Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges(dcurbanmom.com) |
Hired by Google as L4 but rejected by top colleges(dcurbanmom.com) |
I don't understand why this is not more widely understood. These schools are not for meritocracy. Schools with sports teams fill much of the incoming class with athletes before they even consider an application, and then they start picking from places and people who'll keep their prestige reciprocally high. The son of a foreign dictator would never attend the school that produced the only human with two unshared nobel prizes, because that's not the game they're playing.
And when they pick, they're starting with schools the admissions officers have relationships with (rich people schoools) that require rich people middle schools to attend, etc...
The chain starts in childhood, you don't just take a bunch of tests available to the public.
I've had friends whose job it was to interview kindergarteners for access to their exclusive schools. Others had to deal with two sets of parents suing each other over one's access to that school.
And before you say this is conspiratorial, I've verified this with admissions people and deans from these places.
And these colleges looooove it this happens. Their numbers get better and they didn't have to do anything that compromises their design philosophy.
And having interviewed people for much less prestigious 'diversity' programs, I can't help but relate. The African diplomat's son with an excellent international education interviews well and gives your organization a future 'success' story.
However, I am surprised that he would only be accepted at two of those universities, given the grades, SAT, and competitive coding. Most of those schools are solid but non-name branded.
Where can we see this, glassdoor or something?
I think it's safe to assume that Mr. Zhong is of an Asian background. My guess is that he is, unfortunately, lacking in "interpersonal skills".
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/us/harvard-asian-enrollme...
L4 is the entry level for Google's SWE position, and Google absolutely hires SWEs straight out of college (no professional experience). A Google SWE without a college degree is more rare but I know a few. I'd never heard of an 18-year-old landing a full-time Google SWE position, though. Congratulations to him!
edit: sorry, got mixed up, entry level is L3. Thanks for the correction.
L4 requires experience. New grad hires are L3.
* L3 = Software Engineer II, entry level. (There's no Software Engineer I.)
* L4 = Software Engineer III.
* L5 = Senior Software Engineer.
* L6 = Staff Software Engineer.
* ...Put another way: colleges aren't qualified or equipped to make the kinds of determinations that Google does when hiring engineers, and being hired as a Google engineer prior to going to college isn't any particularly strong signal that you're prepared to go to a specific school.
I sympathize with his situation, but I think treating college acceptances as a foregone conclusion based on demonstrated engineering prowess is an error.
While the demonstrated engineering prowess in high school does not guarantee an acceptance into a good college, I view it as the problem with the acceptance process.
Any college acceptance is somewhat random, but the fact that the vast majority of the listed 16 computer science programs rejected him does not show the US college acceptance process in good light. My 2c.
Also played on the varsity basketball team, was an Eagle Scout, and served in my church.
Oh, and scored 1460 on the SAT and 34 on the ACT.
And I got turned down flat by MIT and waitlisted by Yale. Actually, MIT turned me down twice, once for undergrad and again for grad school.
I also ended up at the University of Maryland, and had the time of my life there. And I've had a wildly successful career, which occasionally means I fund MIT professors.
It's a crap shoot. I'd love to know what happened when the MIT admissions board looked at my resume, because as a rational exercise I don't get that decision.
Which isn’t to say things are random internally, just that they don’t want most people to be able to know if they would get rejected.
It's certainly fairer, IMO, than having a perfectly objective ranking system that mirrors biases in society, and then using affirmative action to counteract those biases.
SAT 1590 is nothing for MIT or CMU or things like that though, esp for male students with Asian names, you need way more than just a great SAT score and a perfect GPA, a lot more indeed.
The high bar on Asian male for good universities just made them even stronger academically, with internet and free job market nowadays, nothing can stop a smart and determined mind, and they might actually have saved a lot of money because some colleges rejected them based on their ethnicity.
I think college is great for a lot of things like physics or philosophy, but maybe, outside of theoretical CS, it just doesn't matter anymore. And that's OK.
This more than likely reads like gibberish to the average admissions officer.
Also, there are plenty of engineers at Big Tech companies and at startups who have no degree other than a high school diploma and a huge number don’t have a computer science degree if they do have one.
There is also a large contingent of folks who have terminal degrees in law or a PhD in Physics but work in software engineering.
I think the college application process is a crapshoot for the most part but its likely that this person didn’t distinguish themselves in that particular area but apparently had no issue passing a completely different criteria and process for an engineering gig at Google.
Not everyone will have it that bad. Hopefully he’s having a better time than I did.
Feeling the time wasted on mundane BS and thumb twiddling while at Google literally gave me nightmares. Granted, I need to and am working on healthy stress management. But that would probably just get me to recognize I need to quit sooner.
My only hope is that people will see through how potentially useless college education is. For many people, it's simply an extended daycare if you need additional time to find your life's direction. Kids like this one don't need it. Kudos to him! Teaching models are largely broken. All you need is youtube and an internet connection these days. Structured post-K12 education is over-rated.
Moreover, some have pointed out that the Stanley Zhong's primary background in the case was founding a startup that utilized services from a major tech company, like Amazon Web Services (AWS). This situation has led to discussions about the potential overlap between the teenager's career development and the parent's professional connections, as Nan Zhong happens to be previously software engineer manager at AWS.
> Moreover, some have pointed out that the Stanley Zhong's primary background in the case was founding a startup that utilized services from a major tech company, like Amazon Web Services (AWS). This situation has led to discussions about the potential overlap between the teenager's career development and the parent's professional connections, as Nan Zhong happens to be previously software engineer manager at AWS.
This is BS. Every web app runs on some cloud infrastructure (or I guess on-prem is an option if you have a lot of money), but as a high school student your budget will be determined based on how much free credit you'll get. Google Cloud and AWS both have generous amounts of free credits for startups, so realistically these were the two best options. I think it's slightly easier to get AWS credits than Google, but regardless, they're pretty easy to get (I have a friend who has gotten tens of thousands of dollars worth of free credits for simply having registered an LLC and getting a Mercury account).
Plus both processes have immense amounts of variance. It's not hard to find excellent candidates who were rejected from a particular university or job.
I feel like we are missing something. Someone with perfect grades, SAT, and leading a competition coding team should get accepted to more schools (many are strong but not name-brand).
I mean, if he applied to average universities and got rejected, that would be notable. But applying only at top universities and getting rejected? That's not at all notable.
Mandatory bragging: When I glance left, I can see a reflection of the top of UT tower and the capitol in my window. Also, I-35 S traffic is backed up as far as the eye can see and I-35 N is inching along like lukewarm molasses.
sounds about right. at least you can get drunk on dirty 6th with the rest of the uni folks
https://gunn.pausd.org/campus-life/college-career-center/col...
A better answer is that his startup is done and generating cash flow with part time work, and doesn't really have a future growing to really challenging DocuSign.
I should point them to my old neighbor who didn't go to school and worked as a HVAC tech. Then started his own company and he barely works now and is 42.
That's true success in my book
I think it’s kinda obvious. Haven’t you seen the enormous amount of people out there without studies that have a very difficult life?
Like at a FAANG? That's easily the fastest and lowest risk path to financial security.
"the university could use a new international airport..."
Mixing the extremes of intellect, social connections, and wealth offers benefits to each group. It’s an old formula and arguably a larger factor of what makes an elite school than its faculty.