Chinese prodigy rejected by 16 US universities files discrimination

A young Chinese prodigy was turned down by 16 universities in the United States despite possessing exceptional academic credentials, before he ultimately secured a position with the technology giant Google. 

In response to his experiences, the 19-year-old Stanley Zhong and his father are pursuing legal action against the university system for discrimination.

Zhong graduated from Gunn High School with a 3.97 grade point average and a 4.42 weighted GPA, alongside with a SAT score of 1590, which only about 2,000 students achieved.

However, the teen was only admitted by the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Maryland among the 18 universities he applied to.

Among the sixteen rejected colleges, five were University of California schools, including UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego and UC Santa Barbara.

According to reports, Zhong was hired by Google as a PhD-level full-time software engineer at the age of 18 in the fall of 2023.

Zhong’s experience prompted the family to join forces with the group Students Who Oppose Racial Discrimination (SWORD), which also believes Asian Americans are being discriminated against throughout the college admissions process, to file a lawsuit against the University of California (UC) system.

The 291-page lawsuit pointed out Zhong’s technical achievements for the UC application are the same as those sent to Google, but Google offered him a PhD degree level position or equivalent after he was denied by the colleges.

The family also cited evidence of the low admission rate among Asian Americans in the state's schools despite the strong growth of the Asian community in California.

It is reported that the Zhongs are currently pursuing a jury trial, while accusing the US Department of Education of failing to address the alleged racial discrimination in the university system.