I want to know what YOUR story was, be as specific as possible. I know that many people have no idea how they got in because they did not expect it, and the decision is ultimately up to the admissions officers. But I want to know- what extracurriculars did you pursue? What was your “niche” and how did you progress through it? What was your journey? What were some of the challenges you faced?
Thank you
Other people’s stories are interesting, but they aren’t a formula that you can follow to get accepted to an Ivy. Pursue your own interests and make sure your application shows who you are. Then find the colleges that are fits for you and apply there.
I know it’s not formulaic, but sometime’s when identifying an interest to pursue during high school, it’s had to know even where to begin. Personally, reading how other people take their interest to the highest of heights serve as sort of an example for me, not a guiding formula.
Son, Princeton Class of 2020.
Middle-class, male from Texas public school, never sent a student to Princeton prior to my son.
Great grades = 4.0 UW
Great rigor = 12 APs, including 5 senior year, didn’t slack off
Great scores = 36 ACT, 800 Math, 730 History, 780 Chemistry SAT II’s
Great class rank = 3 / 750
Good ECs / honors = NMF, jv soccer, started board game club that combines leadership, school fun with engaging / mentoring title one students at elementary school, NASA aerospace scholar, National AP scholar, National ChemOly, treasurer for math club , some UIL, some robotics club, some community service. Job was soccer referee.
Excellent essays = cohesive narrative combining hobby with community service in a very quirky, emotionally honest essay
Princeton short responses / supplement = honest, engaging responses. You would know my son after reading these. They supported his main essay narrative. The adcoms would walk away with an identity for him. This helped him stand out I believed.
LoRs = both teachers and counselor referenced his school work, his hobbies, his ECs, again supporting his personal narrative.
Possibly biggest attribute = luck. Adcoms could have had a good or bad day when reading his app. At this level, with so many excellent candidates, you can do good work, craft great essays, but in the end… it is mostly luck.
I am not an admissions officer, but I have talked to some, know many many students who have gotten in every year, and have seen many trends.
I think most people admitted fall into these three categories, in my opinion:
- Recruited because of high achievement in Athletics; Come from Famous/Super Rich Family - with very possible Donation to School;
- They were Extremely talented in one area of EC other than recruitable sports (Music/Arts, STEM, etc.). (I'm talking about National, at minimum, + International Achievement. Basically a super "shining" point that distinguishes them from other applicants.) OR a very shining point in their background (extreme circumstances yet still achieving great academic records)
- For those who are not category 1) and 2): All the parts of their application story clearly aligned and pointed to wholesome, genuine passion/interest. The schools believe that based on the students' complete story and application, they will contribute to the school's mission and and be a good fit. This is a very generalized way to put it, because every applicant has their unique "story", but this is the least-convoluted description I can think of. Example:
I think this is the biggest reason why everybody says its “not just your Standarized test scores”. Are you president of 5 completely unrelated clubs you started just to put on your resume, have you done an internship/camp just because it looks impressive on your CV? Or did you do that entrepreneurship camp or internship at your friends’ dad’s company because you are genuinely interested in business, scientific research/competition because you really like science, or volunteered at X for the hundreds of hours you claimed because you really care about it?
There are also many other background factors - perhaps not as extreme as those in category 2, (Legacy, First Gen, URM, Well known High School), that can boost your application too.
NOTE: You also have to keep in mind there are only so many spots in these schools. There is NO DOUBT very exceptional and qualified kids who perhaps have equally worked their butts off in high school, or maybe DO fall into category 3, get overlooked and denied admission every year. When you have tens of thousands of smart, talented kids applying and you can only accept 5-14% of them, there obviously are some excruciating tough decisions.
My son - Yale '19
Long story of his admissions process here:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/admissions-hindsight-lessons-learned/1790192-elite-school-admissions-a-first-time-parents-stumble-through-the-game-with-no-playbook-p1.html
Main tidbits - white, middle-class male, public school, small town in the Midwest
Education and test scores - IB diploma, all-A’s, 3rd in the class, 2300 SAT, 35 ACT, glowing recommendations
EC’s - I think this is where he stood out. His EC’s were many and varied. Sports, academic competitions, chess, tons and tons of music. Leadership experience was a little light.
@HyberTurbo I completely agree!
@HyperTurbo I completely agree!
I am a recent high school graduate who will be attending Dartmouth this fall. I am from a highly competitive Northeast school that sends approximately 30-50 students every year to Ivies or Ivy equivalents (Stanford, MIT, etc). I applied to all 8 Ivies. Got accepted by Dartmouth, transfer option from Cornell, wait listed at Harvard, Yale, Columbia, rejected from Brown, Princeton, and Penn (deferred ED and then rejected from Wharton).
Completely unhooked, below a 3.9 UW GPA, 2300 SAT, 800 Math II, 670 Lit. I think I got in because my ECs showed I was passionate about an academic field. Having that “spike” helps a great deal. You want to be an ace at one trade instead of a jack of all trades.
Son’s profile:
Excellent grades - 4.0 UW with extremely rigorous course load (17 AP’s). Valedictorian
Strong test scores - 35 ACT, 780, 790, 800 ST.
Three primary ECs - nationally recognized community service, music (classical guitar), and competitive fencing.
Overall he was a strong applicant, but what sealed the deal was his high national ranking in fencing. He was widely recruited and chose Princeton.
Graduated Wharton a few years ago. Class rank 3/500 from a public school; 99th percentile SAT; involved in several ECs with leadership and awards… but half the applicant pool sounds like that. I think I got in based on my quirky Why Penn essay that ended with the f-word.
I’m looking for the post that says “daddy’s money.”
Thanks all for your answers!
Daughter- recruited athlete.
4.11 weighted/32 ACT very few ECs except her sport. We have no illusions- she would not have been accepted if not for her sport.
@Emsmom1 If your daughter had not been a recruited athlete, but had good ECs in another world, but with the same stats, I’m confident she definitely would have has a chance.
I’m someone who gets very annoyed when athletes get recruited to ivies with extremely low grades and scores, but your daughter deserves to be there! She made the grades, made the scores, and was very passionate about something (sport).
Congrats to her on her success!
@katliamom Haha…not me, but my friend’s story is “grandpa is a billionaire”
@justliviglife Thank you. She does love her school and is doing ok. We are very grateful she has been given this opportunity!
My kid did not think about college admissions during high school and basically did what she wanted. She ended up with a major interest in a performing art and spent more time on that than academics. She didn’t even look at the email from admissions because she wasn’t thinking it was even possible that she got in. She didn’t care either. But she had some great years at an Ivy and is glad she attended.
I think I got in through hard work and perseverance, not listening to all the negative comments about how hard is to get accepted, and keeping in mind that my goal was to get admitted to a quality school that would best help me achieve my goals and ambitions in life. I set my sights high, but cast my net as far as possible.
One day I was waiting for a program to run at work and came up with a list of the 5 categories of Penn students:
Athletes: recruited for athletics, obviously. They tend to look scared and as if they don’t belong.
Legacies/other very rich kids: You know who they are by talking to them for a second. The difference between them and the athletes is that they’re thoroughly convinced they got in on merit.
Workhorses: Above average intelligence, surely, but they studied for several hours a night every night to get to where they wanted.
Do-it-alls: President of every club, three-sport athlete, 4.0 unweighted GPA, etc. They work hard but for the wrong reasons.
“Feral geniuses”: Natural phenoms at a small number of things. This is me and most of my friends, and this title came up at a party where I said the only thing I’m good at is writing and the two friends I was talking to said that’s why I got in; most kids can’t write to save their lives.
Basically I think the Ivies are looking for two categories of people: people who will get rich and give a lot of money back to the school as thanks, and people who will get famous and bring recognition to the school, thus encouraging more applicants.
For me in particular, I can trace it to a few things. I was from a public school in Wisconsin that sends a few kids to Ivies every year, and I was the 3rd in a row to apply and get in ED to Penn. They want to set up a trend so more kids apply. Second, my essays showed off that I can really freakin’ write. They were outside the box but they worked; I wrote about comic books in the Common App, I name-dropped punk rockers with Ph.Ds in my Penn supplement, and overall it showed who I was. Third, I had extraordinary rec letters: my English teacher for whom I wrote an essay on War & Peace, my APUSH teacher who I would eat lunch and talk about feminism with, and a University of Wisconsin professor who I’ve been doing research with since I was 14. Fourth, that aforementioned research: I’m second author on a paper pending publication already.
Yeah, I also had the GPA and test scores to “fit in”, but it wouldn’t have made me stand out like my essays, letters, and research.