DEI In Action? Elite Colleges Reject 18 Year Old Honor Student Who Invented $30 Million App
n 18 year old high school student with a 4.0 grade point average, who invented a $30 million AI calorie-counting app, says he was rejected by 15 out of 18 elite colleges including Ivy League schools like Harvard, MIT and Princeton.
Zach Yadegari is the founder and CEO of the Cal AI app which tracks a person’s calories just by taking a picture of the food they are eating.
The app has been downloaded more than 5 million times and brings in nearly $30 million annually.
Despite having become a millionaire, Yadegari says he wants to attend college to build upon what he’s already been able to accomplish.
With a 4.0 grade point average and a 35 ACT score, Yadegari applied to a number of prestigious colleges, including Ivy League schools.
However, many of those elite schools, have rejected him.
Yadegari described the disappointment of being passed over by so many of the other institutions, telling Fox News, “I think that college admissions tries to place students in this rubric, a very tight box, that makes it difficult for students that have achievements outside of school, like an entrepreneur, to really stand out.”
When asked why he would want to attend college, in the first place, Yadegari spoke of the intense work he’s put in as a entrepreneur.
“I’ve sacrificed a lot of social events in order to achieve what I really have,” he continued, “I’m 18, I want to hang out with other 18 year olds. I don’t want to go straight into the business world just yet.”
Commenting on the reasons why admissions appear to be skewed against entrepreneurial students, Yadegari told TMZ, “I think they are definitely looking for someone moldable, who they can shape how they want. But I was thinking that if I was running a college myself, from a business-oriented perspective, I would want someone who is potentially a future donor… but I think more importantly, is just saying that all these successful people went to your school.”
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“I think they are definitely looking for someone moldable, who they can shape how they want. But I was thinking that if I was running a college myself, from a business-oriented perspective, I would want someone who is potentially a future donor… but I think more importantly, is just saying that all these successful people went to your school.”
Possibly they rejected him because he comes across an opinionated show off who thinks he knows how to run a university better than the teachers . .
Yadegari's experience is also a strong counterexample to the assumption that colleges are run in order to get the most money from future donors.
And there's a whole lot more evidence against that theory of college operations. Just look at the kinds of courses colleges offer! Most of them are not about money-making skills!
If you were operating an elite school on a money-making basis, you would cut out entire departments like art, comparative languages, history, literature, psychology, and social work. The fact that elite schools offer these kinds of courses and majors is pretty strong proof that the "potential future donor" assumption is dead wrong!!
@ElwoodBlues You go to college or university to develop intellectually and as a person. Students are selected as much for their potential as their academic achievements at school. If you think you've achieved it all by the age of 18 you are unlikely to be very receptive to or benefit from higher education.
His perception of the admissions policy is strange. He is really the one advocating a "moldable" student, not the universities.
