Most of those dreaming for reach schools will be disappointed despite trying hard.
Basically, this is recognition that the needed knowledge and skills for the job can be learned in various ways including self education, even though most people will learn it most efficiently in school.
However, not all types of jobs are such that employers are willing to do that (sometimes due to credential creep), or are where the needed knowledge and skills are difficult to self educate (sometimes because the needed equipment or environment is not typically accessible to an individual outside of school).
Happy UT recognized this young man’s talent. It is Texas’ gain.
I am glad he filed a complaint; he is right to question an opaque system; it may help others like him in the future. Just look at how Harvard’s admissions changed before and after the lawsuit.
2 Likes
UT Austin admission for an out of state CS major is not transparent either.
3 Likes
There are a few things that stood out to me.
-
Founded a free electronic signature startup called RabbitSign
Whenever I read an article that mentions a particular brand/company when it isn’t necessary, I wonder if there is an ulterior motive. Is the article a paid partnership or clickbait? This college rejection was covered by several news outlets on Oct 11, 2023. A week prior, RabbitSign had been granted SOC2 Type II Compliance which I believe is HIPPA compliance. There was a press release related to that as well. Why, six months after admissions decisions were released, and one week after a major announcement by the company, did the media suddenly decide to cover this story?
-
“I didn’t get any feedback from any admissions offices. You don’t get reasons, you just get ‘you’re rejected,’” Zhong said.
How many colleges give feedback with rejections? Is this newsworthy? -
“In computer science, from a purely educational standpoint, a lot of what colleges teach, can also be found online if you’re willing to learn it. Most of my computer science knowledge is from looking things up, reading articles, things like that,” Zhong said. “But there is also a social and networking aspect to college.”
This! That’s a direct quote from the student. I imagine his essays were written in a similar vein. He doesn’t want to go to college to learn. He is/was applying for social and networking reasons. -
He also applied to a software engineer opening at Google . Earlier this month, 18-year-old Zhong started working as a software development engineer at Google, a role that doesn’t require a college degree.
Again, if he felt that he didn’t need a college degree, and gave any kind of inkling to that in his application, I can understand why schools would reject him. They are looking for students who want to learn, and who want to take advantage of the resources that the school has to offer. They are looking for students who will be active members of their community and who will contribute to the university as a whole.
8 Likes
This really doesn’t surprised me at all. I can’t count the number of times I read a post on various forums that describes the applicant as “4.0 unweighted GPA”. And that is fine but I think students (and their parents) think perfection is critical to the student’s chances and therefore any imperfections, like B grades, need an explanation. I’m not convinced they are wrong,especially for highly impacted majors.
Well, I can only speak for myself. As someone who reads apps for a school that looks at chosen major…please please applicants, do not explain Bs. It never helps, but can hurt an applicant.
If there is truly something noteworthy that must be said about a B (or any grade really)…have the high school counselor write about it in their LoR.
6 Likes
Yeah, his essays probably screwed him over in the end. If he made himself look like someone who is more concerned about working in the industry than bringing societal change with his CS knowledge (which colleges tend to focus on), then it isn’t too surprising he got rejected from a lot of places.
1 Like
As a Bay Area student, the answer is yes and no. Some students do create tech startups, but the vast majority of them end up being branding and nothing more (just like how people create nonprofits that are mere instagram accounts and don’t do anything signficant)
How is UC Davis’ admit rate lower than Purdue? (Purdue CS admit rate is 29.5%). Purdue is definitely ranked higher than Davis in CS.
Some of the article does sound a little sus:
-Grades: Younger had an unweighted 3.95 GPA but ranked number 23 out of 668 students. The number 1 through number 22 students at her school were likely applying to the same colleges. Without a “hook” or specially recruited category (race, class, athlete, donor, alum) it would be essentially impossible for a number 23 student to get into an elite school. In fact, a university like Stanford can fill its entire class with valedictorians.
She had 2 B’s on her transcript, which should not be a disqualification for any college, even ones like Stanford/MIT (unless everyone in you school got a 4.0 and you don’t have a good explanation for a 3.95). She could be a better candidate in the eyes of AOs if she had better ECs than the number 1 student.
Source? Some of these numbers are way too low imo (UCI, UCD, UCSB)
UCD attracts a much larger in-state applicant pool than Purdue (California has a much larger population than Indiana). Outside of these forums, most students are financially constrained in favor of in-state publics against out-of-state publics.
2 Likes
Admit rate is simply a result of popularity. Lots of kids apply to Davis, and the CS major is a popular one. Davis is also close to the bay area and many people feel this location helps with the job search. It’s a fine school in itself, and a lot of people are also attracted to its reputation for having a friendly vibe.
At my son’s bay area school, he knew lots of kids applying to CS, but hardly anyone applied to Purdue… only one kid that we knew, and he has family in that area.
3 Likes
Davis is an excellent and affordable school in a region with an overabundance of highly qualified students.
2 Likes
UCD is “estimated” based on current enrolled students and overall yield.
UCD Aggie data can give you a lot of information. https://aggiedata.ucdavis.edu/
UCSB was an estimate mentioned on one of the UC Counselor conferences along with a confirmation from a current UCSB CS major. For 2023, the UCSB counselor conference noted that 10% of applied students chose CS as their primary major. https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/_files/documents/2023-counselor-conference/remediated-pdfs/ucop-and-campus-updates-remediated-pdf.pdf
UCI is the most transparent and lists admit rates by major on this link. All the data is based on 2022 numbers when the student in the article probably applied? UCI’s CS admit rate has increased since they opened up more spots and the current data just posted.
https://datahub.oapir.uci.edu/Undergraduate-Admissions-Dashboard.php
2 Likes
in fact, Stanford (and all California schools converts A- A+ to 4.0, B+,B to 3.0… even all 4.0GPA–Stanford has ~8000 each application cycle … CA’s GPA even unweighted can not be compared to other place GPA that mostly 4.0 is reserved for A (>92.5/100), A- is between 90-92.4… A- — 3.67 will significantly drop your GPA
The rejections from the tippy top privates can happen to anyone. His failure to be admitted to CA public schools, which do not consider standardized test scores, means the system is working exactly how it was intended to. It is very likely that students with similar, or even lesser GPAs from less competitive schools from poorer areas were admitted for comp sci. It is also likely that those students might not have achieved the extraordinary SAT that he did, which is exactly why CA went test blind. He did get into two excellent OOS publics for comp sci. Fortunately, it seems he can afford OOS. But if he could not, this would have been an injustice. He should have had an in state admission from those apps.
I wish people would stop blaming the victim. It is totally appropriate for him to write about wanting the social experience of college! This kid was better than “average excellent”. And a sheltered snowflake would not have realized that he could go straight into comp sci for industry, whether as a gap year or as his career.
2 Likes
Texas is ranked number 8, MD number 17. SLO doesn’t appear in the top 50.
There isn’t a victim in this story. Stanley Zhong was accepted to 4 schools. He chose to take a position at Google instead of matriculating to any of them.
No one is guaranteed a CS acceptance at the schools he applied to. Not getting accepted did not victimize him.
12 Likes