While most entrepreneurs who succeed in building in successful startups do not bother to pursue further education 18-year-old Zach Yadegari the founder and CEO of the nutrition tracking app Cal AI applied to several Ivy League colleges -- including Harvard Stanford MIT and Yale-- but faced rejection despite a 4.0 GPA a 34 ACT score and running a startup valued at $30 million. In a post the young entrepreneur revealed a list of top schools that rejected his application despite his academic and business credentials sparking a debate among netizens about the fairness of admissions in Ivy League schools in the United States. 18 years old 34 ACT 4.0 GPA $30M ARR biz Stanford ❌ MIT ❌ Harvard ❌ Yale ❌ WashU ❌ Columbia ❌ UPenn ❌ Princeton ❌ Duke ❌ USC ❌ Georgia Tech ✅ UVA ❌ NYU ❌ UT ✅ Vanderbilt ❌ Brown ❌ UMiami ✅ Cornell ❌ — Zach Yadegari (@zach_yadegari) April 1 2025 In the X post which has reached over 26 million users and garnered thousands of retweets comments and likes Yadegari also listed down three top colleges he had been accepted in -- Georgia Tech the University of Texas and the University of Miami. Heres how users reacted; 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? asked one user. My motivation of going to college is just to have a social life Zach replied. “Insanity any institution would be lucky to have you. The admissions officer reading your app was probably jealous another user commented. While Yadegari gathered a lot of support from a majority of users but a few also pointed out flaws in his argument which sounded like self-obsession. Bro they have the names of presidents world leaders and Fortune 100 CEOs. This statement reveals you have a lot left to learn about the world but youll get there. Keep grinding said another commenter. And each one of those names brings them immense value. The more recent the better. Your argument is not convincing the young entrepreneur replied. Zachs college essay gets mixed reviews Some users also questioned whether the tone of his college essay influence the outcome. Responding to these comments Zach shared the essay in a pinned comment on his post detailing his journey from a self-taught coder at age 7 to giving coding lessons at $30/hour at 10 launching a $60000-a-year gaming website at 14 and exiting a six-figure business before he turned 16. Zach Yadegari also revealed why he decided to skip traditional high school and move to San Francisco to build Cal AI. The essay drew a mixed response with users pointing out that Yadagari lacked real-world experience despite achieving success at a young age. “Look man your essay was worse than the ones that rich parents pay to have written for their kids. Also they want leadership: building a business that impacts millions of people is nothing compared to saying you created a fake charity writes one user. You opened with a strong stance against college and while your change of heart is compelling the essay doesn’t quite answer the natural follow-up questions another commented.