I suggested the same thing (see Post No. 23). I suspect there is something in his application package — other than his Asian surname — that sent up bells and whistles. Perhaps he wrote a highly offensive essay or worse, plagiarized the essay or used AI or a third-party service to write the essay for him. From what I understand, many highly selective colleges and universities routinely run the application essays though a database that looks for unoriginal works (i.e., plagiarized, 3rd party service, or AI.
He's probably a great student and a nice kid. But, maybe this is what happened:
Many high-scoring students are rejected by top universities, especially for STEM programs, which are highly competitive. Right?
This young man and his father believe something set him apart from everyone else: At age 13, he received a letter from Google offering him a position after high school. Then he was hired by Google after high school.
I once met someone whose son, at age 13 or 14, received a similar letter when he applied to work in IT for a major company. He, too, was hired by that company after high school.
Here's where the stories differ: The boy (I knew about) had no connections at the company that hired him.
OTOH, the young Asian American man's father works for Google as a software engineer manager.
So, maybe the colleges disregarded the letter from Google and the Google job from the equation.
What was left? His near-perfect SAT score and high school GPA, and he was competing against other top students for the top STEM programs.