Internet giant Google has offered a software engineer position to Stanley Zhong, an 18-year-old high school graduate from Palo Alto, California, who was rejected by 16 colleges, including prestigious Ivy League and state schools. Google offered him the job based on his academic excellence and skills.

Zhong graduated from Gunn High School in Silicon Valley with outstanding grades and even launched a successful e-signing startup, RabbitSign, before graduating. He believed that physical signing would be overtaken by digital signing, so he founded the startup to capitalize on this trend.

Despite his accomplishments, Zhong faced rejection from 16 colleges, including top-tier institutions such as MIT, Stanford, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon. He was accepted by the University of Texas and the University of Maryland, but he initially planned to attend the University of Texas. However, he later changed his mind and accepted Google”s offer instead, believing that the Google campus would be the best place for him to develop his computer and entrepreneurial skills.

Zhong now realizes that he may not have been accepted to college because there were many other intelligent students, especially at Ivy League and top colleges. He says that the pool of applicants, which includes some of the best talent in computer science, is highly competitive.

Zhong”s case has created waves in the socio-political arena, with many calling for a reform of college selection criteria. A witness even testified about Zhong”s case at a hearing on affirmative action before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Affirmative action is an attempt to diversify college campuses, but it has been outlawed by the US Supreme Court at most colleges and universities.