His Story

His Story

• Exceptional achievements: Stanley graduated from Gunn High School in Palo Alto with a 3.97 unweighted / 4.42 weighted GPA and scored 1590 out of 1600 on the SAT. He also co-founded an e‑document startup called RabbitSign during his sophomore year and tutored underserved students in coding. ABC7 San Francisco+1

• Rejections from 16 colleges: Despite his impressive credentials, he was turned down by 16 of the 18 institutions he applied to—including top schools like MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, Georgia Tech, and several University of California campuses. His only acceptances were from the University of Texas at Austin and University of Maryland. New York PostABC7 San Francisco+1

• Job offer from Google: Soon after these setbacks, Google made him a full-time software engineering offer at a level typically reserved for PhD-level candidates—a role he accepted. New York PostABC7 San Francisco

Legal Action: Alleging Discrimination

Feeling the sting of these rejections, Stanley and his father, Nan Zhong, have taken legal action:

• They filed lawsuits against multiple University of California campuses (Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, UCSB, UC Davis), and the University of Washington and Michigan, alleging that Asian-American applicants faced discriminatory admissions practices. New York PostABC7 San Francisco

• Their argument highlights the contrast between Stanley’s credentials—which earned him a job with Google—and the rejections from colleges, asserting systemic bias. New York PostABC7 San Francisco

• Nan Zhong is representing the case pro se, using AI tools like ChatGPT to help draft documents. New York Post

Community Insight: Reddit Perspectives

Here’s how some members of the public have responded online:

“Going to a extremely competitive school in Palo Alto … there might’ve been one or two opportunities for Gunn Class of ’23 grads … more competitive than him vying for the same schools.”
Reddit

“He was denied by 16 schools… His most notable awards: picoCTF 2023 – 3rd Place, MIT Battlecode #1 US HS team, Google Code Jam 2021 Semifinalist, USACO Platinum…”