A highschool teen behind an AI app producing $30 million in annual income simply received rejected by 15 high faculties, together with Ivy League colleges like Harvard, Columbia, and Princeton. Tens of hundreds of commentators on X are positive that it was his private assertion that received in the way in which.
Zach Yadegari, the 18-year-old co-founder of the picture calorie app Cal AI, shared his expertise with school admissions final week in a post on X. Yadegari disclosed that he had a 4.0 GPA and a 34 ACT rating. ACT scores are reported out of a most of 36; Yadegari’s rating locations him amongst the top 5% of check takers.
He additionally had his app, Cal AI, as a mission that he shared with faculties. Cal AI permits customers to take an image of the meals on their plate and have the app robotically log the meal’s energy and macronutrients. Yadegari launched Cal AI in Could, and within the eight months since its launch, the app has garnered over 5 million downloads and greater than $2 million in month-to-month income, he instructed TechCrunch.
Cal AI has a 4.8-star ranking on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, with a minimum of 80,000 evaluations on every retailer.
Regardless of Yadegari’s achievements, he was rejected from 15 of the 18 colleges he utilized to, with solely Georgia Tech, the College of Texas, and the College of Miami extending him acceptances. Yadegari posted screenshots of his private assertion, which described how he went from coding on the age of seven to constructing Cal AI and interviewing his first worker to work on the app.
The essay overarchingly tracked how Yadegari went from vowing to by no means attend school to desirous to attend college to attach with different college students.
“Faculty, I got here to understand, is greater than a mere proper of passage,” he wrote. “It’s the conduit to raise the work I’ve all the time achieved.”
A user on X commented that Yadegari’s private assertion signaled to admissions officers he would doubtless drop out.
“Private assertion signifies that you are a excessive likelihood to drop out,” they wrote. “So that they gave your spot to somebody that really desires to graduate school.”
Over 20,000 different X customers favored the remark.
private assertion signifies that you are a excessive likelihood to drop out
so that they gave your spot to somebody that really desires to graduate school
— WPA ?? (@warpaul) April 1, 2025
Faculty functions to high colleges have been on the rise. The New York Times stories that the Ivy-Plus colleges, or the eight Ivy League faculties plus MIT, Duke, the College of Chicago, and Stanford, obtained greater than triple the variety of functions in 2022 than they did twenty years prior.
As of January, functions to schools rose 7% in comparison with final yr on the identical time. Greater than 1.2 million highschool college students utilized to school this yr, submitting 6.7 million functions to schools, in response to Common App data.
Common SAT scores have additionally barely inched up over the previous three many years. In 1994, the common rating was 1,003, whereas in 2024, the common rating was 1,024, per PrepScholar.
Yadegari told TechCrunch that on the finish of the day, he is not positive why he was rejected from so many colleges. He is nonetheless determining what he plans to do.
“Finally, I am going to by no means know precisely why I used to be turned down,” he instructed the publication.
One other X consumer requested why Yadegari needed to go to school when he had already had skilled experiences.
“My motivation [for] going to school is simply to have a social life,” Yadegari replied.
This text is a part of our ongoing Younger Entrepreneur® sequence highlighting the tales, challenges and triumphs of being a younger enterprise proprietor.
