<p>It's so competitive nowadays, people apply to top universities with national awards in this and that,</p>
<p>Is it possible to be a unique applicant with good grades, scores, recommendations and extracurriculars but no national awards and still be admitted by a top university?</p>
<p>Do the math. Ivy + S + M is about 15000-16000 unique admits each year. Are there this many national awards?</p>
<p>I never had many awards – quite run of the mill. Got multiple Ivy admits.</p>
<p>It is very difficult to have multiple acceptances from the very top colleges for unhooked applicants without significant recognitions. </p>
<p>Those days are long gone .</p>
<p>@ T26E4 im gonna have a myocardial infarction. you got multiple ivy admissions!!! i…i…i… well you must be a genius. oh plz tell me you credentials and ECs so that i can try my luck too. help would be much appreciated.</p>
<p>@ T26E4 Never looked at it that way, please tell me, what set you apart from others?
Grades? Scores? ECs?</p>
<p>yeah tell plz. enlighten us.</p>
<p>It must be 30 years ago.</p>
<p>Many kids get multiple ivy admits because these schools are all looking for the same things.</p>
<p>The biggest group everyone wants is highly qualified URMs. They rack up offers like no other group. For the unhooked candidates, they have stellar grades and an attribute or activity that truly sets them apart. They’ve done something outside of the classroom where they’ve accomplished something very meaningful. They’ve made a real impact in something that shows they will keep impacting the world.</p>
<p>This does not need to include awards. But it does need to go way beyond the high school. A few examples: a young woman who started a drive to collect school supplies for underprivileged kids and spread it to hundreds of high schools across the country. A group of young men who put together a musical group while in HS and negotiated their own contract with Sony. 2 young women who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars from fellow high school students all over the word for hurricane Katrina victims.</p>
<p>Haha, Waverly, if you think everyone who gets in has these types of activities on their resume, you’re gravely mistaken. Those are exceptions, not the rules. They don’t expect you to have saved the world by the time you’re 18, they want to see passion and drive and how well you take advantage of the opportunities given to you.</p>
<p>^Agreed, how often do you see kids who have done any of that stuff? Most of the people from my school who have gone to top schools (and accepted to multiple ivies) just have perfect grades/SAT, leadership in several clubs, and some math/science competition awards (definitely not national awards). There’s this girl from my school who created a social networking website during her soph year though (sold it for $100 million this summer), and she didn’t go to a top 10 school I’m pretty sure.</p>
<p>I was a college counselor at a very top high school for many years. The unhooked kids I worked with who got multiple ivy offers had accomplishments at the level I described above.</p>
<p>But you are correct the “typical” kids at ivies did not do something off the charts. That’s best explained by the fact that half of every ivy class got in by having a true hook. The biggest group is recruited athletes, followed by URMs, legacies, staff children, big donar children, senator’s kids, movie stars and so on. They are HALF or more of every ivy class.</p>
<p>Next is the diversity group. They need a couple of kids from Alaska, ND, SD and as many countries as possible. You can be more normal if you’re from states and countries that rarely send applicants.</p>
<p>Then there are the off the charts academic kids who have accomplished much beyond the classroom and are truly brilliant. At the HS where I worked that had an average SAT score of close to 2100 and had ivy like admissions standards, there were a couple in each class. Ivies fight for these kids.</p>
<p>So then there’s the thousands and thousands of applicants with no hook to fill the few lots left. The winners are those I described above.</p>
<p>My profile? I think my uniqueness is what captured file readers’ attention. 1) academics: took most rigorous courseload at inner city magnet HS. Wasn’t 4.0 nor top of class. Was actually ranked ~10 or so. A few Bs here and there – but I was fearless in the classes I took. Took saturday AP classes both Jr and Sr year. Test scores were OK – about the 30th percentile of kids who matriculated at my HYP alma mater.</p>
<p>2) ECs. I was a clear student leader in a predominently African American HS (I’m Chinese BTW). Washed dishes (immigrant family) as a pt time job. No great clubs or competitions. Band but dropped it sr year. But I was an influence leader in my school. Period.</p>
<p>3) Uniqueness: wrote about very personal interactions w/others. in hindsight I see that it showed an attentiveness to others which I think was unusual for a 17 year old. I wrote about how I “outed” one of my best friends, shattering our friendship and how I strove to repair that friendship thereafter. That’s all.</p>
<p>I was incredibly blessed. By Oct of my Sr year, I had an admit to a top public Uni. Decided very late to apply to some reaches – some engineering schools and Ivies. Didn’t stress b/c even if all rejected me, I was still in great shape. Come April, all accepted me. Chose an HYP b/c it felt right and I was very impressed by its students. Have been helping w/recruiting and interviewing ever since. Is the landscape different than when I applied? Surely. The numbers don’t lie. But to me, the most important thing is to BE a person who stands out. How? If you have to ask or need a roadmap, you’re already several steps behind, in my opinion. All the things that I portrayed to the colleges in my application were things that defined who I was as a person, a scholar, a member of a community. They were not a list of things I strategically crafted to impress others. As a matter of fact, I didn’t do a single thing to impress others. I frankly didn’t care.</p>
<p>I think it’s this self-confidence that was noticed. It’s who I was and still am today. I’m confident that even if I hadn’t gotten into the schools I did that my life’s trajectory and the things that I value would still be the same. Hope this has helped. Good luck to you all.</p>
<p>thanks for your kind reply @T26E4. im sure everybody liked it. still my heart sinks when i think you got accepted into quarter a dozen ivies. i can never make it there though:(</p>
<p>I think it’s important to tell kids when you graduated. Ivy admissions were nothing like today 20 or more years ago, are much more competitive than 10 years ago and just the last 5 years got much, much tougher. </p>
<p>The Internet and marketing internationally has dramatically changed what it takes.</p>
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<p>Yes and that’s why students at the very top high schools are expected to be exceptional, they have more opportunities than everyone else. If you look at a public school where the average SAT is 1500-1700, and a student has amazing grades, scores, and has taken any opportunity they could get (which are fewer than someone who attended a good school), then they are more likely to get into multiply ivies.</p>
<p>My good friend got into Yale last year with no awards whatsoever.</p>
<p>@columbiafan</p>
<p>wow, he must have stood out somehow, any good ECs? grades? scores?</p>
<p>bump!!!</p>
<p>bump!!!</p>
<p>Given that there aren’t that many national awards, and those national awards are given out to maybe a few dozen high school students total (a few hundred if you count USAMO, USABO, USNCO, etc qualifiers), obviously students get in without national awards…</p>