University of Texas has an excellent CompSci department and this person should be happy to attend.
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.
i agree but some people are so brainwashed from such an early age that they need to go to college and the best one out there or they won't be successful in life.
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.
The teenager the post is talking about and your neighbor are not the norm. For normal/average people (like me, for example), going to university and getting a degree is the best way to maximize our chances to get a decent income and average way of life (paying bills, eating good food, etc.)
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?
There is value for an 18 year old to work for a bit before trying to work a start up. It will help him meet people, pay rent, save some money, maybe learn some new tools, and something about management and business.
You missed the part where he has a profitable company already. He does more management and business at his own company than as a low level engineer at a megacorp.
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.
Kid’s making bank, congrats! But as an ex-L4 Googler I need to say, I’m sure he’s similarly frustrated as I was. I don’t live to maximize income - I want to maximize learning and fun. Compared to successfully launching a startup fixing bugs and launching minor features as an L4 is depressing as hell.
Not everyone will have it that bad. Hopefully he’s having a better time than I did.
Not a bad place if they make the most of it. They'll learn pretty good SDLC best practices and get exposed to Google's internal tooling. All of these are useful for running a technical team at some point.
Yes. Doing commits the Google way was a positive learning experience. Not applicable to really small early companies but a good tool for most other situations.
Quit! I did it and now I’m interviewing for roles where I could build the team from 1 to 5 engineers. Lots of good proven founders out there that want an ex-Googler.
Sure. But a kid that’s building a successful business as a high school sophomore probably has software engineering as a #1 interest with no close #2. I’ve got a healthy list of hobbies and it wasn’t enough for me.
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.
Black women have it so easy, and I know it? You think I know that black women have an unfair advantage and that's why universities are unfairly full of black women?
I went to community college and a tiny private college nobody has ever heard of and I got a good paying job in tech as an engineer at a prestigious company. And I understand the obsession with Stanford and MIT, the networking opportunities, the namesake, but I never felt like I had to attend a prestigious university to study what I wanted. Just my 2c. Ironically the community college prepared me better for a career in tech than the 4-year school.
Yeah, I think that, at least with respect to programming, the important question is, does college matter anymore. I think that ideally, it should not, because there are so so so many other ways to learn and prove yourself.
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.
There's some incongruity here: college admissions are by no means fair, but they also don't evaluate for nearly the same things as Google's hiring process does.
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.
idk, that is partly true. Then there's all the college signaling that academics are not enough. To be admitted in a top school you need to show extra curricular experience and generally be extraordinary, but now that's not enough. Well, I'd like to see the applications.
> 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.
There are more qualified applicants for both top-colleges and Apple/Google/Amazon jobs, so both processes have a high degree of randomness. I don’t draw any conclusions from one event occurring but not the other.
Evidence suggests it is false in the details if not in entirety - his high school lists all the colleges their graduates apply to, and it does not list all of those in this story.
Good for them. I am however, confused by the list of accomplishments, one of which is "wrote tests". I think this goes to show that audience matters---that list looks a lot better as items on a resume at an undergrad career fair than it looks to college admissions or even looks on a resume of someone a few years out of school.
Yes, that's almost certainly true. It's very odd that American schools generally run their undergraduate admissions with minimal input from their faculty.
I suspect it's not supposed to be taken at face value. It's a reference to Harvard admissions process, where asians seem to get suspiciously low "personality scores" compared to white applicants.
University of Texas, which one? if it's UT Austin then its CS program has been top 10 in the nation for quite a long time, so, good college CS program did admit him.
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.
> Shortly after he turned 18, Google hired him as an L4 software engineer, a position typically offered to candidates with multiple years of professional experience as well as a college degree.
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.
Oh, you're right, I spaced. I've been away from Google for a few years now, and I remembered the titles and Lx being off from each other but had it mixed up. Thanks for speaking up; I was wondering what the deal was with the downvotes.
I went to a small rural high school in the 1980s. Taught myself to code, started a business writing software, entered and won the regional science fair and placed second in the CS division of the International Science and Engineering Fair in 1987. Won a prestigious NASA internship, got glowing letters of recommendation from my NASA mentors. Took every AP class available to me (all both of them). Graduated third in my class.
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.
Prestigious schools are ranked in part based on how selective they are which incentivizes rejecting people rather than having some standard and growing to accommodate everyone who meets it. This incentivizes them to make admissions seem somewhat random so people that are unlikely to make the cut also apply. Even less selective schools want to reject some applicants simply to maintain a consistent number of students year to year.
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.
Above a certain threshold, and if you can't raise admissions, a random selection process is perfectly fair.
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.
Fair isn’t necessarily the most important metric for schools. If your parent is a billionaire it’s perfectly rational for them to prefer you over somewhat more qualified applicants.
Donations are appreciated, but so are connections.
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.
I've always wondered if they ever turn down people because the people applying appear that they will become intelligent and successful without said college? So why not accept someone who is doing great but not quite living up to their potential?
It's like a good fit for a job. If the school is not looking for many CompSci that year, they will pass. But if you are a history buff and the history department needs another declared major, you're all set. And your High School unfortunately really mattered then, and it matters even more now, especially with SAT scores disfavored. Also if you live in Mass vs Texas, because they likely have quotas for state residents, international, etc. And they pull first from magnate high schools and private schools, up to a third of their acceptances so I've heard. Currently it is smart to apply to more schools if your parents can afford it, as it increases the chance of a 'lucky strike'. And up at that level, much of it is luck.
Sounds like he dodged a bullet landing a solid 6 figure job rather than paying tens if not hundreds of thousands for the next 4 years (or going into that much debt)
I'm trying to find the takeaway, should kids not go to college? or that nobody reads the comments, since one of them raises the question, "is there proof?" and claims that not according to their linkedin
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 yes, racism, but a more pedestrian sense than a true sense. Any wealthy arab or prestigious african has access to these places, just not normal ones.
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.
Probably not intended by the poster, but this gives me hope. Universities shouldn't overvalue these. Ultimately, they are focused on academics. The profile of this person screams "Will drop out before graduating".
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.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 200 ms ] threadAlso, 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.
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?
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.
Like at a FAANG? That's easily the fastest and lowest risk path to financial security.
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.
And what they can't do through the front door, they are trying to do through the back door. https://www.opportunitynowsv.org/blog/-lawsuit-claims-ucs-fo... talks about one of many follow-up lawsuits.
Anyways, it's not me that's saying it: https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/
They recently won a court case you may have heard of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v...
But that decision is too late for this guy.
1. Caltech is a lot smaller than most of the others, only admitting a little over 400 per year.
2. Caltech puts more emphasis on producing researchers than most of the others do.
Black women have it so easy, and I know it? You think I know that black women have an unfair advantage and that's why universities are unfairly full of black women?
The latter is not true, but it is the case that black women drop out at disproportionately high rates out of these programmes.
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.
But, for many of its early years it was very particular about not only college degree, but which college and what you studied.
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.
This more than likely reads like gibberish to the average admissions officer.
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...
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.
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Zu5cdfv9kk&t=2587s
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.
"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.
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.
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.