The 18-year-old entrepreneur behind a $30M startup was turned down by Harvard, Yale, and more

Zach Yadegari, an 18-year-old entrepreneur who runs a $30 million startup, has been rejected by several Ivy League schools and top American universities. The incident has sparked widespread debate online.

Yadegari is the founder and CEO of Cal AI, a nutrition-tracking app that allows users to log their calorie intake simply by taking pictures of their food.

Perfect grades but no Ivy League acceptance

Despite holding a perfect 4.0 Grade Point Average (GPA) and an impressive ACT score of 34—a standardized test score for college admissions in the US and Canada—Yadegari was unable to secure a spot at America’s top universities. His rejection list includes Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia.

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In a post on X, Yadegari shared a detailed breakdown of his college application results. Out of the 18 schools he applied to, only three accepted him: the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), and the University of Miami (UMiami).

College rejection post goes viral

His post quickly gained traction, amassing over 11.9 million views. In addition to Ivy League institutions, other prestigious schools such as Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Duke University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Southern California (USC), Washington University (WashU), New York University (NYU), and the University of Virginia (UVA) also denied his application.

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Entrepreneurial success at a young age

The New York-based entrepreneur also shared his college admission essay, even tagging Tesla CEO Elon Musk in the post. In his essay, Yadegari described how he taught himself coding at age seven, began charging $30 per hour for lessons by 10, and created a gaming website at 14 that generated $60,000 annually. By 16, he had already exited a six-div business.

He also explained why he prioritized real-world experience over traditional education, relocating to San Francisco to build Cal AI. Calling YouTube his “personal tutor,” Yadegari said it taught him “everything from programming to filing LLC taxes.”

In his junior year of high school, Yadegari launched Cal AI—an app that used artificial intelligence to track calories from food images. The app quickly skyrocketed to success, becoming the fastest-growing in its category and generating millions in revenue. Encouraged by this momentum, Yadegari and his co-founder relocated to San Francisco.

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Despite financial success and a network of mentors and investors who assured him that college wasn’t necessary, Yadegari felt an undeniable void. Though he had previously dismissed higher education, a visit to Kyoto’s Ryoan-ji rock garden led him to rethink its value. He no longer saw college as a roadblock but as an opportunity for deeper learning and growth.

“College, I realized, is more than just a rite of passage. It’s a way to elevate the work I’ve always done. In this next chapter, I want to learn from people—both professors and students—not just from computers or textbooks,” Yadegari reflected.

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