Introduction

- The Ivy League Getting accepted into Ivy League Universities can be a dream come true for millions of high school students around the world.

However, college admissions can often times be a difficult and confusing process, which is why today we have constructed the top 3 best tips catered specifically for you to follow to be accepted into the Ivy Leagues.

Let's go!

Statistics about the Ivy Leagues

- What is an Ivy League University?

Coined in 1937 by sports writer Caswell Adams, the term "Ivy League" encompasses 8 of the best universities in the U.

S.

A.

The name, originally describing the universities as adorned with ivy, now serves as a hub for over 400,000 applicants to try their luck for and has some of the lowest acceptance rates ever seen.

But just how competitive are these schools to get into?

Below is a table outlining some of the statistics concerning admissions for the class of 202

7. UniversityApplications ReceivedApplicants AdmittedAcceptance RateBrown51, 3022, 609

5. 08%Columbia57, 1292, 246

3. 93%Cornell68, 0394, 994

7. 34%Dartmouth28, 8411, 751

6. 07%Harvard56, 9371, 942

3. 41%Penn59, 4633, 489

5. 87%Princeton39, 6441, 782

4. 50%Yale52, 2502, 275

4. 35%As is displayed in the table, every single university receives tens of thousands of applications every year, but only accepts less than 8% of them.

Great, so the universities are super hard to get into.

So what's the point of even applying?

Excellent question.

There are many factors that make Ivy League Universities so favorable, with a few of them being: Prestige and Name Recognition: Ivy League institutions are renowned for their academic excellence and world-class programs.

In short, they are famous.

The Ivy League label carries weight, opening doors and signaling achievement to potential employers and colleagues who you may want to work with.

Ambitious Faculty and Peers: Ivy League universities attract top-tier faculty who are leading authorities in their fields.

For instance, at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr.

Martin Seligman, an expert in positive psychology, teaches in the Penn LPS Online Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology program.

Engaging with such accomplished faculty and motivated peers enhances your learning experience, and enables you to gain real-life skills at a level which you may not be able to anywhere else.

Lifelong Networks: The connections you build during your Ivy League years become a valuable network later on.

These connections span various fields and can be instrumental in opening doors to job opportunities and collaborations.

In fact, a significant portion of Fortune 500 directors and CEOs attended elite undergraduate institutions as well as many entrepreneurs and successful workers have attended the Ivy Leagues.

Basically, a lot of smart people will be there, and by being one of them, you get to meet and connect with others just like you.

Exceptional Resources: Ivy League universities have TONS of resources.

From state-of-the-art facilities to massive libraries to hefty research funding to unique extracurricular programs, there are endless resources that you have at your disposal if you want to be successful in life, many of which other students simply don't have.

Career Boost: Research indicates that attending an Ivy League university may potentially boost mid-career earnings by nearly 2

9. 7%

1. The prestige associated with an Ivy League degree can significantly impact your career trajectory, and securing a top-notch job at an early age becomes much, much easier.

Small Class Sizes and Personal Attention: Ivy League institutions prioritize personalized education.

Smaller class sizes allow for meaningful interactions with professors, fostering mentorship and individualized learning experiences.

Undergraduate Research Opportunities: These universities encourage undergraduate research, providing access to groundbreaking projects and collaborations.

Engaging in research early on can shape your academic and professional journey, especially considering the fact that many of the professors at Ivy League Universities are a par above those at your day-to-day community college.

Variety of Courses: The Ivy League offers diverse academic programs.

Whether you’re interested in liberal arts, sciences, business, or engineering, you’ll find a rich array of courses to explore, much more than at other universities.

As Harvard Undergraduate Rishab Jain remarked himself in a video explaining why he chose Harvard over MIT and Stanford, which aren't Ivy Leagues, "Harvard has. more opportunities for me to do amazing research and come up with new innovations. " Great!

Now that you know why Ivy Leagues are such a big deal, let's talk about how to actually get accepted into one.

Tips to Get into the Ivy Leagues Tip 1: Grades Grades are crucial, and are one of the highest weighted factors in college admissions, period.

Although they are not everything, they are a great place to start if you are clueless on where to begin.

Regardless of what anyone else says, you NEED to have all A's and you NEED to be taking the most rigorous classes your high school offers.

That is all said and done.

HOWEVER, not all classes are created equal.

Yes, all AP Classes (and some honors classes) are weighted, typically on the same scale, but you should be wary, thoughtful, and extremely precise when deciding on which classes you want to take.

My biggest two tips when choosing your classes would be these: Choose classes that relate to your intended major, and choose easy classes (or hard classes that you genuinely like) that have high weightage (are AP/special Honors).

For the first tip, it is pretty simple.

If you know that you want to go into STEM, don't pile on AP Lang, APUSH, AP World, and AP Psych in your junior year and just leave room for a measly AP Calc BC to slide in there on the side!

A more balanced schedule that still has difficult humanities (which colleges want to see) but aligns better with your major would be to take AP Calc BC, AP Physics, AP Stats, AP Lang, and AP Psych instead.

This way, you balance some typically easy classes (like AP Psych) with harder classes (like AP Physics) as well as have a more refined focus on STEM.

As for the second tip, which I sort of covered already, you want to be conscientious about how much YOU can handle and how much YOU actually want to take a class.

Just because everyone else is taking a class doesn't mean that you should.

For example, if everybody in your grade is suddenly infatuated with AP Chemistry, even if you want to become a STEM major, only take the class if you genuinely have a passion for it and would be willing to put in the work, as it is a very difficult class.

It may be more worthwhile to take an easier STEM AP like AP CSP instead, and you have to weigh all of the options.

Now in terms of how to actually procure good grades once you HAVE signed up for this grueling load of classes, well, that goes beyond the scope of this article.

However, there is another article covering precisely that in great detail, linked here.

Tip 2: Extracurriculars College admissions are a holistic process, and as much as I hear people using that phrase, many don't really know what it means.

Essentially, colleges look at every single possible facet of students, including both their life and their work ethic

- at least as much as they can gather anyways from the application.

Taking EVERYTHING they possibly can into consideration in a brief analysis of each and every commendable applicant, colleges decide on who to accept based on many, many different things.

However, one of the most critical of these is a student's extracurriculars.

Extracurriculars are defined as anything that a student does outside of school.

Many students make the common mistake of thinking that extracurriculars HAVE to be academic, but that is simply not true.

Something as simple as taking care of your little brother every day after school could be considered an extracurricular, as the word is an all-encompassing term for everything that you don't HAVE to do for high school that benefited yourself or the people around you.

But how do you find a good extracurricular to really stand out for colleges?

Well there are a few things that make a GOOD extracurricular:

1. Impact This is at the top of the list because it is the most important thing.

There is a stark contrast between planting trees for one hour every week and owning a massive non-profit organization that helps plant millions of trees every year.

Clearly, the latter one is more impressive, but it also takes much more work and time and is thus what you should be both aiming for and aware of.

2. Relevance This doesn't just mean relevance to your major (which, if you don't know already, should be your top priority figuring out), but also includes relevance to the world.

Similar to with grades, you want to ensure that the extracurriculars that YOU choose to go into align with what YOU want to do while/after you are in university.

You also want to make sure that it tries to solve a real world problem and is not something that you are doing just for the kick of it.

For example, if you are interested in Neuroscience, then real-world research in a lab to cure cancer would look much more impressive than working at McDonalds (this has nothing to do with the quality of McDonalds food, for the record).

PlayReal world research on a lab to cure cancer?

As a high schooler?

How!?!?

Watch the video above to find out how Harvard Neuroscientist Rishab Jain did it.

3. Difficulty

- This is kind of like the final check box for you to tick off when deciding upon an extracurricular.

If you meet the requirements above, you should already have something that is difficult, but just in case, listen up.

Specifically for things like summer camps and research programs, which is where this applies for, try researching into the acceptance rate or asking past attendees of the program if they found it to be rigorous or challenging.

Ultimately, the more difficult or rare of an extracurricular you can immerse yourself within, the more rewarding of an experience you will likely take away from it, and the better a chance there will be that admissions officers will be equally impressed.

Overall, extracurriculars are very, VERY important for admissions into the Ivy Leagues and other T20 universities, and should be the priority for students to maximize and optimize outside of school.

Tip 3: Essays This one is for the late juniors and early seniors watching.

College essays are the final step that lace together everything that you have done in the past 4 years of your life and delicately hand-wrap it to be delivered to the front door of admissions officers.

It is your one chance to make an impression and describe moments in your life that show who you are, so you cannot mess them up.

One of the biggest things to be aware of when writing these essays is that there are typically very strict word limits, such as 100-200 words, that really restrict you to what you choose to reveal.

Thus, that choice must be made carefully.

Do NOT simply just repeat things that can be portrayed in your accomplishments.

This goes beyond simply restating merits or awards.

Based on the rest of your application, some things about you are already very heavily implied, and it is those values about yourself that you do not need to overstate in your essays.

For example, if you have a lot of leadership and volunteer positions under your awards, then you do not need to write an essay about a time in your life when you had to step up and lead people.

Admissions officers know that you are a sensational leader already.

What else, they will ask, ARE you good at?

Additionally, many people develop this small sense of imposter's syndrome when they write their applications, and constantly think that they need to falsely elevate themselves to seem like a Demi-god in the eyes of admissions officers in order to have a proper shot at the Ivies.

However, this exaggeration or blatant lying can often go back to bite students in the rear, as admissions officers have developed a laser-sharp nose to sniff our such ingenuity in their time.

Thus, the most important tip for essays is this: Write about something cool and original that make you who you are, something that NOBODY else does in the way that you do, no matter how trivial.

Ultimately, if the Ivies see that you are less academically well-versed but have a valuable personality and are driven and can bring new insights to the table that nobody else can, then you stand out more than the typically ultra-smart conformed nerd that counselors see over and over again.

Conclusion: Your Next Step to Get Into the Ivy League So there you have it!

Now that you have a little bit backing you up, go and get 'em!

All that is left for you to do is learn from as many people as you can so that you can build up your arsenal and be well-versed for both college and life.

If you want to take the first step towards doing that, then check out the admissions file of this Harvard Undergraduate to see exactly how he got in: https://www. youtube. com/watch?v=awg9qzFNsuE.