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Teen with 4.0 GPA who built the viral Cal AI app was rejected by 15 universities

19 points by impish9208 2y ago

cratermoon 2y ago
better headline: creating "viral" apps with AI and making a lot of money isn't qualification for college admissions.
dmitrygr 2y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20250322125346/https://www.nyu.edu/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250322125346/https://www.nyu.e...
eunos 2y ago
The American Universities college admission practices of writing "personal essays" without a clear metrics sure is very peculiar.
- klooney 2y ago
  It's how you keep the riff raff out.
  - easterncalculus 2y ago
    It's how you keep the people that can't pay for 'consultants' that simply know the admissions teams out.
- bigyabai 2y ago
  If you're offended by private institutions judging applicants on their written communication skills, wait until you find out how American companies filter job applications. You'll be shocked when you learn how that proverbial sausage is made.
sorcerer-mar 2y ago
Probably because Cal AI is effectively a scam? There’s no way to get a useful approximation of calories from pointing vision models at finished meals…
- handfuloflight 2y ago
  I used the app. You have to do a ton of work to get it accurate.
  - sorcerer-mar 2y ago
    The requisite information just isn’t in the arrangement of photons that touch the camera lens! Especially since good weight programs rely on fairly minor caloric deltas where e.g. physically invisible amounts of butter can switch you from a deficit to a surplus.
    - handfuloflight 2y ago
      Indeed. It's less hassle to just visually arrange and eat smaller portions than go through all that cataloguing work.
smittywerben 2y ago
If getting accepted by 3 top universities in 18 applications is bad I must be a saint applying for hundreds if jobs on LinkedIn and getting none. Good article.
arjunrko 2y ago
Came across essay excerpts on X - didn't read like he was very excited to go to college.
- cratermoon 2y ago
  I'd almost think he was trying to get rejected in order to capitalize on some sort of anti-education "founders don't need degrees" thing.
  - arjunrko 2y ago
    Job well done wrt reach, ig. There's this other guy who got kicked from Colombia for cheating on an Amazon LeetCode interview. Milked the episode really well and is an X influencer now.
dekhn 2y ago
Schools don't want people who min-max for college acceptance. They want people who are genuinely excited to go to that school. I don't think his essay was necessarily a deal-breaker if you read it as a "I learned from experience but need to get another kind of experience, one that you get at college". Still, it reads as colossally arrogant and I don't see an admissions officer having any problem rejecting him as a candidate.
aaron695 2y ago
It's just because he is white male looking isn't it, academia hates white men. Why are we over thinking this? Personal statements like job apps are about bragging which is hard for anyone to do, the comments putting this down are piss poor. Otherwise the comments are he shouldn't have written it as a normal 17 year old, he should have paid an experienced adult to faked it like everyone else. They could have helped him fake the "diversity" universities chase. If universities wanted true diversity he is it. He's already worthy to have on their alumni which for the adults in the room, when all information is on your phone universities are the mostly connections you create . i.e. Gates, Wozniak , Jobs
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
  Nah, as a parent of a high achieving daughter who had higher GPA/ACT scores than this teen, I can tell you the issue is that a high percentage of students who apply to places like Stanford and MIT also have perfect scores. A 4.0 GPA 34 ACT doesn't mean much anymore. My daughter was waitlisted or rejected by every Ivy+ engineering dept she applied to. (Granted she might have gotten in had she applied for general admission; applying directly to Engineering is doubly-hard. She ultimately accepted a full scholarship at a good "second tier" engineering school and graduated debt free, which is maybe better.) There's just so much competition these days, especially from foreign students who have spent most of their lives perfecting test taking and spend considerable money on tutoring for their applications/essays as well.

19 points by impish9208 2y ago

better headline: creating "viral" apps with AI and making a lot of money isn't qualification for college admissions.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250322125346/https://www.nyu.edu/ https://web.archive.org/web/20250322125346/https://www.nyu.e...

eunos 2y ago

The American Universities college admission practices of writing "personal essays" without a clear metrics sure is very peculiar.

klooney 2y ago
It's how you keep the riff raff out.
- easterncalculus 2y ago
  It's how you keep the people that can't pay for 'consultants' that simply know the admissions teams out.
bigyabai 2y ago
If you're offended by private institutions judging applicants on their written communication skills, wait until you find out how American companies filter job applications. You'll be shocked when you learn how that proverbial sausage is made.

sorcerer-mar 2y ago

Probably because Cal AI is effectively a scam? There’s no way to get a useful approximation of calories from pointing vision models at finished meals…

handfuloflight 2y ago
I used the app. You have to do a ton of work to get it accurate.
- sorcerer-mar 2y ago
  The requisite information just isn’t in the arrangement of photons that touch the camera lens! Especially since good weight programs rely on fairly minor caloric deltas where e.g. physically invisible amounts of butter can switch you from a deficit to a surplus.
  - handfuloflight 2y ago
    Indeed. It's less hassle to just visually arrange and eat smaller portions than go through all that cataloguing work.

smittywerben 2y ago

If getting accepted by 3 top universities in 18 applications is bad I must be a saint applying for hundreds if jobs on LinkedIn and getting none. Good article.

arjunrko 2y ago

Came across essay excerpts on X - didn't read like he was very excited to go to college.

cratermoon 2y ago
I'd almost think he was trying to get rejected in order to capitalize on some sort of anti-education "founders don't need degrees" thing.
- arjunrko 2y ago
  Job well done wrt reach, ig. There's this other guy who got kicked from Colombia for cheating on an Amazon LeetCode interview. Milked the episode really well and is an X influencer now.

dekhn 2y ago

Schools don't want people who min-max for college acceptance. They want people who are genuinely excited to go to that school. I don't think his essay was necessarily a deal-breaker if you read it as a "I learned from experience but need to get another kind of experience, one that you get at college". Still, it reads as colossally arrogant and I don't see an admissions officer having any problem rejecting him as a candidate.

aaron695 2y ago

It's just because he is white male looking isn't it, academia hates white men. Why are we over thinking this? Personal statements like job apps are about bragging which is hard for anyone to do, the comments putting this down are piss poor. Otherwise the comments are he shouldn't have written it as a normal 17 year old, he should have paid an experienced adult to faked it like everyone else. They could have helped him fake the "diversity" universities chase. If universities wanted true diversity he is it. He's already worthy to have on their alumni which for the adults in the room, when all information is on your phone universities are the mostly connections you create . i.e. Gates, Wozniak , Jobs

insane_dreamer 2y ago
Nah, as a parent of a high achieving daughter who had higher GPA/ACT scores than this teen, I can tell you the issue is that a high percentage of students who apply to places like Stanford and MIT also have perfect scores. A 4.0 GPA 34 ACT doesn't mean much anymore. My daughter was waitlisted or rejected by every Ivy+ engineering dept she applied to. (Granted she might have gotten in had she applied for general admission; applying directly to Engineering is doubly-hard. She ultimately accepted a full scholarship at a good "second tier" engineering school and graduated debt free, which is maybe better.) There's just so much competition these days, especially from foreign students who have spent most of their lives perfecting test taking and spend considerable money on tutoring for their applications/essays as well.