly rejective schools, very highly rejective for his major CS. The fact the father mentions they know a least one kid who got in nowhere and is attending CC because of it. If you build a BALANCED list of reach, target and safeties, this does NOT happen. However, all of his schools were reaches for CS, and maybe the 2 he got into were high targets for CS. So had he actually had 2-3 more targets (acceptance over 20-25%) and 3-4 true safeties (acceptance over 50-60%) he would have likely gotten into all of those schools had he demonstrated interest. Main reason for all the rejections is Applying to 20 schools where 18 have acceptance rates of 2-10% for Computer science does not increase your chances of acceptance. It is still still 2-3% at those schools with 2-3% acceptance rates. Then add in, the 40-50 kids ahead of him at his HS likely also applied to many of these schools, so those kids have "better scores/resume" and the school does not want 50+ kids majoring in Eng/CS from the same HS. It's really not that difficult to understand. |
Anonymous
I don't think the issue is that he did not apply to enough target/safeties, but that someone with his academics and achievements got shut out of all T15. -parent of UMD CS major |
Anonymous
The 6 UCs he applied to have an acceptance rate of 5% or less for Comp Sci. End of story---they are as elite as MIT/STanford for his major. He got into UMD and Texas. UMD is estimated to have an acceptance rate of 10% for CS---that's instate, so OOS is likely less than 5%. UTexas is similar at 10% for CS so you can assume the OOS is less than 5%. So basically the kid applied to 18 schools all with acceptance rates under 5% and he got acceptances to 2 of them. So it's a lottery and a crap shoot and seems as if Stanley won the lottery and crap shoot twice. Want more than 2 acceptances, then you have to apply to some reaches and safeties. he did not apply to any of either type. |
Anonymous
CalPoly CS acceptance rate is ~3%. UC Davis is his "easiest to get into school" and their CS acceptance rate is 10%. So Stanley selects 18 schools all with low single digit acceptance rates for his major, except 1, where it's 10% and he complains that he didn't get in? There are way more highly qualified applicants than spaces at each school, so majority do NOT get in. Many highly qualified candidates get turned down. |
Anonymous
Sure there are kids with lower stats at all of those schools but likely not students majoring in CS---the CS acceptance rate at all of those schools is single digits |
Anonymous
had he applied for anything but CS he likely would have been accepted. |
Anonymous
Because 75-80% of the kids applying for CS at those 18 schools also have similar academics and achievements. When the acceptance rates for EVERY school is 10% of less (and most are 5% or less) for CS, then yes, he did not apply to enough target and safeties. Target is a school with acceptance rate above 20-25%. Safety is one with rate over 50%. Stanley applied to all reaches, majority of them being high reaches (single digit rates). He had no targets or safety schools. He's competing with thousands of kids with resumes just like him/similar to him and 95%+ are going to get rejected. |
Anonymous
That’s not how the math works. |
Anonymous
+1000 When will people understand that "having high gpa, 10+APs, 1580+Sat, top ECs, top leadership, etc" is what majority have at the schools with single digit acceptance rates. So mathematically 90-95% of highly qualified candidates will get rejected. Mathematically, if I play the lottery, my chances of winning are statistically the same if I purchase 1 ticket or 20. Same for the college application game at highly selective/highly rejective colleges. |
Anonymous
Hard for people to understand this unless you have seen it happen to your kid. |
Anonymous
| I'm not surprised. At all. My son also had exceptional stats and was rejected at all but his safeties. He started interning his freshmen year and became a hot commodity as it became evident that he had skills beyond many of their full time engineers. He is not interested in leaving school but his workplace (fortune 100) has validated that his high level skills are in high demand and will be paid a mid 100s salary even without a degree based on his skills. The top schools have their own agenda and it is only partly related to how amazing the student is in their field of study. I'm pretty sure by the time he graduates from his safety he will be seeing offers over 200k and the safety and others like it will be the ones reaping the benefits of exceptional students turned alumni. For those who said it may have been a bad essay or letter or whatever I find that you are trying to explain the inexplicable logic of higher education. It's not merit based. It's agenda based. |