> Presently, he’s going through initial onboarding at Google.... he is a hero at his former school.

> After all, despite getting a SAT score of 1590 and a weighted GPA of 4.42, to say nothing of his other coding-related achievements, he was rejected by 16 colleges.

Is it any wonder we had an epidemic of high school suicides? It's objectively insane and corrosive to mental health that this is normalized and revered as the bar for success.

Someone put up a photo of themselves at Happy Donuts with the Harvard logo with the text "Follow your dreams. I mean, just look at me!" and it's the most cringey thing I've ever seen.

Your self-worth does not come from what brand name your parents paid $240k to for your undergrad degree.

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He applied to HIGHLY competitive colleges, and he faced too much competition. There is more to college admissions than GPA and SAT scores. Colleges are looking for well-rounded students. Good luck to this very smart kid. I wish him well. I hope he pursues higher education at a later date. It's worth it.

This kid is obligated to release his essays at this point. All available evidence points to essay answers being the lacking part of his application, which can make a huge impact, especially at competitive institutions where nearly all applicants have just about the maximum GPA and test scores you can get.

Also I'm so sorry but it's absolutely ridiculous to quote Elon Musk in this piece as if he is at all credible on this subject. I can understand it potentially being notable that he commented on the issue at all, but to position it as if he knows literally anything about college admissions is pathetic lol

It will be interesting to see what he does in the future. Will he stay at Google or use it as a gap year(s) to then try to apply again and get into one of the schools that rejected him? Why does he feel entitled that he needed to have gotten into a school “better” than UT-Austin or UMD? Both are amazing places btw. The obsession with the very top schools needs to end. No one cares after a while where you went to school. No one is entitled to anything. Go to UT-Austin next year, enjoy the football games and school spirit, live a little, take classes other than CS and come back to Google or another job later. There is plenty of time for that…

I am willing to guess that had he applied to other programs (math, general engineering, various sciences),as opposed to computer science, he would have had a much higher acceptance rate.

Excellent article by Ashwini Gangal!

Stanley Zhong got a 1590 on his SATs, and straight A's at highly competitive Gunn. He had such an interesting coding project at Github when he was 13 that Google would have hired him THEN but he was too young! Now at 18 with only a high school agree, Google hires him.

I worked at Google for 18 years and was interviewing and on hiring committees for the entire time. Google wants the best engineers it can find, and hires on merit. In all those years I never heard a single instance of hiring someone straight out of high school. Think of that 1590 SAT. It is a remarkable achievement in both verbal and math. Only a tiny fraction of 1% of students get anywhere near it. The kid is brilliant.

And now consider the 16 of 18 schools that rejected him. Based on ability, he should have been accepted at every one of those schools. Twenty years ago, he would have been accepted at all. But today, the previously irrelevant fact that he is Asian doomed every one of those applications. This is blatant racism, and it is a scandal. We can only hope for a fairer system of college admissions going forward, in the wake of the recent landmark decision by the US Supreme Court that race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions processes violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Shame on the admissions officers of those 16 colleges. The good news is that Stanley has a bright future.

@torreyaman Are you suggesting he play the system?
But his passion is CS!!!

@sunnypa No, you are missing the point! He got rejected from most colleges - reach, dream etc - 16 colleges! The point is not that he did not get into the Ivies!

If I were to guess it’s because the CS programs are crammed full. You’ve got to cut somebody. Why not him?

You all talk about the Ivies....he was also rejected by all the University of California campuses to which he applied....That doesn't make sense at all. I hope he does go to college and glad he recognizes that he will be missing out of a great learning (not just book) experience if he doesn't.

The UC system pretty much prioritizes underprivileged and out-of-state/international students. If you don't fit into those categories, you have a very low chance of acceptance. As can be seen with this guy. And many other Palo Alto kids. Wonderful leaders in our student community are being forced to go to college out of state.

A number of commenters here seem wedded to the idea that colleges admit solely on the basis of merit. I assure you this isn't the case. Colleges are completely opaque about their evaluation processes and there is obvious bias when you look at outcomes. Companies like Google are in fact much likelier to give applicants a fair shake, because they have an economic reason to do so.

Quoting Elon Musk on anything except for engineering technology is a lot like quoting T. He'll say anything. For example the quote “The left hates Asians” is hilarious. I suppose that depends on which part of "the left" you're talking about. There are quite a few Asian climate change and environmental organization volunteers and paid staff, for example.

The call for transparency is beside the point. The UC should increase the student body commensurate with the numbers of qualified applicants. We obviously need more campuses and more educators. People feeling the pain of rejection should be demanding the state of California expand the educational opportunities for large numbers of students as first priority for our state.

Not sure the essay is the reason… I’m so disheartened at the “game” of college apps…nowadays (sadly) the more elite get coaching/editing of their college app essays. Where is the authenricity?? I wrote and edited my own essay for UC’s, Gunn ‘79.