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Now, 18-year-old Long Island resident Zach Yadegari, of Roslyn, is taking his talents to South Florida.
Despite a perfect 4.0 GPA, a 34 ACT score, and a resume that includes founding a wildly successful calorie tracking app, Yadegari says he was denied admission to 15 of the 18 colleges he applied to—including every Ivy League school, plus Stanford, MIT, Duke, and NYU.
“I didn’t expect to be accepted to all of these colleges,” he told The New York Post in April. “However, I did expect to at least be accepted to a couple of the top schools I was applying to.”
Instead, Yadegari will become a Hurricane, announcing his commitment to the University of Miami in a post to his 45,000+ followers on X Wednesday, April 30: “Update: I officially committed to UMiami.”
While the Ivy League said no, the world has already said yes.
Yadegari’s app, Cal AI, is an AI-powered calorie-tracking app that lets users log their meals by simply snapping a photo. Launched in 2024, the app now boasts more than 6 million downloads and generates over $30 million in annual revenue.
Before that, he founded Totally Science, a STEM learning platform that amassed 5 million users before he sold it for six figures at the age of 16.
By 10, Yadegari was giving computer coding lessons for $30/hour, and by 14 he was earning $60,000 a year from his online gaming site.
Still, the college rejection letters kept coming. And when Stanford’s decision arrived, he admitted, “all of the prior rejections just flooded in and really hit me at once.”
Yadegari has been vocal about his belief that the college admissions system doesn’t reward real-world achievement. In an open letter posted to X in April, he wrote:
“The college admissions system isn’t broken—it’s working exactly as designed. Admissions offices prioritize diversity over merit, adversity over excellence, and circumstances over capability… We must favor the ‘best and brightest.’ We must recognize and reward excellence.”
But behind the bravado is a teenager who simply wants a taste of something he’s missed: normalcy.
“I’m 18,” Yadegari told Fox News. “I want to hang out with other 18-year-olds. I don’t want to go straight into the business world, just yet.”
In a deeply personal college essay shared on social media, Yadegari reflected on his path and the pressure of becoming the archetypal dropout founder.
“In my rejection of the collegiate path, I had unwittingly bound myself to another framework of expectations… College, I came to realize, is more than a mere rite of passage. It is the conduit to elevate the work I have always done.”
He added: “I began my journey fiercely independent, determined to forge my own path. Now, I see that individuality and connection are not opposites, but complements… Now, nearly five years later, I am ready to send a new text: ‘I’m going to college.’”
Yadegari is set to graduate from Roslyn High School in June.
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