Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

I know several kids…some Asian and others white UMC that were accepted for CS at UCSD, UCSB and Michigan with lower stats. I doubt the overall acceptances are single digits at some of these schools even for CS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

I know several kids…some Asian and others white UMC that were accepted for CS at UCSD, UCSB and Michigan with lower stats. I doubt the overall acceptances are single digits at some of these schools even for CS.

What were they ranked? Did they have 40-50 other kids ranked ahead of them?

[Anonymous]

Developing a skill that companies can monetize is not the goal of higher education especially for elite colleges. I don't understand why colleges should use the same criteria as commercial companies to evaluate candidates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

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

I know several kids…some Asian and others white UMC that were accepted for CS at UCSD, UCSB and Michigan with lower stats. I doubt the overall acceptances are single digits at some of these schools even for CS.

Everywhere except UCDavis publishes their CS acceptance rates in single digits. UC Davis is 10%

[Anonymous]

He's as one-dimensional as a number line.

[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.

Do you know if Google looked over his shoulder during the technical interviews? Were the interviews remote or in person? These days, some of the young people competing for the $200k+ jobs collaborate with their friends, live stream their technical interviews, and help each other to find the correct answers. I wonder if employers realize that this is the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He's as one-dimensional as a number line.

+1 I can't believe how many times people have brought this up in the thread and some can't wrap their head around the possibility that this kid didn't have a strong application outside of working under dad's tutelage.

Essays, recommendations, breadth of curriculum...we don't know about those things. The fact that so many colleges arrived at the same conclusion is a sign that the kid didn't present a good application.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Developing a skill that companies can monetize is not the goal of higher education especially for elite colleges. I don't understand why colleges should use the same criteria as commercial companies to evaluate candidates.

Exactly. One has very little to do with the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's as one-dimensional as a number line.

+1 I can't believe how many times people have brought this up in the thread and some can't wrap their head around the possibility that this kid didn't have a strong application outside of working under dad's tutelage.

Essays, recommendations, breadth of curriculum...we don't know about those things. The fact that so many colleges arrived at the same conclusion is a sign that the kid didn't present a good application.

Feel free to believe that. Many things point to that not being the case.

[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.

Do you know if Google looked over his shoulder during the technical interviews? Were the interviews remote or in person? These days, some of the young people competing for the $200k+ jobs collaborate with their friends, live stream their technical interviews, and help each other to find the correct answers. I wonder if employers realize that this is the case.

do you think Google interviewers are that dumb?

I have interviewed folks when I was at Google, including phone interviews. I asked technical questions. I could hear the person typing searching for answers; pausing while they searched. Hard pass.

Even if they livestreamed it, and had friends online, the time it would take to answer the question in a way that is fluid like it's your answer would take a while. It would be obvious to someone who's paying attention.

This kid must be incredibly smart to have gotten a job as a SWE at Google. And no, they don't do nepotism. They actually frown upon it. I was in a situation where a family member was going to be a contractor at Google in a different department while I was an FTE, and legal was all over it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He's as one-dimensional as a number line.

+1 I can't believe how many times people have brought this up in the thread and some can't wrap their head around the possibility that this kid didn't have a strong application outside of working under dad's tutelage.

Essays, recommendations, breadth of curriculum...we don't know about those things. The fact that so many colleges arrived at the same conclusion is a sign that the kid didn't present a good application.

We will really never know given how college admissions is an opaque process, and where race can play a part of your admissions, yes, even in UCs. They figured out a way around Prop 209.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

Maybe at the elite privates he applied to, but not at the UC and CalPoly schools for CS. He simply did not stand out relative to the others applying (with single digit acceptance rates) or he had some sort of really bad mark on his record as it relates to behavior, discipline, or very poor teacher recommendations.

I guarantee there is something else to his story that is not being disclosed. Google will only do a reference check and if his professional recommendations all add up, they will move forward with the offer. Perhaps he has a very difficult personality? That's a dime a dozen with engineers, so while it may cause issues in school and with teachers it doesn't really matter to Google so long as he performs.

[Anonymous]

Didn't someone post this kid got into UTexas Austin? That is a top 30 school and, with almost 4000 colleges in the USA, in the top 1%

How is that a problem?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We will really never know given how college admissions is an opaque process, and where race can play a part of your admissions, yes, even in UCs. They figured out a way around Prop 209.

If that were true, the UC schools would get sued and lose. They haven't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn't someone post this kid got into UTexas Austin? That is a top 30 school and, with almost 4000 colleges in the USA, in the top 1%

How is that a problem?

He got into UT Austin and UMD College Park for CS. Both are top-caliber CS programs - Sergey Brin came out of UMD CS.

But he thinks he deserves to have been accepted into more programs, particularly the public universities in California. He and his dad are calling for an independent audit of college admissions using a random sample of accepted applications. One issue they want to know more about is that he may have been yield protected by schools, particularly the public universities.

Interesting wrinkle that I didn't know - his dad works at Google. So the kid definitely has an advantage over pretty much any other kid: he likely had insight to the requirements of the technical interview and got prepped for that by his dad. I'm not saying the kid couldn't do the work, but I guarantee he was taught-to-the-test by his father.

Folks should really watch the long interview with his dad. They have a soft agenda of attacking universities. Dad is already talking about suing universities if they don't voluntarily get the information they are seeking from the schools.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DzHK8E-k91k