Ivy Admissions
Tell the Truth
In this competitive admissions climate many students are tempted to “fudge the facts” just a little bit on their applications. DON’T DO IT. Colleges are beginning to check applicants’ credentials. It leaked a few years ago that MIT had hired a private investigator to do random checks on applicants, and other schools have since joined this practice. Some admissions officers will simply call a high school for verification if an activity, award, or claim looks suspicious. Remember, major awards are listed online in most cases so admissions folks will check that out. Same goes for rankings in sports. And even more importantly, why be dishonest in any area of your life?
On a similar note, we are often asked if students can apply to more than one Early Decision (binding) school because “colleges would never find out and it would increase my chances.” The answer is a resounding NO. It’s unethical and dishonest. You have to sign an agreement when you apply Early Decision that you will not apply to any other ED or binding programs. Your college counselor and parents are also asked to sign this agreement. Is it legally binding? Probably not. But regardless, you want to adhere to the rules here. You can still, however, apply rolling or Early Action as these are non-binding. (Again, Early Decision is when you apply to one school in November and hear mid-December and are bound to attend if you are accepted. Early Action allows you to apply to many colleges as it is not binding. Your odds, however, are better Early Decision.)
Though typically colleges do NOT share lists of early applicants, with increased computer-based applications they may start doing so. To be on the safe side, do NOT violate any of their early policies! If you are caught, it will mean automatic rejection. For instance, if you applied Single Choice Early Action to Yale and then Early Decision to Dartmouth – that’s a no-no.
Rising Seniors
We are working this week with rising seniors in our 2nd Application Boot Camp session. You can create your own focused Boot Camp by setting aside time NOW to complete your applications. It can be an overwhelming process so take it step by step. We’re here to help.
- Need help with your essays? Lead Editor Josh Stephens is a master and will work with you via phone and internet.
- Unable to make it to Cambridge to join us this week or next? Schedule a Personal Application Boot Camp and Josh Stephens will come to you.
- Want to create your own 4 Day Boot Camp for a fraction of the cost? Check out our Self Guided Application Boot Camp.
- Need help brushing up on your October Subject Test scores so your application has the numbers you need? Genius tutor Mike Barrett gives you strategies to outsmart the tests.
Once again we are indicating samples of application options. Our newsletter last week included an outdated schedule, we apologize for our error.
Types of Applications*
| Application | Deadline* | Sample Schools |
| Rolling Nonbinding |
September onward | University of Wisconsin Penn State |
| Early Action Nonbinding |
November 1 | University of Chicago UNC MIT** Notre Dame |
| Restrictive Early Action Nonbinding but may not concurrently apply to a binding Early Decision program, although may make multiple Early Action applications. |
November 1 | Boston College Georgetown |
| Single-Choice Early Action Nonbinding but unable to apply Early Decision or Early Action to other schools |
November 1 | Yale Harvard Princeton |
| Early Decision Binding |
November 1 or November 15 | Dartmouth Bowdoin |
| Early Decision II Binding |
January 1 or January 15 | Vanderbilt Vassar |
| Regular Decision Nonbinding |
December 15-January 1 | All schools |
* Double check application deadlines as they can vary year to year
** MIT’s Early Action Program is available only to citizens and permanent residents of the United States.
More Early Explanations:
Single Choice Early Action: Means you can ONLY apply to that school early, no ED schools or other EA schools. You can, in some cases, apply to your state, public university.
1. Yale: Single Choice Early Action: http://admissions.yale.edu/faq/single-choice-early-action
2. Stanford: Restrictive Early Action (but should really be called Single Choice): http://stanford.edu/dept/uga/application/decision_process/restrictive.html
3. Harvard: Single Choice Early Action: Not up on their site yet, we have: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/02/early-action-returns/
4. Princeton: Single Choice Early Action: Not up on their site yet, we have: http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S29/85/15K32/index.xml?section=topstories
Restrictive Early Action: You can apply Early Action to other schools but not Early Decision except for Stanford which calls themselves Restrictive Early Action but is really Single Choice Early Action
1.Georgetown: Restrictive Early Action http://uadmissions.georgetown.edu/applying_firstyear_earlyaction.cfm
2.Boston College: Restrictive Early Action: http://www.bc.edu/admission/undergrad/process/tips/s-applyingearly.html
Early Action:
UVA is regular EA now.
Check Early Policies
We are often asked to explain the many application options. It’s confusing and changes every year. In 2007/2008 UVA, Harvard, and Princeton all dropped their early admission policies. The year before that, Yale and Stanford, switched from early decision to early action. As a result, both schools experienced a HUGE rise (44% for Yale) in early applications since students did not have to commit. To add to the confusion, many schools like Georgetown, Yale, and Stanford are “single-action early action” which means that unlike what students have done in the past, now it violates the rules to apply to one school early action and another early decision. Now, as you probably know, UVA, Princeton, and Harvard have gone back to an early option and those students this year can apply early to UVA (non-binding) or they could apply with a restricted early action to Harvard or Princeton (meaning they couldn’t apply to other early schools). You do not want to get caught violating these policies so be sure to read the fine print at each school. Here is a quick reference list of the main types of early policies:
Types of Applications*
| Application | Deadline* | Sample Schools |
| Rolling Nonbinding |
September onward | University of Wisconsin Penn State |
| Early Action Nonbinding |
November 1 | University of Chicago UNC MIT** Notre Dame |
| Restrictive Early Action Nonbinding but may not concurrently apply to a binding Early Decision program, although may make multiple Early Action applications. |
November 1 | Boston College Georgetown |
| Single-Choice Early Action Nonbinding but unable to apply Early Decision or Early Action to other schools |
November 1 | Yale Harvard Princeton |
| Early Decision Binding |
November 1 or November 15 | Dartmouth Bowdoin |
| Early Decision II Binding |
January 1 or January 15 | Vanderbilt Vassar |
| Regular Decision Nonbinding |
December 15-January 1 | All schools |
* Double check application deadlines as they can vary year to year
** MIT’s Early Action Program is available only to citizens and permanent residents of the United States.
More Early Explanations:
Single Choice Early Action: Means you can ONLY apply to that school early, no ED schools or other EA schools. You can, in some cases, apply to your state, public university.
1. Yale: Single Choice Early Action: http://admissions.yale.edu/faq/single-choice-early-action
2. Stanford: Restrictive Early Action (but should really be called Single Choice): http://stanford.edu/dept/uga/application/decision_process/restrictive.html
3. Harvard: Single Choice Early Action: Not up on their site yet, we have: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/02/early-action-returns/
4. Princeton: Single Choice Early Action: Not up on their site yet, we have: http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S29/85/15K32/index.xml?section=topstories
Restrictive Early Action: You can apply Early Action to other schools but not Early Decision except for Stanford which calls themselves Restrictive Early Action but is really Single Choice Early Action
1. Georgetown: Restrictive Early Action http://uadmissions.georgetown.edu/applying_firstyear_earlyaction.cfm
2. Boston College: Restrictive Early Action: http://www.bc.edu/admission/undergrad/process/tips/s-applyingearly.html
Early Action:
UVA is regular EA now.
The moral of the story is, the rules have changed and it is your responsibility to read the fine print carefully and stay within the guidelines for every school you choose.
We do, however, urge students to apply with an early strategy. In case you haven’t noticed, the general trend has been that MORE kids are applying not just to Ivies, but to Ivy overflow schools like Middlebury, Connecticut College, Haverford, etc… If you love a school, apply EARLY. Middlebury, for example, fills 40% of its class early. Keep in mind that the top liberal arts colleges are experiencing the same rise in applicants as top Ivies and bigger schools. You don’t want to be in the regular pool – especially at the Ivies as admissions drops to under 10% in regular – see our chart below! So at a school like Penn you’d have a 26% acceptance rate in ED – in regular, it drops to 9.9 – for Dartmouth, 25% versus 8.4 – see what we mean?
Ivy League — Class of 2015
Merit Scholarships
Here are some great ideas on how to land merit scholarships.
And, of course, don’t forget to check off the box on the first page of the Common Application that asks if you intend to apply for merit-based scholarships!
Keep your eye on bond ratings for top schools like Amherst
Keep your eye on bond ratings for top schools like Amherst. See today’s story below in Bloomberg!
By Michael McDonald
Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) — Amherst College, the western
Massachusetts school started in 1821, may lose its top credit rating because it faces potential cash shortages, Moody’sInvestors Service said today in a report.
The review of the college’s Aaa rating for downgrade
reflects its “declining liquidity over the past year and
significant amount of its variable rate demand obligations,”
Moody’s said. Amherst has $313 million of debt, including $209
million of the variable securities, according to the report.
Borrowers can be forced to buy back variable-rate debt when
rates are reset weekly or monthly if the so-called remarketing
fails to attract enough investors.
There have been “historically higher levels of tenders”
of Amherst’s variable-rate debt as investors fled the securities
for “a very brief period” amid “recent heightened market
volatility,” Moody’s said. Amherst is scheduled to remarket
$41.3 million of the securities tomorrow as well as $50.5
million in January, according to the report. The college has
$100 million of bank credit lines to guard against a failed
remarketing, Moody’s said.
Amherst has never had a failed remarketing and has
sufficient cash and other assets on hand to guard against market
swings, Peter Shea, the college’s treasurer, said in a telephone
interview. The college will look at its asset allocation and
consider measures to boost its available cash while discussing
with Moody’s the proper measure of its so-called available
liquidity, Shea said.
Addressing ‘Liquidity Needs’
“We’re addressing the liquidity needs of the college so we
don’t lose our rating,” he said.
Amherst was among a group of at least 15 of the wealthiest
universities that borrowed a combined $7.2 billion after the
credit crisis because their investment losses, combined with
large holdings of hard-to-sell assets, left them short of cash.
The group, which were all nonprofits yet were forced to sell
taxable bonds for the cash, included Harvard University in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, the world’s wealthiest school, and
Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
In addition to the variable-rate debt, which is often pared
with interest-rate swaps in the municipal bond market, Amherst
has a $1.4 billion endowment that has a “heavy weighting” in
hard-to-sell assets, Moody’s said in the report.
The college, about 90 miles (145 kilometers) west of
Boston, charges $53,370 for tuition, room and board, according
to its website.
Summer Stuff
Colleges care a LOT about how a student does in the fall of senior year. They’re looking for consistently strong students to maintain their grades, and they’ll be looking for up-and-down students to begin their year on an upswing. Plus, usually students are taking a very rigorous course load senior fall (and if not, you should be), and they want to see how well you perform in your AP level classes. But, if you save all the applications until fall, you’ll find they take up all your time and you won’t have energy to do well in your classes—and THAT is shooting yourself in the foot!
For 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th graders, summer should be a time of 1) READING; 2) keeping a vocab notebook; 3) doing SAT prep, especially if you’re a rising junior since this will be the last time you have time to really prep before the PSAT and SAT will follow! 4) pursuing one of your passions in depth.
Summers are strategically important—they are really the only time most students can get anything done since school often takes up all of their time during the school year. Do not squander your summers. By all means have some rest and relaxation, but make sure you have a good book with you.
Don’t Forget to Say WHY
You’ll notice that few colleges (and none that use the Common Application, unless they have a supplement) ask anywhere on their application WHY you’re interested in their college in the first place. That’s too bad because they really do want to know. Between two kids with similar scores and profiles, they will always pick the student who offers specific reasons behind his choice. They figure that the enthusiastic student will be more likely to accept an offer of admission, and colleges care very much about their yield.
You’ll want to add a paragraph to your main essay (or just append a short WHY paragraph) about why you are applying, but don’t fall into the trap that many students make in which they offer only generic reasons for liking the school’s location or campus or, even worse, simply recount the school’s virtues from their brochure. Focus instead on specific programs or academic opportunities rather than simply saying you like the campus or the outdoors. Show them that you’ve done your homework and that you know what makes their school unique and different—and about how those differences relate to your interests, personality, and goals.
When you visit each campus, try to connect with a professor in your area of interest so you can then leverage that info in your WHY paragraph. Again, feel free to add a short paragraph in one of your essays that details why you are applying and why that school is one of your top choices. If you’ve had a chance to visit, mention what impressed you the most. Again, be specific. You’ll find yourself with many more options come decision time.
Establish a Common Bond With Your Interviewer
We spend so much time helping our students with interviewing techniques that we have a brief list of tips to help those who face interviews this summer or next fall for an alumni interview:
1. Don’t be afraid to focus in and expand upon a subject that interests you. You do not have to cover EVERYTHING as the admissions office will also have your complete file when they read your application. That’s why it’s OK to spend 20 minutes talking about your love of Greek and Latin, especially if your interviewer happens to share that love. If you find a common bond, follow up! There are no rules to what must be covered.
2. Look the interviewer in the eye — it’s off-putting to stare down at your feet.
3. Make sure you have substantive questions, not just typical questions you could find the answers to in the view book or web site. If the interviewer attended the school, ask pointed questions about what he or she liked or didn’t like about the school.
4. After the interview, write a brief thank you note (hand written is best) and try to mention something specific that you talked about so they remember who you are.
5. Make sure you do your research about the school BEFORE the interview so you’re not caught asking embarrassing questions about a program that doesn’t exist or a major that is no longer a real program.
Students tend to overcompensate for how they think they should dress for an on-campus or alumni interview and end up looking like they are going to the prom. Others who don’t want to look concerned about how to dress end up looking like hobos. Part of how to dress of course depends on who you are and how you normally dress. If we had to make the most general suggestion, we’d suggest dressing only a standard deviation or so up or down from how you normally dress unless you are very far from the “normal” spectrum. If you are too dressed up (dresses for girls, suits and ties for boys) it looks like you went way out of your way and that draws unnecessary attention to yourself. Unless you go to school dressed that way, avoid it. On the other hand, you don’t want to wear ripped jeans, a tongue ring, dyed hair and tattoos unless you really want your dress to make a statement for you. Either extreme ends up detracting from what you actually have to say. You don’t have to be a boring conservative, but you shouldn’t be ultra casual either. For boys, usually khaki-type pants and a neat shirt (polos are fine or collared shirts if you feel more comfortable) with some clean shoes are appropriate for any interview. Some sneakers might pass, but hey, try shoes which look better with pants! Boys can also wear clean and neat jeans instead of chino-style pants if that’s closer to their normal style of dress (but keep the shoes). Girls have a wider variety of options. You do not have to look “dressed up.” Any slacks and shirt works, or a skirt and blouse if you like that type of clothing. When in doubt, go for neat and aim to fly under the radar. In the interview, your words should speak for you without your clothing interfering too much in any one direction!
If you are meeting someone for an alumni interview at an office, however, dress accordingly. So, if you are going to a fancy law firm, a jacket and tie might be appropriate. If, however, you are meeting the person at Starbucks, ditch the jacket and tie.
Year By Year – There’s Lots You Can Do
SAMPLE Questions:
I have just finished junior year and am stressed about the whole application process and selecting schools. Do you have any services that might help me?
What should I do this summer that would help me get into a better college? I’m going to be a junior in the fall?
●The Ultimate Guide to Top High School Summer Programs
My son is a smart kid and did well his freshman year in high school, but he doesn’t have any of the high level awards other kids in his school who have gone to the Ivies received. Can you guide us?
●The Ultimate Guide to Top Contests and Awards
How can I push up my SAT scores? I have time this summer, but I’ve heard that the big company SAT prep courses in a class room aren’t customized enough and sort of waste time? Any ideas?
●SAT Tutoring with Rogue Tutor Mike Barrett
My son took the ACT with Writing and followed your newsletter advice and compared it to his SAT scores and we’ve determined the ACT is his stronger test. Now how can he take it again and do better? Can you give us more info on your tutors?
●ACT Tutoring with Steve and Amy Dulan
Campus Visits
Many students are heading off to visit colleges this summer. Before you actually travel, do some research on each school before you arrive on campus – spend time on each school’s web site, read about schools on College Prowler’s web site, look into research opportunities, strong departments, well known professors, etc…
Here are some things to do during your college visits to make the most of your time: visit a class, talk to students, visit the library and see if you feel comfortable there. See a dorm, talk to a professor about your interests and find out about specific departments, visit any special places that correspond to your interests (music studios, art museums, etc…) and take notes! This will help you later when you write why you are choosing a particular school
Make these visits work for you! Don’t just take the tour/info session route — venture out! Talk to students, stop by your favorite academic department and speak to a professor, observe a class, see a dorm, do an overnight visit. Besides giving you a better feel for the school so you can figure out where to apply, doing targeted visits like this will also be useful in your application when you take time to describe WHY you are applying and why you consider yourself a good match for the school. The moral of the story is, don’t just be led down the boring propaganda road of info sessions — target your visits to get more mileage out them and to make an informed decision about which school is best for you!
We also urge students who have overnight college visits to be very careful and stay safe and for parents to discuss the SADD study below with their sons and daughters. Not only will their decisions impact their health and well-being, but colleges will not be excited to admit a student who was drunk and disorderly when visiting.
Study results below are from SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) and Liberty Mutual Group.
Almost four in ten teens (39.1 percent) who have stayed overnight on a college campus report engaging in drinking, other drug use or sex during those visits. The study also indicates these dangerous behaviors are far more prevalent among boys than among girls.
The study, conducted for SADD and Liberty Mutual by RoperASW, found the following behaviors among the high school teens who have visited a college campus for an overnight visit.
Sex – More than one in four teens (28 percent) report ‘having sex,’ and an additional 4.2 percent report engaging in ‘other types of sexual activity.’ Drinking – One in four teens (25.5 percent) reports drinking alcohol. Drugs (other than alcohol) – More than one in five teens (21.5 percent) report using drugs. All risky behaviors – One in eight teens (12.4 percent) reports engaging in all of the dangerous behaviors: drinking, drug use, and sexual activity.
Additionally, the research indicates boys’ behaviors on these overnight campus visits tend to be riskier than girls’ behaviors. For example, boys are two to three times more likely than girls to report having sex (41.5 percent vs. 14.6 percent), drinking (36.3 percent vs. 14.8 percent) or using drugs (29.7 percent vs. 11.6 percent).
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