CEO of a Corpration at Age 17.

Hello everyone, I was wondering if being a CEO of an S Corporation will give my application a strong competitive edge. I pitched an idea for a website that connects high school students to local internships at a business accelerator event known as Start Up Weekend. The pitched idea turned into a full scale industry specidic jobs posting and e-commerce website. Will the revenue earned dictate how strong it enhances my application?

It will help your application a lot. However, if you want to go to one of the HYPSM schools, they will still want to see your academic accomplishments and other achievements.

Yes, if successful and if it is clear that it is you and not a parent at the helm, then it will certainly be viewed favorably. As you know, the most competitive schools weigh ECs heavily as long as you reach criteria for grades and scores. A caveat is that if there is evidence of parents setting things up for the student, as when the parent has similar businesses and/or if the enterprise was started when the student was probably too young to understand the necessary components, then I would guess the credit would go to the parents (who may not be that keen to spend a year in the college dorms).

Thank you for your response @ap012199. I had considered MIT at one point, I got an excellent tour during the Massachusetts State Science and Engineering Fair, however I feel much more drawn to Cornell’s school of Agriculture and Life Sciences. The environmental/sustainability movement is where I am heading.

@lostaccount both my parents are artists so I don’t anticipate that being a very large problem haha!

and thank you both! Advice is much appreciated!

Did you get funded? That’s a lot harder than getting into college so congrats! I would recommend you comb the C.V.s of the folks who funded you and/or judged that competition you were successful in. They probably had grad/undergrad experiences at colleges you may be interested in, and if they wrote a rec like “this kid is amazing, we will look at anything he/she brings us” that would probably make you an attractive future alumi.

@Postmodern Thank You! There is a second CEO who is an adult with excellent business experience. I met her at the Blue Start Up Weekend which was hosted at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and had no other affiliations with her. She’s handling all the tasks involed in establishing a corporate structure, along with trademark research. I have been managing networking (for advertsing purposes) with various environmental organizations and colleges local and national, along with building the website (from a managers perspective) alongside a web designer. The other CEO attended UMass Amherst, which is on my list