Insider Tips
Top College Interview Policies
- Yale is the only Ivy that offers on-campus EVALUATIVE interviews.
- Harvard offers on-campus interviews, but they are not added to a student’s file.
- Neither Stanford nor MIT offers on-campus interviews.
- Columbia and Penn allow legacies (and they count parents OR grandparents as legacies in this sense) to interview on campus. [Read more]
Do Your Research
We can’t tell you how many times kids report to us that they want to go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Dartmouth, etc… but when we ask them why, they have no good reason. Colleges want to know WHY you are applying — are you impressed by their world-famous chemistry program? The well-known English department? The art history department with a specialty in Renaissance art? Often times students with particular interests do themselves a great disservice by not bothering to check if the schools on their list match their own academic interest. For example, if you like ancient languages you’d want to apply to a school that at least offered classes in Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Sanskrit and the like. [Read more]Take Your Time Making a Decision
Some of our students (even those admitted early action) are starting to receive likely letters and regular letters will be coming in the next two weeks. Students often feel pressure to decide immediately where they will spend the next four years, but such a hasty commitment can often be a mistake. [Read more]Do Extras Matter?
Extracurricular activities DO matter—but only when academics are strong. On the 1-9 academic scale, if you’re only a 1-4, that means that your academics are low enough that extracurriculars won’t make up for them, at least at very competitive schools. On the other hand, if you’re an academic 8-9, they won’t care as much about extras since the academic are so strong. It’s for the middle range of students that extracurriculars and leadership really matter. Just remember, academics are always 75% or more of the decision; once you’re in the range, THEN extras come into play. To say it another way, incredible extras won’t make up for mediocre performance in the classroom. [Read more]What to Do if an Interview Goes Awry
Students often ask what they can do if their alumni interview was horrible. How could an interview be horrible? Every once in a while, alumni interviewers (who often have zero training in how to interview) use their interview to reminisce about the “good old days” when they were college students and don’t give you a chance to talk about yourself at all. Though sometimes other problems occur, this is the most prevalent problem we’ve heard from students regarding alumni who felt the need to monopolize the time during an interview. They might even show how smart they are by grilling you unfairly or asking oddball questions. [Read more]
Faceboook and College Admissions
A study by the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth found that 25 percent of college admissions offices admit to using search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN to research potential students and that 20 percent look for the same information on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. The reality is that the percentages must be even higher because colleges and universities have little incentive to overstate their reliance on these digital dirt web searches, but they have a significant incentive to understate their use due to a fear of negative public relations and likely backlash from many Gen Y candidates who view information that they post to MySpace and some of the other social networking sites as somehow being private even though it is accessible through a quick Google search.
[Read more]Likely Letters
As you know by now, college admissions is not transparent. Likely letters, for instance, are a bit on the gray side. Many top colleges will send out a “likely” letter in February—often to recruited athletes, minority applicants, super academic stars and other special cases—saying that although they can’t tell you officially, it is “likely” that you will be accepted in April. YES, that IS the same as an acceptance letter as long as your grades don’t drop or anything. Some things to keep in mind though about likely letters:
Ivy League Admissions Statistics
Our exclusive data on the Class of 2014 Ivy League Admissions statistics, now updated for Early Action and Early Admissions for the class entering 2010. See exactly how many students applied and how many were accepted to different schools.
Learn More...
Blog Topics
Find college application and testing help by browsing our stories by topic:
- Academic Index
- ACT
- Colleges
- Essays
- Home Page Items
- Insider Tips
- Ivy Admissions
- SAT
- Standardized Testing
Academic Index Calculator
Since the 1950's, Ivy League schools have used the Academic Index, a ranking formula, to evaluate students. Find out how you rank according to the Academic Index.
Learn More...
Become an Affiliate
You can become an affiliate and sell our Application Boot Camp™ products and services.
Learn More...