A guide to get into Ivy League schools... What to expect and common myths.

So I get asked many times by friends who have kids etc... Thought I post this here and this will become a reference.

So how it works:

Say the school has these requirements: GPA 3.8 SAT 1200


First Admission counselors have reserved applicants. Reserved applicants are young adults whom have parents that have significantly donated to the school, are famous or are legacy students. They get first priority. Does it mean they get in... YES. 9-10 times these students get in regardless of their grades unless the student decides the school isn't right for them... (just an example.) So that's the first batch of applicants. This makes about 1% of applicants...


Second Batch: Does the student meet the requirements? 3.8 and 1200? if yes then it goes into a batch. If the student does not make the requirements its an automatic denial. You need to realize the school has a reputation in addition to admission counselors looking and reading over 1000 essays.

Third Batch: Equal Opportunity Funding... These are students whom come from a disadvantage area. Mostly minorities... These students are placed into separate batch. Out of perhaps 100 applicants 10 are accepted.


Fourth batch: Transfer Students... This get's a bit trickier and the student coming from a community college or is a non-traditional student transferring in has to have done something extraordinary during or before their transfer. Perhaps the student was in the Olympics, published a book... in another country learned mandarin OR started a non-profit. Out of 500 applicants usually 20-30 are accepted. Grades are counted too...



Now back to the batch when students meet the requirements... So your kid has the 3.8 and scored 1200 on their SAT. Here are common questions:



How important are AP classes? They are very important because your child may not be the only one from their school taking them. For example say the high school offers 8 AP courses, and your child only takes 2... If another kid takes 5 or the majority took an average of 5-8 your child will get bumped down the list. Harder classes are weighted, a 4.0 gpa from an art class is not the same as a 4.0 coming from a physics class.

How important are extracurricular activities? Not as important as many think, what counts is the relationship and how many activities your child is involved in. A student who has excellent grades and joins every single extracurricular activity raises a red flag, how did this student study? They'll go into a separate batch... Trust me we verify everything. So something balanced would be, plays soccer, is student body president and joins a video game club.

How important is the Essay? Very important... And trust me when I say this... We can sometimes tell which essay is from which school. No 17 year old starts with certain words... cough cough… Hello there counselors. Prefer students to be imaginative... In a sense we want honesty and nice students... LET ME EMPHASIZE THE WORK NICE.

Hope this helps... set the expectation. If you can't get into an ivy league that's okay. Another thing and this is huge DO NOT TAKE DOZENS OF TESTS... It can hinder your acceptance. You took the ACT, scored lousy but your SAT is amazing. That ACT will hurt you...

How important is Looking the Part?

Also, if you're not White or Asian, you get bonus points, meaning you can have a lower GPA and SAT score and get bumped ahead of White or Asian students.

I think it bears mentioning that the best school for an individual is not necessarily an Ivy League school, or even an elite school for that matter.

It also bears mentioning that the best undergraduate schools PERIOD are not necessarily Ivy schools. The Ivies can outright suck, depending on your needs, because undergraduates are not a priority.

And though I qualified that last paragraph with "undergraduate," at the graduate level the entire game changes, and the classic prestige equations hold much less sway.

If you are interested in the liberal arts per se, I can only recommend that you avoid the Ivy League like the plague. Go to a four-year college instead. Some of them are just as prestigious (if not as famous, since they are not attached to an internationally famous set of graduate schools), if that is important to you. (Protip: It shouldn't be.)

Finally, great advice above, but allow me to add some info on how to stand out from the crowd --100% necessary if you want to get into an elite school, especially as a transfer student, where the admission percentages can be <15% (for Ivies) or <10% or even 5% or 1% (for elite liberal arts colleges with high retention rates).

1. Cross your Ts and dot your Is. Put the documents in alphabetical order. Make sure everything is done exactly right. One file away is someone equally qualified who DID do that, and who do you think they will prefer? Don't screw up the basics.

2. DON'T be afraid to take risks, especially where your essays or other creative additions to the application process are concerned. This is how to avoid blending in with all the other generic essays and shit they get.

3. Choose good teachers to write your recommendations. If you can get someone to not just write something nice about you but also something super creative about you (see above), it will really stand out.

One more thing. If you have crummy grades in high school, Ivies and similar schools are still an option. Go to a community college for a year and then transfer. Good grades in college (even community college) hold more water than good grades in high school, and are a better predictor of college success. Try and do something creative and/or interesting while you are there, too. Elite schools generally don't want boring people.

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gibbousmoon wrote:

I think it bears mentioning that the best school for an individual is not necessarily an Ivy League school, or even an elite school for that matter.

It also bears mentioning that the best undergraduate schools PERIOD are not necessarily Ivy schools. The Ivies can outright suck, depending on your needs, because undergraduates are not a priority.

And though I qualified that last paragraph with "undergraduate," at the graduate level the entire game changes, and the classic prestige equations hold much less sway.

If you are interested in the liberal arts per se, I can only recommend that you avoid the Ivy League like the plague. Go to a four-year college instead. Some of them are just as prestigious (if not as famous, since they are not attached to an internationally famous set of graduate schools), if that is important to you. (Protip: It shouldn't be.)

Finally, great advice above, but allow me to add some info on how to stand out from the crowd --100% necessary if you want to get into an elite school, especially as a transfer student, where the admission percentages can be <15% (for Ivies) or <10% or even 5% or 1% (for elite liberal arts colleges with high retention rates).

1. Cross your Ts and dot your Is. Put the documents in alphabetical order. Make sure everything is done exactly right. One file away is someone equally qualified who DID do that, and who do you think they will prefer? Don't screw up the basics.

2. DON'T be afraid to take risks, especially where your essays or other creative additions to the application process are concerned. This is how to avoid blending in with all the other generic essays and shit they get.

3. Choose good teachers to write your recommendations. If you can get someone to not just write something nice about you but also something super creative about you (see above), it will really stand out.

One more thing. If you have crummy grades in high school, Ivies and similar schools are still an option. Go to a community college for a year and then transfer. Good grades in college (even community college) hold more water than good grades in high school, and are a better predictor of college success. Try and do something creative and/or interesting while you are there, too. Elite schools generally don't want boring people.

I have no idea where you’re getting this information, I’ve been mentoring students for a very long time IVy leagues RARELY accept transfer students. Out of 500 THIRTY... And those are students whom have a book published, innovated, own a business, olympics, etc... Stop giving false hope. The hope students need to have is to get their things together starting in high school.

No a degree from a non Ivy League school is not the same from top 10, even the top ten have tiers... Graduate school, not everyone has to attend... It’s a choice and a matter of affording to attend.

Adimmisions rarely look at recommendations, they look at your essay. Grades and SAT is what counts that’s it period, there’s no grey line...

Listen everyone if you have kids the discipline of studying starts at a young age even before high school. Colleges know the red flags... Stop the bs with “oh did bad in high school will try at a community college,” ITS TEN TIMES HARDER... Just stop listen closely the top schools are there for a reason, oh and feel free to see whom they accepted majority of them post who was accepted by gpa, transfer, SAT etc...

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solwitch wrote:

I have no idea where you’re getting this information, I’ve been mentoring students for a very long time IVy leagues RARELY accept transfer students. Out of 500 THIRTY... And those are students whom have a book published, innovated, own a business, olympics, etc... Stop giving false hope. The hope students need to have is to get their things together starting in high school.

No a degree from a non Ivy League school is not the same from top 10, even the top ten have tiers... Graduate school, not everyone has to attend... It’s a choice and a matter of affording to attend.

Adimmisions rarely look at recommendations, they look at your essay. Grades and SAT is what counts that’s it period, there’s no grey line...

From admissions offices themselves, via interviews and the like. I kind of did the tour as an undergraduate: seven schools. I've attended a mix of large and small, public and private, famous and no-name, in England, France, and the U.S. All but one as a full-time student, and I learned a lot from each one, including about admissions processes.

I've successfully transferred into one Ivy League school (which I hated, in part because research and article publication was given greater priority than undergrad teaching at this school) into one top-5 liberal arts college, and into one top-2 liberal arts college (or the top 1, depending on who you ask), where I finally finished my degree. Yes, it is much harder to get in as a transfer than as a first-year student, but that doesn't mean that bad grades in high school are a death knell.

No, none of my fellow transfer students had written books or been in the Olympics. They were mostly interesting people, but it was a broad mix, including community college graduates, a good basketball player, a former bartender, etc. Many of the top schools actually set aside slots for community college transfers. And yes, they absolutely do care about what your references have to say about you; who told you they rarely even look at them?! (Again, this is information straight from the horse's mouth, not hearsay.)

I did not attend community college, but I did have a 2.0 GPA in high school and nearly flunked out.

Saying that it is never too late to apply yourself is hardly the same as giving "false hope."

Finally, the quality of the education you receive and the prestige of the degree have a shockingly poor rate of correlation, based on my personal experiences attending non-famous schools as well as famous ones, and conversations with friends who attended Ivies and other top-tier schools similar to the ones I attended (and had similar things to say about them).

The idea that an education from a top-tier school is necessarily much better than that from a less famous school is a self-sustaining myth, particularly in America. Take it from someone who has actually attended these schools and experienced their education first-hand. The quality of education you will receive is based primarily upon YOU, and secondarily upon the quality of your teachers and peers (largely chosen by YOU, especially the latter).

You can get an amazing education at a medium-tier or even bottom-tier school, and you can get a crummy education at even a top-tier school. That's not "false hope" either; it's simply the truth.

IMHO. :)

Don't be Asian or to lessor degree white you wont get in even with perfect grades and service due to liberals wanting equal matriculation to population rather than performance of individual.

https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/DB2149F8-7AF2-11E8-8CC8-F9F80D1E3EC0

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harvards-discrimination-against-asian-americans-must-end/2017/08/08/446ebd6a-7bb1-11e7-a669-b400c5c7e1cc_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5fc329a0e841

Colleges are liberal cesspools you wont find me near one. I make more than professors at 22 anyway and I dont have to rob tax payers or chain kids to debt for life to do it either.

Neh I dont care about money actually. My point was I don't need college for a "union card" to make a living. If I want to know about something i can read a book by an expert. I actually went to college for half a semester - Hillsdale College - very conservative and still wasnt my speed.

I only care about money in that I can provide for me and mine and I've done that for a long time. My mom is actually a university professor (UCI) so I tossed that out there knowing what she makes not as brag.

I could go to school totally free (called grant in aid) because my mom is a professor - no thanks.