Zach Yadegari, the 18-year-old CEO and co-founder of Cal AI, claims to have a 4.0 GPA (Grade Point Average) and an impressive 34 ACT (American College Testing) score – a test score for admissions in college in the US and Canada. Despite this, he shared that most top universities, including Ivy League colleges, rejected his application. Out of the 18 colleges he applied to, only three accepted him. The New York-based entrepreneur took to X (formerly Twitter) to share his college admission essay and tagged Elon Musk for his thoughts.
Yadegari’s startup, Cal AI, has been recognised by Forbes as an app that “challenges legacy industry giants”. It allows users to track calories by simply taking pictures of their food and has grown into a $30 million ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) business.
Colleges that rejected Zach Yadegari’s application
On April 1, Yadegari named the universities that rejected and accepted him in a now-viral post that has over 11.9 million views. Not only Ivy League colleges – Harvard University, Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn), Brown University, Cornell University – rejected his application, but top universities like Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Duke University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Southern California (USC), Washington University (WashU), New York University (NYU), and the University of Virginia (UVA) have also rejected his application.
The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), and the University of Miami (UMiami) are the only universities from the list of colleges he applied to that have accepted his application.
Replying to his viral post, he shared his “personal statement” on joining college five years after texting his mother that he “would never go to college”. “By age 7, I was coding. By 10, I was giving lessons for $30/hour. By 12, I published my first app on the App Store. By 14, my online gaming website was earning $60,000 annually. And by 16, I had a six-figure exit,” Yadegari said.
He credited YouTube as his “personal tutor” that taught him “everything from programming to filing LLC taxes”.
After moving to San Francisco with his co-founder, he hired his first employee and battled imposter syndrome, which, instead of holding him back, became his driving force. Soon, Cal AI became the fastest-growing app in its category.
The college dropout CEO then shared one of the highlights of his life: “One night, I refreshed my App Store Connect dashboard and saw it – One million dollars of revenue. In the last 30 days. As the dopamine surged through my body and I threw my hands in the air in victory, something felt missing. What was next? It wasn’t loneliness….”
He added that though he achieved something he can be proud of, something was off. “It was a question of purpose. Was this hedonic treadmill of capitalism what the rest of my life was designated for? Yes, my app was helping hundreds of thousands of people lose weight. But would I ever feel this rush again? Was my north star money, pride, fame… or something else entirely?”
Despite rejecting the idea of college, a visit to the Ryoan-ji rock garden in Kyoto changed his perception. He started seeing college as an opportunity to learn.
Yadegari said that he is ready to send a new message to his mother: “I am going to college,” as he now sees that “individuality and connection are not opposites, but complements”.
“Through college, I will contribute to and grow within that larger whole, empowering me to leave an even greater lasting, positive impact on the world,” he believes.
Social media reactions
X users quickly assembled in the comments section of his post and shared their views. While some slammed his “poor college admissions essay” as the reason behind the low acceptance rate, others think it is his “entitlement”.
“Congrats on getting into college! My advice is to drop the entitlement now though because nobody owes you anything, no matter how accomplished you are on paper. The world can be a cruel place if you think it owes you something, regardless of how hard you have worked. The reality is that there will always be someone else who’s more accomplished than you, has more money than you, more toys than you, cured more cancers than you, done more brain surgeries than you, etc. Keep grinding but find ways to contribute to something that extends beyond you and have some humility. This is the key to happiness. Good luck!” said an Ophthalmologist.
However, Yadegari thinks otherwise: “I don’t think this tweet is entitled. I’m just stating facts and allowing others to make observations.”
Another social media user thinks that “any institution would be lucky to have him” and jokingly added, “The admissions officer reading your app was probably jealous.”
“This is a joke, right?” yet another Internet user asked.
A fourth commented, “Wow this is so insane. Also, just curious, what’s your main motivation to still go to college when you’ve already done more than a lot of full-time professionals?”
“My motivation for going to college is just to have a social life,” the teenage CEO and founder explained.
He also revealed that he dedicated two weeks to writing his essays and didn’t do anything else, adding, “Had them looked over by the best writers I know,” as he replied to those individuals who were not impressed by his college admissions essay just like most top universities. He also said that by attending college, he is “seeking the best four years of his life”.