Posted on 04/10/2025 6:13:55 AM PDT by DFG
An 18-year-old with a near-perfect GPA founded a business that made $30 million in its first year — but that isn’t enough to woo college counselors these days.
At least that’s Zach Yadegari’s experience as he was rejected by 15 out of the 18 schools he applied to, despite a 4.0 GPA and score of 34 on the ACT.
The 18-year-old business founder shared his string of college rejections to X, where the post racked up more than 27 million views — with many shocked by elite higher ed’s apparent allergy to the entrepreneurial spirit.
“I didn’t expect to be accepted to all of these colleges, however, I did expect to at least be accepted to a couple of the top schools I was applying to,” Yadegari told The Post. “I think that entrepreneurial accomplishments may not be fully appreciated.”
The Rosslyn, New York, public schooler is already a self-made success before graduation. He learned to code at age 7, was giving lessons at age 10, and had an app in the App Store by age 12.
In his junior year, Yadegari founded Cal AI, an app that calculates how many calories are in a meal just by snapping a picture. It now makes tens of millions a year.
Nonetheless, the teen applied early to the University of Pennsylvania, where he was rejected.
During the regular decision round, he was turned down by Stanford, MIT, Harvard, Yale, Washington University in St. Louis, Columbia, Princeton, Duke, USC, the University of Virginia, NYU, Vanderbilt, Brown, and Cornell.
“I held out hope for Stanford, but then when I opened their rejection letter, all of the prior rejections just flooded in and really hit me at once,” the Roslyn High School senior said.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Yes, the kid is a superstar entrepreneur who at 18 has already achieved greater financial success than 99.5% of the college population ever will.
BUT I would suggest that everyone here who’s knocking the colleges for rejecting him read the application essay that he posted online. It’s all about how he’d been following the “dropout founder” paradigm ... but then had an epiphany while globe-trotting in places like Kyoto that there might be some value in being in college where he could learn in-person from professors and fellow students. All the folks here feeling sorry for this guy... ask yourselves this... if you’re an admissions officer at a college with a relatively small number of slots relative to applicants, do you really reject some other kid who’s dying to come to your college in favor of thks self-described “dropout founder” whose ambivalence about formal education is tempered only by an expressed desire to socialize on campus?
Didn’t white males Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg both drop out of Harvard to go on to become millionaires? Seems like the kid is one step ahead of those two.
“He learned to code at age 7, was giving lessons at age 10, and had an app in the App Store by age 12.”
Yet still didn’t think to talk about his SAT score...if he even took it?
He must not know his pronouns yet.
He needs to apply to Elon.
btt!!
Well that is a good reason too... :)
He needs to re-think WHY he ‘needs’ to go to some university, especially some overpriced elite school.
I wonder what it’s going to take to stop that?
Yeah, the kid should make a pile of money now and go to college later. Maybe learn to dive the Triple Lindy along the way.
What makes no sense is these colleges rejecting him because he wouldn’t add to the college. If he wants to be there to make connections as well as learn from humans (which would include learning how to collaborate with others) then the colleges are doing a disservice to their other students who may have been able to join in collaboration with him
.
Zach, please, do NOT go to UT. You’re better than that.
Worst place in the world. Berkeley of the South.
His last name originates from Persia.
Yadegari is already a Persian last name.
They can’t take the chance of him correcting the profs.
Why would he need college?
Then, he’s “whiteish”...
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