A highschool graduate with a stellar grade level common, close to excellent take a look at scores, and a tech startup he based when he was a sophomore, was rejected by dozens of schools, together with state faculties. Then he landed a job at Google.
When Stanley Zhong, who graduated from Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California, in 2023, was rejected by 14 of the 18 schools and universities to which he utilized, he and his advisers have been dumbfounded.
Zhong was a standout pupil: He had an unweighted 3.96 grade level common and scored 1590 on his SATs. He had additionally been a finalist in a number of world pc coding contests and based a free digital signature startup referred to as RabbitSign.
Zhong was rejected by his first-choice faculty, Stanford, which wasn’t all too stunning, he mentioned. But he didn’t count on the rejection letters he obtained from among the state faculties he had utilized to, together with University of California, Davis; University of California, Santa Barbara; and California Polytechnic State University.
“No one can say they count on to get into Stanford, Berkeley or MIT, however I utilized to a couple state faculties the place I assumed I had a greater likelihood,” Zhong advised CBS MoneyWatch.
Nan Zhong
No causes given, simply “you are rejected”
With no elucidation offered from schools and universities on their decision-making, all he may do was speculate as to why he had obtained so many rejections.
“I did not get any suggestions from any admissions places of work. You do not get causes, you simply get ‘you are rejected,'” Zhong mentioned. “For a few of them it was anticipated. For plenty of them I felt annoyed within the sense of, ‘What would you like from me?’ I really feel like as college students, we need to know what we must be doing with the intention to get into these schools.”
Zhong and his household reached out to the Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE), a nonprofit organization that advocates for Asian-American kids’s training rights, “to attempt to push for transparency in faculty admissions choices,” he mentioned.
AACE founding president Yukong Mike Zhao raised Zhong’s case at a listening to of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on race-based faculty admissions choices final month.
“He is a expertise in programming — all people says pc science is the longer term for the twenty first century,” Zhao mentioned.
“It’s appalling for the universities to disregard this sort of expertise,” he added.
Google utility
A complete of 4 faculties provided admission to Zhong, together with the University of Texas at Austin.
Not one to wallow in disappointment, Zhong determined to matriculate at UT Austin. He additionally utilized to a software program engineer opening at Google “as a moonshot,” he mentioned.
“I made a decision to go for a full-time job as nicely to see what occurred. I figured worst case, I’d get interview expertise and see what the method was like and perhaps I’d get fortunate,” Zhong mentioned.
He did.
Earlier this month, 18-year-old Zhong began working as a software program improvement engineer at Google, a task that does not require a university diploma.
Google has many job roles for which “equal practical expertise” counts in lieu of a faculty diploma, and others that do not have any diploma necessities. Zhong didn’t disclose how a lot the job pays.
Plans to attend faculty?
College remains to be on the desk for Zhong, however not till 2024 on the earliest.
“I’m very fortunate to have this chance and proper now, I’ll keep it up for at the least a 12 months. From there I’ll take into consideration, ‘Am I’m making good contributions and doing good work?’ If that is the case, I’ll keep till I do not really feel like I’m or that I’m actually lacking out on lots by not going to varsity,” Zhong mentioned.
He mentioned he is a self-taught programmer, however nonetheless sees worth in increased training.
“In pc science, from a purely instructional standpoint, plenty of what schools train, can be discovered on-line for those who’re prepared to study it. Most of my pc science data is from trying issues up, studying articles, issues like that,” Zhong mentioned. “But there’s additionally a social and networking facet to varsity.”
