High school graduate who was rejected by over a dozen colleges gets job at Google
LifeStyle
An 18-year-old has found his next career move — working at Google
(Wed Desk) - An 18-year-old who was rejected by over a dozen colleges has found his next career move — working at Google.
Stanley Zhong graduated from Gunn High School in Palo Alto, California with a 3.97 unweighted and 4.42 weighted GPA and had a score of 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT's, but still was rejected from most of the 18 colleges he applied to, according to KABC-TV.
"Some of them were certainly expected," Stanley told the outlet, specifically mentioning MIT and Stanford.
However, he did say he thought he "had a good chance" at getting into the state schools he applied to, like UC Davis and the California Polytechnic State University.
Although Stanley was admitted to a few schools, including the University of Texas at Austin, he also decided to try his hand at finding a job straight out of high school.
That included applying for an open full-time job as a software engineer at Google, which he called a "moonshot," according to CBS News.
"I figured worst case, I would get interview experience and see what the process was like and maybe I would get lucky," Zhong told the outlet.
Of course, the teen did end up getting lucky and started work there earlier this month, putting college on hold, per the outlets.
However, the 18-year-old told KABC-TV that he felt frustrated by the college acceptance process.
"You don't get reasons, you just get 'You're rejected,'" the 18-year-old also told CBS News.
His father — who works as a Google software engineering manager — told KABC-TV he wanted to launch a movement in order to demand transparency in the college admission process.
Stanley’s case was also brought up by Asian American Coalition for Education (AACE) president Yukong Mike Zhao at a House Committee on Education and the Workforce hearing last month, which tackled the issue of race-based college admissions.
As for the future, the teen told CBS News that while he hasn't ruled out re-applying to college, he plans on working at Google "for at least a year."
“From there I will think about, 'Am I am making good contributions and doing good work?' If that's the case, I will stay until I don't feel like I am or that I am really missing out on a lot by not going to college," he said.
