What does it take to get into an Ivy League? Admission, more

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Earlier this week, high school seniors across the country submitted Early Decision and Early Action applications to their dream colleges and universities. Many students opt to apply early, hoping for a boost in the increasingly competitive admissions process.

Early application acceptance rates remained exceptionally low last year. Of the 7,288 students who submitted early applications to join Yale’s class of 2026, only 800 were offered admission, according to the Yale Daily News. That’s a 10.9% early acceptance rate. And yet, it’s a number more than double last year’s acceptance rate, which was 4.46%.

Most students think that applying early is a surefire way to increase their chances of admission.

But it doesn’t necessarily equate to higher chances of admission. If a student has below-average grades or test scores for their intended school, they shouldn’t fall for the trap that applying early will help negate a weaker profile. In fact, they will most likely stand out less in the early round, given that it tends to be a more qualified pool of applicants than the Regular Decision round.

Highly qualified applicants are rejected by the thousands every year at top schools. If students with high GPAs and perfect test scores are being rejected, then what exactly are Ivy League schools looking for?

The answer is anything but straightforward. To get your foot in the door for top schools, competitive GPAs and test scores are the “foundation” of a strong application. But the less concrete, more qualitative aspects of an application — what an applicant has done outside of school — often mean the difference between acceptance and rejection.

Extracurricular profiles are made up of qualitative elements, including intellectual curiosity and exploration, authentic and demonstrated passions, community leadership, and how a student has made the most of the resources available to them. Has a student demonstrated an authentic passion for a subject or cause? Have they put time and energy into building something impactful out of their passions? Have they made a difference in their communities? These are the questions that admissions officers at top schools consider when filtering through thousands of qualified applicants.

To give a better sense of what exactly a successful application looks like, here are three examples of students who have successfully worked with Command Education, an elite college consulting firm based in NYC and Miami, to achieve admission to their dream school. Names and details have been changed to protect student privacy.

Their emphasis on extracurricular development was how Command Education was able to have a 100% admit rate for all of its Harvard early applicants last year.

Michelle came to Command Education as a sophomore at a top private school in Connecticut. She was an academically competitive student with a rigorous course load but had a couple of B’s on her transcript. She also played on her school’s lacrosse team and had several volunteering experiences in her hometown. Her academic interests were in history and politics, and she wanted help to develop and expand these interests outside of school. With the guidance of her Command Education mentor, and after much consideration and personal experiences with the issue, Michelle decided to dedicate her focus to the Syrian refugee crisis. She developed a non-profit organization that raised money to support the dreams of refugees who had fled their home country, using the funds to support several refugee families. She continued developing her project through her junior and senior years and even produced a short film about the refugee issue over the summer before her senior year. She was ultimately admitted to her dream school, Yale University.

Arjun was an international student who began working with Command Education in his junior year of boarding school. He was an excellent student, at the top of his class, with a 4.0 GPA and a passion for business and finance. His dream schools were Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania or NYU Stern. With his mentor, he began by brainstorming ways to impact his community through his passion for finance. After some consideration, Arjun decided to launch a financial literacy project to educate young people on the importance of understanding how to handle money. His project ended up partnering with dozens of schools across the country and helped educate hundreds of students on financial literacy. Academically, Arjun continued to gain top grades at his high school and ultimately graduated as valedictorian. He received early admission to Wharton.

Maggie was a freshman at a competitive school in Los Angeles when she began working with Command Education. She loved to surf, was interested in marine biology, and had a passion for environmental awareness. With the guidance of her mentor, she started an organization dedicated to educating teens about climate change and environmental damage and organized events in her community, such as beach cleanups. She was ultimately able to expand her organization to five chapters nationwide, culminating in a promotional video featuring members of her organization encouraging teens worldwide to take action. Last year, she was admitted to Early Decision at Brown University.

Although they all have very different profiles, the students above all demonstrated compelling “qualitative” components in their applications. Most importantly, none of these students participated in activities they were not interested in. They all joined clubs they liked and started projects on topics they were passionate about rather than focusing on activities they thought admissions officers would like. This is the key differentiating factor between successful and unsuccessful applications to top schools — Ivy League admissions officers have fine-tuned radars for falsified or inauthentic profiles. The best way to ensure that an application doesn’t get flagged is simple: students should dedicate their time and energy to the topics that actually interest them. It takes a lot of work to build a successful project and make a real impact on a community. To follow through with these endeavors, students need to actually be passionate and care about the work they are doing. Couple this with strong GPAs and test scores, and students can dramatically increase their chances of seeing that sought-after “Congratulations!” on their admissions decision.

Learn more at Command Education.

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Tobi Tarwater

Update: 2024-07-15

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