Ivy League Admission
The Ivy Coach College Admissions Blog

With the Early Action / Early Decision round at a close, we’ve been receiving those exciting phone calls from our students and their parents. Oh, how we love this time of year! One student just showed up at our office dressed as a Brown bear, bearing a gift of a Brown University hoodie. When such a small percentage of applicants are accepted at their dream school, it’s no wonder that these students are very special.

Yes, of course applicants must have taken the most rigorous courses and have excelled in those courses. Of course applicants must have SAT or ACT scores that are in line with the college’s mean. But courses, grades, and standardized test scores are just the basics. The applicant’s personality, one that shines through essays, extracurricular involvements, and letters of recommendation, reveals the rest of the story.

A few years ago, we wrote a blog about Talent and College Admissions in which we highlighted the accomplishments of Barnard College’s accepted class. Today, Lee Coffin, Dean of Admissions at Tufts University, was kind enough to let the world know about the unique talents of Tufts’ Early Decision accepted students for the Class of 2016. He calls these talents his “Sweet Sixteen” and we’d like to share some of what he wrote with you.

“To highlight a few of the personalities heading our way next September, the ED class features a nationally-ranked Scrabble player from suburban Boston, a professional guitarist from New Haven, New Mexico’s ‘We the People’ state champ, the founder and president of the lumberjack club at a high school in Northern Virginia, a participant in Occupy Louisville, an equestrian from LA who competes in extreme cowboy racing and a blogger for Huffington Post. That’s quite a bunch!”

Coffin goes on in his blog post on the topic of his talented admitted students to write, “We’ll watch out for the Singaporean who’s been trained as a field medic as well as ‘counter-improvised explosive services’ techniques (he just finished his compulsory military service) as well as the community health student from Westchester County who reported ‘I am a ferocious, fearless and phenomenal skinny dipper.’ Indeed.”

Are you starting to get a sense of what it means to be a “talented” college applicant?

Categories: College Admissions, Extracurricular Activities, Talented Students  Tags: Talent and College Admissions, Talent and Ivy League Admissions, Talented College Applicants, Talented Students and College Admission, Talented Students and Ivy League Admission

Parents, it seems, are after an Ivy League admissions hook for their children from a very young age. There’s an article in the “New York Times” this weekend entitled “Family Happiness And the Overbooked Child” that describes how parents will do just about anything to ensure that their children explore and discover their talents from the early years. But is this necessary to gain admission to an Ivy League college?

Maybe your child did cello for two months, swimming for a year, and basketball for four days before realizing that the cello, swimming, and basketball were not for them. Parents see it as healthy for children to explore potential passion areas and maybe – just maybe – they’ll be amazingly talented in a given area. What if, after all, your child could be the next Michael Phelps? Or the next LeBron James?

Parents often think that it’s important to discover a talent at a young age because that talent needs to be cultivated — especially if it’s going to be your child’s Ivy League admissions hook. And they’re not necessarily wrong. Most hockey players at Ivy League colleges started playing hockey when they were toddlers. The athlete who picked up a sport later in life only to become exceptional (like, say, Gary Hall, Jr. in swimming) is the exception to the rule rather than the rule. And keep in mind, Gary Hall, Jr. had great swimming genes since his dad was a former Olympic swimmer.

But for those parents who try to force a talent (and by that we mean the kid is not naturally gifted but you think that with enough practice, they’ll become terrific) or encourage their children to keep sampling everything and not encourage them to hone in on any one or two areas, it’s probably not the way to go. Malcolm Gladwell has demonstrated that people become exceptionally talented in a given area after 10,000 hours of practice in that area (see our blog: College Admissions and Talent). You don’t amass 10,000 hours sampling every activity under the sun for a few hours a month.

So if you’re a parent whose kid has karate belts stuffed at the back of his closet, fins and paddles from that swim team he swam on four years ago, and a collection of DVDs on a proper jump shot, you might want to reconsider your strategy. Maybe it makes your child happy. But it’s costing you a fortune. Maybe they’d be just as happy focusing on only a couple activities. It might just save your wallet.

Categories: Ivy League, Talented Students  Tags: Admissions Hook for Ivy League, Hooks for Admission to Ivy League, Ivy League Admissions Hook, Ivy League Hooks, Talented Students Admission to Ivy League

We ran a post a little while back that focused on a Princeton University professor who didn’t believe the next great entrepreneurs were going to come out of Ivy League classrooms. We happened to strongly disagree and made a point of bringing some Ivy League entrepreneurs to the forefront. The fact is, many of America’s top entrepreneurs come out of the Ivy League and other top colleges. Let’s bring some more of these top college entrepreneurs that “Forbes” has highlighted to your attention.

There’s Corinne Prevot of Middlebury College whose “hats and neckwear, in neon polka dots, geisha flowers and hipster plaids, are in 47 retail stores across the country. Now 20, the joint major in anthropology and geography says her company, Skida, has been profitable since 2009. Sales for the last 12 months have hit $100,000. Roughly $42,000 of that was profit.” She even learned how to run a startup through an entrepreneurial course at Middlebury.

There’s Northwestern University’s Nikhil Sethi, founder of Adapt.ly, a company that “automates advertising purchases across social media websites. By the time Sethi, now 23, graduated last June, he was servicing big corporate clients including PepsiCo and Zales jewelry stores, and banking revenues in the high six figures. This spring, Sethi scored $2 million in financing from a group of investors that includes Philadelphia venture firm First Round Capital and Palo Alto’s Charles River Ventures. He won’t reveal profits but Sethi projects 2011 revenues of at least $10 million, with explosive quarter-over-quarter growth of 70%.”

And there’s USC’s Jake Medwell and Jonathan Shriftman who took a liking to fixed-gear bicycles. “They’ve built Solé Bicycles, which imports readymade fixed gear bicycles from China according to the pair’s specifications, into a growing boutique operation that’s slated to pull in sales of $1 million this year. That’s up from $300,000 in 2010, according to Medwell, who says the company is already profitable, though he won’t reveal by how much. Solé sells bikes online for one price, $310, and wholesales them to some 30 retailers for $200.”

Check out the “Forbes” article on top college entrepreneurs and let us know your thoughts by posting below!

Categories: Talented Students  Tags: College Startups, Ivy League Entrepreneurs, Ivy League Startups, Top College Entrepreneurs, University Startups

While the NBA is in a labor dispute and fans worry about the possibility that there won’t be an NBA season next year, we’d like to highlight an Ivy League athlete who is currently on the roster of the Golden State Warriors, having just finished his rookie season. This is not only noteworthy because he, a Harvard grad, is the first Ivy League athlete to play in the NBA in ten years (Yale’s Chris Dudley retired in 2001) but also because he is the first Asian-American to play in the NBA since 1947.

Harvard’s Jeremy Lin is indeed a barrier breaker. He wasn’t even a big college recruit. He sent videos and stats to UCLA. They said maybe he could walk on, but they weren’t going to recruit him. Stanford (in his hometown of Palo Alto) overlooked him. The Harvard coach even dismissed Lin to his high school coach only to call back later to say he’d spoken too soon. Brown and Harvard were the only schools to recruit him in the end and Ivy League schools do not offer athletic scholarships.

Since being signed to a two-year contract as an undrafted rookie, Jeremy Lin has shown potential to excel in the NBA game. In limited minutes, the Harvard grad, who is also the first player of Taiwanese descent to play in the NBA, is a crowd favorite. This is partially due to the fact that he’s an Asian-American in the NBA and also due to the fact that he’s a hometown hero, playing in the same area where he once led his high school to much basketball success. If the crowd only knew that Lin plays much better on the road! On the road, the modest Lin can find more anonymity! At least for now…

Check out our posts: College Admissions and March Madness and College Athletics.

Categories: College Athletes, Ivy League, Talented Students  Tags: Harvard Athlete, Harvard NBA Player, Ivy League Athlete, Ivy League Pro Athlete, Ivy Leaguer in NBA

Three students from across the United States claimed top prizes at the first annual Google Science Fair, a prestigious, global science research competition co-sponsored by LEGO. And all three students happen to be female. The grand prize of $50,000 was awarded to Shree Bose, a high school junior who sought to improve the treatment for ovarian cancer patients resistant to cancer drugs. Naiomi Shah won the 15-16 age group with research that focused on improving the indoor air quality for asthmatics. And Lauren Hodge won the 13-14 age group by testing various marinades’ impact on a carcinogen found in grilled chicken.

If you’re passionate about science, conducting science research is an excellent way to stand out in the college admissions process. You want to show to college admissions counselors evaluating your application that you go beyond getting A’s in chemistry and physics. You love science so much that you spend your summers conducting research in labs. You eat, sleep, and breathe science. Competitions like the Google Science Fair or the Intel Science Talent Search are terrific science research contests to enter to also raise your science research profile in the college admissions process.

Check out our related posts on Science Research and College Admissions and the Grand Prize of Caltech Admissions.

Categories: Admissions Process, College Admissions, Extracurricular Activities, Talented Students  Tags: Admission to Ivy League Science Research, College Admissions and Science Research, Google Global Science Fair, Google Science Fair, Ivy League Admissions and Science Research

If you’re a competitive skier who wants to ski at the collegiate level, there are several college ski teams out there to choose from. While you may not be able to find one at the University of Miami, you can find Division I programs at Boston College, Dartmouth College (they have their own skiway a short bus ride away from campus!), Harvard University, University of Colorado – Boulder, University of New Hampshire, University of Vermont, and University of Utah among others.

And that’s not all. Division III college ski teams include liberal arts strongholds Babson College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, Colby College, Middlebury College (they’ll be hosting NCAA Championships for skiing in 2013), and Williams College among others. That’s still not it. USCSA programs exist for Brown University (though do see our blog on Brown University Athletic Cuts), Duke University, Colgate University, MIT, Princeton University, Stanford University, and Tufts University among others.

For specifics on which programs offer a cross-country or alpine program (or both), you should check out the specific university’s team website. Be sure to peruse the rosters to see if they’re going to be graduating several seniors so you can know if they’re going to have a number of recruiting needs. And check old results for the individuals on the team to see if your times are competitive. All of this information can be extremely helpful to you as you zero in on which schools to target for your college experience.

Check out our blog on College Athletic Recruiting or on Ivy League Athletes.

Categories: Admissions Process, College Admissions, College Athletes, Ivy League, Talented Students  Tags: College Ski Teams, College Skiing Teams, Ivy League Ski Teams, University Ski Teams, University Skiing Teams

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In a previous post on talented college applicants, we wrote about how college admissions counselors are in search of talented students to form a well rounded class. They’re not in search of well rounded students to form a somewhat talented class of students who are fairly decent at a number of things. How would that sit with the basketball coach? Or the swim coach? Do you think the swim coach wants a male 100 breaststroker who can swim a :55 or a 100 breaststroker who can swim a 1:15 but also sings somewhat like Ben Harper (minus any ability whatsoever to carry a tune). So, yeah, he’s not such a good singer or swimmer. Do you think the bball coach would want to play the girl who can’t make an unguarded layup but who can play a mean piano (though she struggles with differentiating a C from a C Sharp) or the girl who can come close to jamming and averages 24 points a game? The basketball coach wants the latter student and thus that’s the student college admissions officers will want as well.

So what if you’re only mediocre at, say, water polo and you’ve tried playing other sports but you’re even worse? And what if you really love water polo and you want to keep playing but now you’ve read that you need to be talented in a particular area to really succeed in the college admissions process? That’s ridiculous! Do what you love and you’ll find you get better at it. Don’t believe us? Will you take Malcolm Gladwell’s word? He’s the author of “Outliers” in which he argued that to be exceptional at anything, to be an outlier (think of a great water polo player like Tony Azevedo as compared to the typical water polo players), you need to practice for 10,000 hours. Yes, you read that right — 10,000 hours during your lifetime.

Bill Gates programmed at the computer for 10,000 hours and he founded Microsoft in his garage. Michael Phelps swam for 10,000 hours and he won eight Olympic golds in the last Olympic Games (not to mention six the previous Olympics). Larry Bird shot a basketball for 10,000 hours on his Indiana farm and developed one of the greatest shots in the history of the game. Does Larry Bird look athletic to you? Did he ever? He trained. He shot ball after ball through a hoop and he excelled. Larry Legend was not born a basketball sensation. He became one through hard work. And you can excel in your talent area as well!

Check out our article on talented students and college admissions and watch the Charlie Rose interview clip with Malcolm Gladwell!

Categories: College Admissions, Extracurricular Activities, Talented Students  Tags: College Admissions and Talent, Extracurriculars and College Admissions, Talent and University Admissions, Talented College Applicants, Talented Students and College Admissions

Recently, we were at an alumni event for Dartmouth College where Dartmouth President Jim Yong Kim addressed a packed hall. During the question and answer session that followed Kim’s speech about Dartmouth, an alumnus questioned why so many wonderful students who attended the high school at which he taught didn’t get admitted to his alma mater. He spoke of how well rounded these students were, how they were Renaissance young men and women in that they excelled in multiple sports, music, and community service. In this alum’s words, these students are just like he was as a high schooler and he was admitted to Dartmouth. President Kim had a very eloquent and simple answer. He said that the student they were looking for years ago is not necessarily — and often most certainly is not — the student they are looking for today. He went on to explain how Dartmouth College admissions counselors are instead in search of talented college applicants to form a well rounded student body.

What President Kim didn’t specify but he absolutely meant is that they are looking for talented students to form a well rounded class. And that means they’re not looking for “Renaissance” young men and women who play 5 hours of the violin each week combined with 3 hours of swimming, 2 hours of volunteering at a homeless shelter, and an hour at the piano. The talented college applicants that Dartmouth admits are already intellectually curious and wildly successful in academics. That’s usually a prerequisite for admission (though there are most certainly exceptions on, say, sports teams we won’t begin to name). Contrary to the time in which the alumnus applied to college, college admissions counselors like students who excel in a specific area. Can you be an excellent squash player who is on the recruiting radar of college coaches and volunteer as well? Of course! The point is…better to be talented in one area than mediocre in five areas.

Read our article originally published by Peterson’s on Talented College Applicants. We can help you develop a strategy for your extracurricular pursuits so that you can stand out to college admissions counselors. Contact us today by signing up for a free 30-minute consultation.

Categories: College Admissions, Extracurricular Activities, Talented Students  Tags: High School Students with Talents, Talented College Applicants, Talented High School Students, Talented University Applicants, Talents and College Admissions

For those current Brown University fencers, wrestlers, and women’s skiers (as well as prospective applicants to the university who want to compete in those sports and other Ivy League athletic recruits / current student athletes), we’d like to remind you of a little story in the hope that it will inspire you. Maybe it will even inspire you to want to fight back the Brown University administration to try and convince the university not to cut these athletic teams. This is a story that had its beginnnings in the quaint little town of Hanover, New Hampshire at Dartmouth College when then-president James Wright, former dean James Larimore, and former athletic director Josie Harper decided to eliminate the men’s and women’s swim teams on the eve of Thanksgiving break.

Their decision to cut the teams did not sit well with the swimmers or the swimmers applying to Dartmouth. That came as no surprise to the administrators. But what Dartmouth College didn’t anticipate was the entire college coming together in support of the team. They didn’t anticipate the student body marching to James Wright’s and James Larimore’s homes in the middle of the night on a cold New Hampshire night chanting, “Jim, let us swim!” They didn’t anticipate crowds of angry students protesting in Parkhurst Hall. They didn’t anticipate the prevalance of “I Am a Dartmouth Budget Cut” t-shirts. They didn’t anticipate Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun-Times, a noted sports columnist (particularly for the Chicago Bulls of the 1990s), writing a piece that would implore Dartmouth to do the right think by reversing its decision to cut the teams.

They didn’t anticipate the national media attention that would ensue when the boyfriend of a female swimmer put the team for sale on eBay. They didn’t anticipate “Pardon The Interruption” (PTI) doing a segment on the story or ESPN running the story on the bottom ticker. They didn’t anticipate swimmers from Harvard University and Princeton University and all of the other Ivy League colleges swimming with a “D” on their arms in support of Dartmouth College Swimming & Diving. Apparently you can’t sell a Division I college team on eBay (or anywhere else) but it didn’t matter. The gimmick attracted so much attention that Dartmouth was able to endow the team and reinstate it for the foreseeable future. A $2 million endowment,named the John C. Glover Fund, poured in from Dartmouth students, parents, alumni and friends, and has since supported the swimming and diving programs. The endowment will cover operating expenses for the next 10 years (until 2012) when other funding options are to be identified.

Over nine years later, the teams remain competing. They typically finish last in the Ivy League each and every year with zero wins but this year, the Dartmouth men’s swim team actually recorded a win and the women’s team finished ahead of Cornell University in the final Ivy League standings! It goes to show you what can be accomplished with creativity and whole lot of passion. Brown University students, parents, alumni, and fellow Ivy League students and Ivy League athletic recruits, it’s your turn.

Check out our related posts on Brown University Athletic Recruitment and Brown University Recruits.

Categories: College Admissions, Deciding on a College to Attend, Ivy League, Talented Students  Tags: Brown University Athletics, Dartmouth College Athletics, Ivy League Athletic Recruiting, Ivy League Athletic Recruits, Ivy League Athletics

Fencers, wrestlers, and women’s skiers interested in applying to Brown University, you may want to think twice in choosing your first choice college. For these sports, Brown University athletic recruitment is coming to a halt due to budget cuts (which with athletic teams typically centers on Title IX). The teams would be discontinued for the 2011-2012 academic year. Brown has the third largest athletic program (i.e., the number of teams the university supports) among Ivy League colleges and yet they also have the third smallest budget in the Ivy League, according to a report “Equity in Athletics Disclosure” on the U.S. Department of Education website.

If all goes to plan, Brown University will now be able to better focus its athletic recruitment on its remaining teams. If you recall in a previous blog post, we discussed how Brown University in particular has a difficult time attracting middle class student athletes to matriculate. These cuts are consistent with Brown University athletic recruitment difficulties. According to a “Bloomberg” article by Curtis Eichelberger, “The committee’s report also says that Brown’s coaches and staff are underpaid and should be brought into line with other Ivy League schools; the number of admissions slots for recruited athletes should be reduced by 30 to 195; athletic facilities need to be upgraded.”

“According to the Equity in Athletics Disclosure Report, Brown had the least athletic department revenue in the 2009-2010 academic year: Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut ($36.5 million); University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia ($30.4 million); Princeton University in New Jersey ($19.5 million); Columbia University in New York ($19.3 million); Cornell University in Ithaca, New York ($19 million); Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire ($18.5 million); Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts ($17.9 million) and Brown ($15.2 million).”

Check out Curtis Eichelberger’s “Bloomberg” article here.

And check out our related post on athletics and Harvard Admissions.

Categories: College Admissions, College Athletes, Talented Students  Tags: Athletic Recruiting at Brown University, Brown University Athletic Recruitment, Brown University Athletics, Ivy League Athletic Recruits, Ivy League Recruiting