I graduated from an ivy league a couple of years ago and currently work in investment banking in NYC. I thought I’d share my story as admissions season starts to ramp up.
I had many problems with motivation and focus when I was younger. School never interested me, and come senior year; I had neither the GPA nor the SAT to consider applying to an elite college. I was a middle-class Asian-American Male with a 3.6 UW GPA and a 1370/1600 SAT. I had taken several AP Courses but didn’t do that well on the exams, my highest being a 4 in AP Bio. On paper, I was an extremely average applicant. My High School counselors and teachers all recommended I focus on applying to mid-tier California schools (UC Irvine/UC Davis/Cal Poly SLO). There is nothing wrong with those schools, but I knew I wanted to achieve much more. I was highly creative through the application process and got accepted to two lower-tier ivies (Dartmouth/Cornell/Brown) and some excellent California Schools (UCLA/Pomona).
After getting in, I joined my college’s ambassador program, which helped me develop close relationships with some admissions officers. Several even remembered my application because of how unique and specific it was. The key takeaway is that creating a unique application can compensate for poor scores. Colleges want to fill their classes with diversity in interests and backgrounds. You can tailor your application to check that box. I helped a few family members and friends apply the same strategy to their applications. The most impressive was getting my sister (29 ACT/3.8 GPA) into Cornell.
hi! that’s amazing that you got into those schools congrats! i’m currently going through the application process and feel like my ec’s and test scores (1430) is not impressive for my top choice school (brown). can you explain how you and your sister went about making your application more creative and attractive?
I have long thought it is very important to think outside the box, and try to create an outside the box application. How many thousands of kids were secretaries of their class, or participated in model UN?? What’s going to make someone stand out from that throng? Find something that only a few people will have/write about. It doesn’t have to be something super impressive, just something unique to you (or a handful of kids).
There is no such thing as a “lower tier” Ivy. There is the Ivy League and its 8 members.
Your post would be much more helpful if you described the highly creative ways in which you made your application unique.
We also don’t know what type of high school you came from or what your teacher recommendations might have said. It is true though that a unique approach that makes an AO sit up and take notice can be very helpful.
OP mentioned Dartmouth and Brown which are sub 4% regular decision schools. I think he meant those type of “lower tier” easy admittance schools (although he didn’t get into Brown per his post)
