Not sure if it made it to hn, but the founder recently got rejected from a number of top universities, despite clear talent:
To me, his college list indicates that he was mostly prestige hunting. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but colleges can tell when a student wants to attend based just on branding. It comes across as if he wants to use college as a resume booster rather than as a place to grow.
The essay reads as a list of accomplishments, with little self-reflection. (Side note: referencing Steve Jobs is way overdone.)
Long story short, college admissions is not a VC pitch. If I had been this guy's advisor, I would have recommended he write an essay about something not related to Cal AI. Colleges will already know about the app from his activities list (and resume and, presumably, recommendation letters). There's a huge missed opportunity for him to write about something else.
The essays that worked for my students this year were often about more mundane topics that gave insight into their character. One of my favorites was from a student who started giving free haircuts to classmates. The essay implicitly shows that he's thoughtful and well-liked—someone you'd definitely want in your college community.
When you are locked in and have the grindset there is nothing else.
I would agree, talking about actual human stuff related to an actually interesting topic was a wasted oportunity. Nobody actually cares what the numbers on the app are, least of all admissions officers.
Average is quite a bit above the floor though, so that just makes it sound like he should have been accepted.
I can't understand why the admissions officers would rather read an essay about a kid who volunteered at an animal shelter or something. Anyone can do that.
Joe, a regular guy: Makes $120k at his desk job
Joe, the businessman: Made $20k in 32 days, $228k ARR
Joe, who launched 5 months into development and did 60k in the first 2 weeks: $1.5M ARR
In all three of these examples, Joe's financial outcome is the same. This business does not have any longevity, and all of its revenue is from converting paid advertising of various kinds. It's still impressive, but is most likely a >10x exaggeration on even the lifetime revenue he makes from this. Which is of course circular, because the reason he's doing all this is to make a business out of monetising the audience of people who want to make money.
All of this is clever social climbing, but is clever social climbing the thing that should be rewarded by colleges?
The app is fake - at best its puffery, and the essay was littered with grammatical errors.
I'm Polish, here the only thing that matters is your final test scores, and nothing else. And I think it's same in the most of Europe and Asia too, right?
My impression is that American unis care way more about social aspect and so on, which I don't understand (but I guess it's a fine way of looking at things, too.)
The tests need to be harder, but people would complain.
I didn't study for the ACT at all (literally went in without knowing anything about it) and got a 35. It's a trivial exam.
I got a 1040 on the SAT in the 5th grade. The average score is useless for gauging how hard these exams are.
Bragging how you got a 34 on the ACT or 1450+ on the SAT for an elite college is like bragging about clubbing a seal
Bar making exams harder, the only other way is subjective methods. I detest subjective methods, but making exams harder is very unpopular
The only thing that distinguishes applicants is the soft social stuff.
Japan and South Korea kind of fixed this problem with cram schools and ridiculously overtuned college admission exams. But e.g. KAIST isn’t really comparable to MIT.
Or is it that way because of some other factors? I was thinking how much of this is because of historical factors; I assume in times before standarised exams it would be a very convinient way of finding new students. But then, I don't know how it was historically in Europe/Asia.
It's true that this model is more fair, and that's good, but it still feels wrong. There are way too many professions where you're de-facto locked out if you didn't get the right credentials at the right age, regardless of your practical skills. That results in us putting teenagers through these absurd trials for no real reason.
The question you need to be asking is how the university system made an enemy out of someone who is clearly one of the most talented members of his age cohort in the nation. That's a failure no matter how hard you try to explain or justify the status quo. It's time for some real accountability and soul searching from the system, not excuses. Trying to nit pick the essay and pointing out how he should have done X or Y instead is completely missing the point.
I’m also quite sure letters matter for undergraduate admissions. They certainly do at the graduate level.
Yeah. That's how it works. When you do community building and participate in activities in addition to "the grind", people like you more.
This doesn't just apply to academia.
Unlikely