Each admission course, the best students from all over the country come to Ivy League schools with an impressive appeal. They are Vedicorers with the ideal dictionary and dozens of tests, club presidents, non -profit founders, volunteers on the weekend, and first presidential players.
Each acceptance cycle, most of which are rejected.
In the years of my experience as administrative director at Command Education, a boutique college consultant referred to as “MCKINSEY & CO. for 17 -year -old customers”, I have seen some of the most impressive applicants facing the bite of rejection. Why? Because most families misunderstand what the higher colleges are already looking for.
If you think GPA 4.0 or a prominent summer program will guarantee you a place in Harvard or Yale, it's time to rethink your strategy. Ivy League and other high schools receive tens of thousands of orders in each course, which means that admission employees have approximately ten minutes – sometimes less – to evaluate each request. If the student fails to link the attention of the admission employee during the first three minutes, then the chances of their acceptance decrease.
To make things worse: What are most students and parents Assume Acceptance officers will often be impressed exactly, which rejects their requests in the rejection pile.
There are five common wrong concepts that lead to a disaster on student applications. Learning to avoid it can help you raise the level of possibilities of accepting your dream school. Here is what you are wrong in the admission process:
4.0 is not impressive
Every father wants to believe that their child is uniquely talented, but 4.0 does not make your son Einstein – and certainly will not stop the admission officers in their paths.
Looking at the increasing trend of row enlargement, cumulative rates have risen even with a decrease in average test score in the country. In 2016, 47 % of high school students had 4.0 GPA; The average cumulative rate was from 2021 3.36. This means that just inserting GPA 4.0 on your text places you between nearly half of the two years old.
High schools receive a set of admiration for academically impressive students who have proven themselves ready for a strict training course.
Yes, GPA 4.0 is the absolute foundation line for admission to the higher school. But at the same time, students must also show their academic skill after that only Their degrees – even registration in the most challenging courses or AP and IB chapters is not enough.
Students should actively search for competitive summer programs, academic strictness, university courses, independent learning opportunities, and research assistants. The student's academic ammunition must extend beyond what is presented in their school.
The highest summer program is actually more competitive than Harvard
The presence of a prominent summer program based on merit can give your student a competitive advantage in the college Acceptance process; However, most parents fail to realize that some of these programs are difficult to reach from Ivy League themselves.
Famous programs such as the Research Science Institute (RSI), Telluride Association Summer (Tass), ANSON L. Clarak, and Jackson Summer Laboratory program program, can have admission rates from one, with admission less than 100 students per year. Some of them are so competitive that they offer early acceptance, similar to the early work of higher institutions in the elite and early decision programs.
Families who fail to plan for the future or allocate the time and effort required for these applications are forced to follow other summer programs before the college, in the hope that they will have a similar impact on their university applications-which they will do, unfortunately, they will work no.
Because of the sharp competition, I recommend dealing with the process of requesting the summer program as you do with university applications: create a balanced list of access, matching and safety schools (perfectly 2-3 of each), and preparing requests a long time before winter final appointments.
Acceptance officers know that you got your cheerful training son
You may think that benefit from your contacts to get internal training at Fortune 500 will enhance their admission file, but nothing can be beyond the truth.
Although overlap can be a useful way for students to get practical experience in their required field, admission employees can easily discover when internal training is due to the parents' relationships instead of the student's advantage.
Usually there are major gifts. Any officer will not buy that the 16 -year -old has got an internal training in Google for themselves. Another red flag? If the student's activities, articles and training courses are all directed about environmental sustainability, but they have been trained in a high-energy law firm, it is likely that the admission employee believes that Daddy is a lawyer-and-not that the student has a secondary interest in the theoretical law.
Still, internal training He is A rich opportunity, and those that admission officers view positively. But this only if the student does hard work to send cold emails, create long -term connections on their own, or move in the process of submitting an application to support their basic interests.
This passion can harm the possibility of accepting your child
In recent years, the “passion project” has become a common way for students to distinguish themselves from other applicants through an independent initiative.
When you are properly finished, it is a testimony to the student's commitment to his interests and dedication to improving their societies. But when it is clear that the student built a luxurious web site or launched a mysterious initiative just to put his application, the passion project can Hurt More than helps.
Projects that seek to make an impact in a global environment, such as the creation of hospital programs in remote countries, raises red flags to admission employees, who are likely to suspect that the high school student can complete their academic duties and an ambitious project for continents.
Parents should be particularly cautious about private consultations that announce independent projects as a way to enter the college, rather than a real way to fill in personal interests for the public good.
The effective and self -emotional project will have a real effect – measurable results and the participation of society – and the admission officers will tell something deeper than the student and their background, and not only their desire to enter a high school.
Some colleges are more selective than the admission rates indicate
Many students and families are looking for admission rates published for schools to measure the chances of their acceptance – but these numbers can be greatly misleading.
For example, if you are applying to a public school outside the state, the actual acceptance rate for your rewards may be much lower than reported. At the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, the average admission rate was 16.8 % for the 2022-23 cycle. However, this number translates into 43.1 % amazing for applicants within the country and 8.2 % for those outside the country-the assembled rate eventually means a little, because the possibilities of acceptance are significantly different on the geographical location of the applicants.
Even in elite private schools, the admission rate is not necessarily a good indication of admission.
Pennsylvania University has received more than 65,000 requests in the 2023-24 session, but students are not really against many applicants.
Instead, each of them competes within a specific sub -group of students with similar academic interests, experiences and extracurricular backgrounds. It is better to focus less on the total acceptance rate and more on how to distinguish than the nearest competition.
In the past five years, the Playbook for Ivy League Depults has completely changed. Parents who enrolled in a higher school or assisted an older child should not assume their group dreams that they understand how the process appears today, or that it is equipped to help secondary schools enter the college.
Gabriel Kramer is the administrative director of leadership education. The New York Post Education partner.
