So you want to go to an Ivy League school. Let me tell you how.
As a college counselor who advises high school students on their college applications as well as courses to take to meet their lofty goals, I get to have this conversation often. So here is my sage advice.
Schools like Columbia, Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford (okay, Stanford is not an Ivy League school, but I think we can all agree that this is part of the vernacular when speaking about the country’s most selective institutions) advertise roughly a 6% admit rate. At Harvard they admit approximately 2000 students from of the 40,000 that apply, making the admissions rate closer to just 5%. The rate drops even further when you factor in Division 1 athletes and other “hooked” students. Hooked can include legacies—not just any child of an alumni but those who have a building on campus with their name on it or a hefty endowment in their name might be considered. Hooked also might include children of the President (current president excluded), international royalty, or other A-level celebrities. All this means that for the child of parents who don’t appear on TMZ your actual chance of admission is about 3%.
So what can you do to be one of the 3% of “normal students” who actually get an offer of admission?
Let’s start here. Not only do you need perfect test scores--that means an 800 on the various sections of the SAT or SAT Subject Tests or a 36 on the ACT. No, a 750 or 34 won’t do. You also need perfect grades--that means straight A’s, or A+’s if your school offers them. In addition, you must take your school’s most rigorous course load, meaning all the AP courses or IB courses possible while still maintaining a shred of sanity. You also need to have maxed out at least one subject and study it independently or at a college level.
Okay, so you are one of the 30,000 thousand valedictorians in the Unites States who does have perfect grades, perfect test scores, a score of 5 on each of the 10+ AP exams you sat for, that might put you on the playing field. It will also help if you have done one of the following:
1. Summit the highest mountain on each of the seven continents.
2. Built an ark in your garage or barn (biblical proportions required).
3. Published a novel that sold over 1 million copies.
4. Discovered a new chemical element.
5. Rescued someone (particularly a small child) from:
a. barbarian invaders
b. a shipwreck
c. a collapsed diamond mine
6. Wrote, directed, and produced an Academy Award winning film.
7. Raised or tamed a dragon.
8. Escaped from a cult.
9. Been found to be the next Dalai Lama.
10. Cured cancer.
11. Won a Nobel Prize.
12. Be the smartest kid in North Dakota.
13. Be at least a two-time record holder of the Air Guitar World Championship.
14. Solved the world hunger crisis.
15. Solo-navigated the globe on a ship made out of plastic waste.
So you can do all this, and maybe earn admission to one of the country’s most selective schools. Or you can just be a teenager living a normal life, take challenging courses that are appropriate for you, get eight hours of sleep a night, do something athletic or creative because you actually enjoy it, and be admitted to one of the other 2,990 other wonderful colleges and universities out there. Up to you.
Good luck. Let me know how it turns out.
