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## Introduction [00:00] hello everyone welcome we'll get started in just a minute all right welcome everyone uh today's ## What Ivy League Admissions Officers Are Really Looking For [01:00] topic is going to be IV League 101 what it takes to be able to get in uh super excited to be able to share this information just because a lot of folks are wondering what does it take in order to get into the top most school so we'll cover in just a bit uh what we're going to do is we're going to talk about preparing for academic riger what the class progressions look like we'll look at example schedules that we've been able to successfully get students into I leagues and uh what is it that you can do about your class choices also uh focusing on your activities to show your dedication one last bullet point that I forgot to also add on to here is the supplemental applications as well and what is it that you can highlight specifically just for that University when you're prompted for that uh quick housekeeping here uh if you don't mind just share your high school graduation year in the chat curious to know who's in the room with us today and also throughout this entire time if you have any questions feel free to let me know uh lastly replays and notes will always be available within 48 hours so please be patient with us I know a lot of folks are always asking for us uh to be able to follow up but our team will get back to you I swear okay by way of background for myself I used to work formally at UC Berkeley College admissions process as an Outreach coordinator and instructor I taught a class on how to get into graduate school went to different schools um uh and taught about college admissions process overall just so you know in terms of what we teach what um in terms of the IV leag of missions the UCA missions or whatever ad missions it is it is all practically the same uh generally speaking uh we've talked with a lot of different College missions officers and the way that we kind of go through the missions process it is it is a very similar kind of uh process uh also fun fact for myself I used to be a full ride UC Berkeley scholar uh and I was able to pay for undergrad and graduate school without taking out any loans and lastly in terms of my background I used to work in K through2 education policy at Tech and now I'm an admissions adviser so that being said you're in good hands right now and let's get into the content of it so first off uh before we kind of go into about how does I League admissions works I just wanted to be able to share a few success stories of our students who did get in just so that folks know that what we're talking about is true okay uh if you haven't seen already go to our EOL loock success stories website that's where you can see some interviews of our students who did get into Harvard and other IV ## How to Maximize Academic Rigor With AP, Honors, and Dual Enrollment [03:15] leuea schools as well so if you haven't checked it out yet do uh take a look at Cindy and Robin's um highlight here they're both students who gone to Harvard and so it was super exciting last year when we were able to interview them also here's some other kind of admissions that we've seen previously as well for I leagues or IV League pluses and when we say IV League pluses it's not just the I leagues that we're trying to focus on we're trying to focus on the most top competitive schools in this case here that also um meant for this particular School of the California Institute of Technology also right here within rice as well uh we've seen admissions into Emory also into Stanford and Columbia Cornell Berkeley and even just a few days ago we saw a lot of admissions as well and so we're expecting to see IV League uh emissions uh successes even more within the next few weeks uh usually it comes out late March and also early April So within the next few days we're super excited to be able to share some admission stories that we were able to hear and uh we hope that from this presentation again this all this information is free and also if you're a part of our coaching communities you're in good hands that you're going to be able to learn from the best in terms of what is it take in order to get into these schools so let's dig into it so what is it that they want to know okay remember that the whole point about College admissions process is that you want to connect the dots you want to backwards map what exactly are they looking for and to see how is it that you can fit that profile there isn't like a necessarily like a cookie cutter profile necessarily that the IV League admissions are really looking for but what we do want to understand is at least these General kind of broad characteristics of showing strong academic rigor um meaning that can you actually handle the amount of college uh riger that's expected at our University we just want to make sure that you can graduate on time second you have a passion and commitment towards service or some type of particular uh need or Mission that you want to uh accomplish and lastly the alignment with the college values because if you didn't know for a lot of these IV League schools they require like a separate application saying like why Harvard why Yale why this particular school or why this particular major and so the most important thing about there is really being able to demonstrate that you do have a cultural fit with that and so we'll talk about how to approach those applications and how to structure application and what are some things that you could potentially highlight or or identify if you're a junior already your class of 2026 you're going to be working on this really soon and don't worry we'll help you every single step of the way and there's of course there's a lot more to it but these are the kind of the main things that we're going to be focusing on just for today just because they are the most important things okay so let's start with the first one which is the academic rigor so when it comes to academic rigor uh really we just want to understand can you handle the difficult courses because uh it's not just about being able to get in but can you actually grow graduate on time the reason why riger is so important is because uh we don't want to set you up for failure we want you to set you up for success and the courses at IB League school are definitely more difficult in a sense in compared to like state colleges and so the way that we discover that is through like courses such as the honors courses Advanced placements AP scores IB courses and also dual enrollment as well and remember that uh the way that you want to think about it is uh how can you diver I ify your academic rigor you don't want just ## The 3 Academic Pathways: Engineering, STEM/Business, and Everything Else [06:30] one of these you want as much as possible the reason for that is because uh imagine if you're taking the same amount of classes as everyone else at your school and remember you're being compared against two groups of people your high school and your geographical location and if everyone at your school were to apply to the same school the same pathway as you then you're going to look like the same if you have the same exact courses and so the way to think about it is how do you diversify your academic rigor how do you show that you're taking different types of academically rigorous courses so that way you can be able to stand out and so that's why we recommend dual enrollment which is the ability to take Community College courses while your high school that is the one major strategy that we always talk about because if your other peers are not taking dual enrollment then that just makes it even easier and better to be able to stand out so uh definitely that's something that you might want to consider which is how do you create a schedule that that uses all these different types of rigor in there and so at least for the IB leagues right um you want to try to take as many honors AP and IBS possible that's eligible at your school the way that we see an in admissions is that we get to see what is the average number of AP courses I courses honor courses that students enter in with meaning that um at the point of junior year or senior year what is the typical number of uh these courses that people are finishing at because you're being compared against your peers right the goal is to be able to be ahead of the curve meaning that if you know that there's an average of 10 AP courses that are required to get into uh or 10 AP AP that are uh typical for students to finish by the time it hit senior year then you want to get above 10 you want to get 11 or 12 then in that case right uh and so a lot of um families always ask us how many AP courses do I need the question isn't about how many AP courses you need the question is what is the typical average of AP courses our students taking after school so take into consideration of that and then just one up that and that's pretty much when when you know that you're in a good place also last thing is don't be restricted by what your school allows you can always uh go further as in like the dual enrollment pathway which we'll talk about in in more detail but essentially um the kind of strategy or the loophole here is to be able to find Outside courses just through like for example UC Scout BYU um online courses that you can get like credits for and also with dual enrollment and dual enrollment is especially important because the fact that it is college credit and that what you're showing with college credit is that you can handle college level uh courses so uh let's talk about an example of what a typical course schedule might look like and let's uh let's say this is a regular student okay typically students might start off with geometry at 9th grade um they have English n biology PE and so forth and this is like what you see at a typical Traditional High School um that has like semesterly courses then they progress through uh looking at the top row only right they just go through the typical math route that's we're assuming that they don't take any uh Summer School courses and they finish with Calculus AB by the end of 12 grade same for English courses too you see that there's just a slow progression English 9 all the way to English 12 also with the same for the typical types of Sciences they might go bio Cam and then maybe AP Bio or AP cam or physics and then with world history and US history and government they kind of Follow That typical progression so at this end of at end of the day you're looking at maybe approximately uh four or five like AP courses that this student might be taking okay so this is what we see with a a regular student and ## How to Use Personal Projects to Showcase Passion and Leadership [10:00] the thing is remember that for I leagues it's not about being regular it's about being able to like step up and to be able to stand out right and so what is it that it could look like instead what's the alternative okay so um one of the things that we always talk about in our program is how do you optimize based off your pathway remember there's three Pathways that we could talk about right so the first pathway is computer science and engineering second pathway is stem in business and third is everything else so if you're in the engineering ing or uh engineering or computer science field then you're belong the first pathway anything like kind of technical related uh stem and business in the middle and I know stem the E stands for engineering but technically we're just kind of taking that out and putting into the first pathway because engineering and computer science is much more rigorous so let's talk about the first track what does it look like for computer science and engineering field that could that it could look like so this is kind of the list here where we see at the very beginning of nth grade instead of geometry they're taking Algebra 2 ready and starting in 10th Grade they're already taking on um AP or honors pre-cal uh of course not many schools uh or not every single school offers honors or AP pre-out but again uh it's whatever is the highest that's available after school is really what you want to go for and then in 11th and 12th grade you might notice that they don't really have math per se uh and that's because they taking dual enrollment and we'll talk about what that outside schedule looks like this is just particularly the schedule only within the school something you notice is that within the first uh nth in the nth grade they have two honors courses which is the only available honors courses that they might have at their school it's possible that the school doesn't allow AP courses and that's okay uh again because you're being compared against the average of the school you want to think about okay what is the highest number of honors or AP courses do they allow to take at ninth grade if you notice there's even at least one student that has an AP course then okay then you want to get to that one AP course then and so uh a lot of uh families ask me this question all the time uh especially if you're in Middle School like which high school should I go take my kid to and it it depends on a variety of factors but something to consider is that depending on your high school that determines what your strategy is so I typically like the schools where they have only um they have strict policies about the number of AP courses allowed per grade because that makes it easier to strategize so for example they only allow two AP courses in 10th Grade then you just know that okay just get to three or get to two AP courses plus like dual enrollment or something of that sort so uh take that in consideration right about like again what's the maximum what's the average and that will give you a better sense of what courses to take for 10th grade uh you'll see that they have three AP courses AP World History AP pre-cal and also AP uh CSP and um that is you know the uh the most allowed AP courses the student was able to take and also they're in honors in every single honors course that they can potentially take here so two honors courses and three AP courses the uh third year of high school they have almost all AP courses except this foreign language and uh is this foreign Lang is three years of foreign language required or not no it's not okay uh yes it shows great that you have consistency of being able to do like three years or four years of of foreign language but it's not required and like for example another alternative that people can take instead is like if they're in a magnet course where they have to take like engineering or uh or uh computer science maybe they might have a computer science or Eng engineering track at their school it's possible that you might not be able to F in that foreign language so just know that it won't necessar count against you just because you don't have that third year language is it recommended of course it is but um you can always explain it in the application that you weren't able to take it uh because of the uh the lack of um availability in your schedule and they'll be able to see that based off your transcript and so in this case right here we have uh five AP courses that's available within the 11th grade and so that is the um the the maximum that's taken there as well and then in 12th grade you'll see that there is you continue to be more AP courses and this student maximize like their uh entire like AP schedule especially for physics uh and math so those are the two main things that we look at especially for the computer science and engineering pathway if you're studying this field right the physics the math courses and anything engineering or computer science related is really what's going to be highly recommended but something that you don't see here right this is just a schedule only for within high school if you were to take an outside look of what else did they do they actually took math in other uh in dual enrollment as well so instead of taking math in high school they took calc 1 calc 2 Cal 3 linear algebra and differential equations discrete math in community college and these are levels of math that is not ## Real Examples of Ivy-Worthy Extracurricular Activities [14:45] available at the high school why is this beneficial well think about it this way right if you already taking college level math and you're able to have that new transcript you're applying to college and the college wants to know can you actually handle the amount of rigor at a university if they see that you completed college credits already then it's like okay great amazing that means that I won't have any fear that you won't that you won't drop out in the future and so by taking this higher level of math this also demonstrates that you're you're um being uh taking initiative in terms of your uh your knowledge and so the major thing that we want to understand from the mission side is what is it that um what kind of are you taking advantage of the academic opportunities in your area and this is like one of those examples also with Sciences something that uh this student also took was additional classes on U Scout and this was uh AP Chemistry and AP Physics C if you are not in California it's totally fine to take UC Scout as well UC Scout isn't just for people who are going to uc's but it's also for anyone that's applying to college in general and UC Scout is a great place to be able to take online uh science courses we typically recommend taking the science courses through like UC Scout or BYU anyways just because uh it's easier for students to pass if you take the Community College course of science it's a lot more difficult so we don't recommend taking like the hard Sciences in the community college we only recommend really math to take and also general education courses uh third thing is additional course work as well they might have taken some few uh computer science courses uh in addition to ones at school to really sh demonstrate their interest in going to computer science so in total this student took six additional math classes two additional science courses and three additional uh computer science courses uh does that sound a lot like a lot yes it totally does okay but also remember that what's great about the community college with dual enrollment is that they're only in one semesters each meaning that Cal 1 is equivalent to one full year of calculus uh AP Calculus AB and you have to take an AP test at the end of the year and get a four or five but at least when it comes to math here you just take it for one semester and you're good so meaning that you actually finish it in half the time and also what's great is like even for UC Scout even students can finish that within months right two to three months you don't necessarily need to take a full year just to be able to finish an AP course so again the goal for us is to work smarter not harder so these are some ways to be able to kind of expedite your academic rigor and to show that you're taking that initiative all right so uh let's go to the next part which is the uh stem and business track so if you're interested in going Premed especially this is the thing that you should be focusing on or paying attention to and also if you're in business this is also the same way why are they on this track well because the uh the types of courses the types of rigor is kind of in the same uh same here so uh this is what a typical P course progression might look like in this case Okay so from nth grade we see Algebra 2 and then they take they end up actually taking the rest of their math courses within their High School setting and so this is what we saw one of our students be able to do is that they actually went from pre-cal to Calculus BC and then finish off with ap stats uh at least in terms of sem business track the math uh is not as uh crazy significant in comparison to the Cs and Engineering pathway and so what that means is that you don't have to um really push yourself to go to linear algebra or multivariable calculus or those things just because that's really more expected for like the people who are going more into the engineering or computer science fields and here in ## How to Write “Why Us” and Supplemental Essays That Actually Work [18:20] English they progressed in the honors courses went through all the AP the typical AP English courses from AP Lang AP Lit and same for Sciences as well where they take bio and chem honors and then uh and then took the AP cem and AP Bio if you see any AP Cham or AP Bio at your school and you're in the stem and business track that's what you really want to take okay physics not as important I wouldn't really worry too much about physics here because physics is more related to the ones who are going down the engineering path and then lastly there's typical there's typically like the magnet business Pathways or like the Premed pathway those are good courses to take as well and especially they offer like physiology or other kinds of courses that are related to your field of Interest then those are the ones that you really want to focus on as well but generally speaking the student took all the AP courses that was available as much as possible and really demonstrated that but let's also look at what did they do outside of uh the high school itself so um the students areed taking calc 3 or linear algebra starting uh later on after as well and so uh this was something that they actually double up in during like their senior year or like the summer right before their senior year as I mentioned right again not as a huge Focus like they definitely did the best that they can into their ability to be able to take as much math as possible but again like in terms of like comparability like those that go down the stem and business pathway the Cal 3 and linear algebra is kind of like a cherry on top here uh is it required like not necessarily um and is it something that they uh is yeah is it required no not at all but then at the same time it's something that shows that you are taking an initiative and that again if you want to stand out this is one of the ways that they stand out and then the science courses this particular student took a additional class on UC Scout they put they put AP Physics and that was a fine course to take it just showed that they had differentiation in their schedule meaning again it's really about how you diversify academic rigor how you stand out against your peers and the way to stand against the peers is take the courses that they haven't taken before some additional Community College work that this student uh particularly took they also took an intro to business and also Financial Accounting class uh something that you would just want to double check is whether the class is transferable so just making sure that um you don't want to just take any business course you don't want to just take any like medical course you want to make sure that it actually fulfill a general education course and so uh the student um was able to take a a closer look at that to see if it was transferable uh in California there are websites to be able to see like assist.org uh which is a website to see what courses fulfill the general education requirements um for other states they might have their own kind of thing it's based on the community college system um they usually have their own kind of website to see what's transferable and so for this particular student uh they got two additional math courses one additional science courses and three additional uh CS courses here okay uh and uh and sorry that might have been in typo that means like just Community College courses uh not not not computer science so just three additional computer um Community College courses all right so that's academics okay so now that yall know uh in terms of what was some ways to be able to stand out through the academics the next part is the activities and so first let's understand like what the activities are really meant to do uh they're really made to help the admissions officers really know that are you taking initiative to really learn more about your interest right uh the thing about these activities is that um you don't need to wait until College to really understand what is it that you want to study like learning doesn't start when you get to College learning about your particular interest your majors start as early as now and the goal isn't for you to be like the best of the best as in like uh curing cancer or doing anything of that sort the goal is just to show that you're taking initiative and you have a commitment to learn right and so demonstrating passion and commitment is like one of those things where they just want to know uh how how serious are you about learning this particular field how do you know that you really want to study this uh development of soft skills you know being able to think about like leadership experiences it's not just about doing really well in the academics but it's really about how do you show that you're well-rounded that also means like contributing to your community as well evidence of time management like because when you're in college you're not going to be just doing academics only you're you're going to get involved on campus they want people who will contribute towards their culture and the way to be able to show they will contribute towards culture is somebody who does more than just academics if you have someone who has perfect grades 5.0 uh like all a 100% everything that is not necessarily the way to be able to um ## Mistakes to Avoid When Talking About Schools or Professors [23:00] stand out because the thing is like they want somebody who is engaged on their campus and so the time management part is to be able to see like do you have a balance of different things all at once unique perspectives and experiences you know what is something that is uh new that you can be able to bring bring what's a fresh perspective that you can provide personal growth and resilience are you learning about yourself not just about the academics itself but can you show a lot of self-awareness and lastly alignment with college values which we'll dig into a bit more specifically when it comes to the supplemental applications and so let's explore some examples of some of our students uh personal projects that was able to get them into the ID leagues okay so we have student one here who was a computer science student and so they uh created a computer science club revolving around helping students learn how to code uh for themselves they were in a lower social economic status um Bubble and they C or yeah lower status uh meaning like they were qualifying for free reduced lunch and then they wanted to share that information to others because of the fact that this uh these courses the computer science classes was not available at the school uh little do some people know is that AP Computer Science is not something that's widely available in every single neighborhood or every single high school and so this student wanted to create uh that particular Club because there wasn't enough education at the particular schol and so they they made that uh available for the rest of the students at the school as well and so they also worked with this team like as in trying to create a project out of it as well where they developed an app to help solve the problem of food waste in the community so being able to connect like um what are what are some like uh food uh challenges that like what are some like leftover food like for example there is sometimes food that's discarded at the grocery stores and being able to try to connect like that uh that particular waste to people who could purchase the uh product itself now in this case right it wasn't as if like it was a um what what do you call it like a huge impact per se I would say that when it comes to ## Final Application Tips and Timeline for Juniors and Sophomores [25:15] these personal projects yes that the impact is really important but it's not as if it's expected that you have to build a perfect app that you have to build something revolutionary or anything of that sort I mean because again you're like the students are just still high school students too so they so just minimize your expectations in terms of like yes when they develop a food to solve the problem of food waste in the community I can't really assert whether if it like really did create a major difference per se but the fact is that they found an issue they tried to solve for it and they learned something from that experience so uh that's the impact the impact is not just about the community but the impact was the learning that they got from the experience itself and the learning was not just from that student who did run that club but it was also everyone that was involved there the fourth thing uh student uh student leadership and eventually this went to competitions with this group and so really the student was involved and they were also able to participate in like hackathons and kind of uh other competitions to be able to Showcase what is it that they've developed and so um in the first year they maybe only had like five students but they showed the growth of like how that uh Club expanded to like 50 kids and then having four teams and 10 volunteers so what really what this is showing for the student right is that there was a particular need right the need was the fact that there wasn't enough learning about coding and secondly there was an issue on the community which was about food waste and then they were able to not just solve the issue themselves but they were able to bring their Community with them or they were able to bring people together and create like a larger impact the thing about these personal projects that a lot of people tend to forget it's not just about doing something that you personally like yourself but it's about how do you do you share that with others how do you share that knowledge and that interest with other people around you so that way it demonstrates the kind of cultural impact that you might have under school so uh going to why this mattered they focus on creating impact in the community as I mentioned uh it's not about the glory it's about raising uh her the confidence of her students and while we're able to see the growth in number of students it's more than just that but the fact that the student took multiple roles to developer organization it's uh not just being able to like you know code a particular app but it's about also being that leader and being able to um bring people along and this was demonstrating the values of community building and helping underprivileged uh students so anyway this was a really great personal project because it was something that they've showed interest about and it was combining a combination of their community service while also their interest in what they wanted to study and trying to figure out how it can you integrate the two together and the student actually end up going to Stanford so that was one of the exciting things about what uh helped that student and this is maybe hopefully an idea for students who are watching this call about what is it that you can do if you're thinking about your personal project again think about what is the problem that you see why do you care about it so much and then to be able to see how you can uh address that impact with a group of other people as well okay next part is the uh is a linguistic student so this student focused on immigrant populations where English was not the first language she interview transcribed met various speech patterns and dialects to try to find a reason why English uh language adaptation was so difficult for other uh language speakers and so with her findings she began an ESL program for younger and adult Learners to help them get a better Gras of the English language and so started off with just one student and then now has like about 35 students in the club with seven volunteers and also a succession plan for the future what this showed that was really amazing is that this was self research motivated right like she went out and uh proactively try to learn more um directly from people that she wanted to support and I think this this was an amazing thing about like empathy and uh being able to learn from the people who are are feeling the challenge and so for her to be able to do that she's not just creating a solution out of nowhere right she is actually trying to uh understand diagnose the issue it's not about the solution that's the most important part it's about the problem identification the problem awareness what is the problem that you're trying to solve for so a lot of people spend like you know they immediately jump to conclusions like oh I can't wait to build this thing this amazing project but in reality you got to like slow down and take a step back like what are you truly trying to solve and how do you know that based off what uh you've experienced so far and in most cases a lot of students have an idea of like a solution that they want to do to like support under privileg or like certain communities but the reality is is that you don't want to show that you have like a savior complex that's also something that you want to be careful about because just because you have this great idea doesn't mean that you're the only one that thought about it and so you want to be able to show that you were really methodological in the ways that you approached it and that you weren't just trying to provide a solution to community but instead you were like trying to develop a solution with them and so another highlight here too was the succession plan it's uh being able to show that the impact will still last even after you're gone uh there's a example that we always tell our students which is imagine if you try to do a personal project about doing like a beach cleanup the thing is you can organize a lot of events where they're cleaning up the beaches together and you might have solved the problem just for that day but the trash is still going to come the trash is still going to be there the next day when people litter and so the goal is to think about how do you create more of that long- lasting systemic impact to be able to make sure that the problem doesn't exist anymore and so that's another way to show maturity in terms of your personal project and and why it mattered and excuse me for the type of here it's meant to say student number two the student identified a problem in his uh immigrant uh dominant Community uh began research uh to find out why and then implemented solutions to find ways for people to learn as I mentioned being able to understand the problem first uh provided a service that many also do but do in a particular way that tailor to their target audience uh the growth and development of curriculum and student base and also the college they're going to is really big on research and development in this case so um that being said right this really shows that connection to that particular uh University in terms of what they hope to learn and how they can be a cultural like be in a cultural alignment with that and so for this particular student they actually ended up going to upen uh which we were very static to be able to find out and so um again this was just one of the main examples of the passion projects or personal projects that they highlighted so again takeways from here right for your personal projects think about what's the issue that you really care about think about how do you know that's an issue have you talk to the people that you're trying to impact and also what's the particular skill sets that you want to practice or or develop in this process because the whole point about going to college is that you're trying to grow your level of education for a particular reason and so you have to uh somehow see that there's a gap in your knowledge right that this is the next thing I want to learn I want to learn this next thing because of the fact that I tried it and I found out that I really love it and I want to do better at it and so just being able to show your thought process and connecting the dots for the admission readers about what exactly is it that you hope to gain from this education and that's through the activities all right next let's go into the supplemental applications so supplemental applications are when you apply to an IB League or maybe some other private school and sometimes they ask you to submit an additional essay just for either that school or that major and so the typical things that you might see is like why Harvard why engineering why whatever those are like the typical kind of questions that you might get for supplemental apps so to better understand what they're looking for is they want to know do you have an alignment with the school's values culture and the academic programs and also have you done the your own due diligence and research about uh why is it that you think it's a good fit that's beyond Prestige or rankings okay um what I mean by that is that uh you shouldn't just be applying to any schol I mean just because yes it's a IV League that sounds great but really what about the particular school does it offer that it can give you a particular education so if a school emphasizes interdisplinary learning the essay should reflect a student's ability to connect different fields of study that's an example of that right so what is the specialty of the school what did you learn about the school or about the major or the department at that school that has really uh speak your interest right and hopefully it's not just the name which in most cases a lot of students it is about the name but look in a little bit deeper than that these are the example of the prompts that I mentioned uh so if you notice they're all kind of very similar to this uh where it's just like what brought your interest to this particular University uh sometimes they use a quote and generally they're just saying why us like why our school versus another school right the the essay that I I can use for Harvard should not be easily applied to Princeton or yet okay like you have to be able to differentiate them amongst them so how to start writing about it first understand the PRS purpose right again you want to understand what are they looking for out of applicant what do they want in their school and what are the kind of cultural values that they have presented themselves on their website or through like student interviews that you've noticed that um they have about about themselves uh research the school's unique offerings so this is where you kind of do your online research um uh just go through the websites watch through YouTube videos thir use personal stories and specific examples to be able to relate to those and relate about how you you can fit in within that context and then a kind of suggested structure here is you start off with a hook or opening start with an interesting personal story or statement about yourself and and emphasis on yourself okay you don't want to start about a hook or opening about the school right because you're writing to the school you don't necessarily need to wow them about what you know about them it's about you want them to get interested in you so start off with that talk about yourself and everything and that's why we always recommend to students always write uh every single sentence I me or myself because every single sentence needs to be about yourself uh second development explain your perspective or experience or values talk about how is it that you've grown or developed and then from there you connect it to the school and how your future relates to this University and at the end um think about the conclusion of um what's the forward-looking statement or reflection in terms of what you hope to get out of the school in the future like what what what does it look like for you to be able to get this education and what would that mean to you uh as a student so we're going to go into specific like um there are two different types of uh supplemental apps that we'll cover at least for today one is the school specific ones and then the major specific ones for the school specific one they just want to understand like uh why like this school is such is so uh good for you right or why this school is such a good fit for you but you have to be careful because sometimes like you don't want to be like too generic um compared to your other students and sometimes you might brag too much about the school that it focuses Less on yourself and so just to always keep a good balance of connect to the school but always connect whatever the school is to yourself and what you can offer to that uh what you can offer to them or what's the connection that the similarity you share and so uh a way to go about it is you want to find some specific programs that is related to your interests your Majors uh find the student organizations that might reflect your passions tell them about how different aspects of the college uh will blend with your interests passions or convictions and then also just know that as a pro tip is that uh if you found something on the first page it's more than likely that all these other students have done the same as well so click more into it like you got to look more than what's on the surface level on the first page of like the school but you want to be able to find like what is something that you can show that you have a deep understanding and curiosity of the school itself and so things to not talk about to be careful about is the location okay just because like you're applying to I don't know Harvard don't talk about Boston as like a city itself uh the the thing is um that's that's for the city that's not for the school itself so just be careful that just because you can because generally speaking if you say like Boston for example then why not Boston University uh and they want to know why Harvard why Harvard specifically or like you say East Coast well there's a lot of schools in the east coast right so just be careful about not trying to just relate it to the particular location uh there is like some particular way that you might be able to wrap it like for example like you can always say that you want to do like a um an internship or like a work-based experience or research experience that relates to that area and that you know that there's specific programs or opportunities in the area that allows you to access those opportunities that's an example of way where you can show a little bit more connection uh so being able to show like if you are going to talk about the location then just make sure that you have something about the college itself that helps you stay connected to that location uh the other things to also consider is um if they have a programmer curriculum that everyone knows about uh for example at there known to have like an open curriculum where you can kind of like choose your courses uh know that that could be a little bit cliche because a lot of students have stated that in the past and so you don't want to sound like the same as everyone else if that's like the one main thing that everyone always talks about uh don't talk about specific Professor because if they leave then you know you no longer can really like study there and plus like if you if you were to remove that Professor then like which uh like which faculty would you be able to like work with instead and superficial reasons about the campus TR don't don't be like at the surface level uh like Colombia I know Colombia always has like a lot of amazing reps about like the school looking very beautiful which it really is but like you know that's not something why you would want to just study there just because it looks pretty all right uh major specific so the major specific one is a little bit easier to kind of talk about just because um you've probably already been exposed to it in some type of shape or form this again goes back to your activities what did you learn from your activities has helped you understand why is it that you want to study in this particular field and it's it should be more than just about job security of money right you don't want to just get say that I want to go down the Premed because it's the most secure thing or engineering because it's the most secure thing there has to be a deeper motivation a purpose something that brings you to be able to stick all four years to be able to learn more about that particular field and that's why it's really important on a daily basis or weekly basis depending on where you're at with your uh College admissions process is to have more conversations why do you want to study this just dig it deeper why why why why why do you want to study engineering uh because I like building things okay why do you like building things oh because I love to see how things have formed together or how gears and things relate to each other and why is that so important to you well because I like to be productive and I love to be able to see how um uh like mechanical things like are able to uh build very practical and useful things in the world like stuff like that like you got to get you got to peel off the layers by just asking yourself why all the time uh focus on what got you interested and how you hope to expand your learning at this blank College through whatever like program whatever curriculum whatever kind of thing like for example uh a lot of colleges and departments they might have like a uh either like a thesis that they have to do or like graduation requirement for that particular major that's something that you can identify and say like hey uh by studying at Harvard through their I don't know engineering program I see that there is like a project where we have to build an X Y or Z and I really hope to be able to get into that because that'll help me understand more about um how to accomplish this goal that I have after college and that's an example of a way to be able to show that you're taking advantage of their academic resources and how their resources are very crucial towards your own growth and development the whole thing right is if you were to imagine yourself here's a different analogy think of it as like you're like a puzzle piece right there's a whole bunch of puzzle pieces put together this school is just one of those puzzle pieces and why is it that this school puzzle piece like fits so well nicely into your kind of application and why is it so important for your own fundamental growth and development so you're just being able to try to paint that picture here uh find opportunities at the campus that are different from others so for example whether that's the summer program internship do lecture series that distinguishes from the particular College again you're just trying to find specific information that they have that can be very helpful and then tell them that you're studying at uh studying blank at uh this particular University will help you get further in your life like as I mentioned already all right let's keep on going and so what not to talk about here right is the uh one the ranking no one no one uh the thing about rankings rankings are so arbitrary like they really don't matter as much like yes it's cool and all that like I went to UC Berkeley the number one University and all but like at the end of the day like rankings is just like a popularity contest in its own way yes there is reason why it's important to go to a top five top 10 top 20 school because of its reputation or brand but it's why does it have that reputation or brand is what's important they already know that they are the top school so what about the school is it that they can offer that you could be able to uh go into uh a recitation of their curriculum uh they already know this information like yes like the thing is you don't want to teach them about what they know about themselves already the goal is to show how you are connected to the curriculum what is it that you can get out of this curriculum remember the focus is on you as applicant the focus is not on the school so that's what I talking about in terms of the fine balance you got to just be careful about not to just talk about the school because you're not just regurgitating what's on the page of a particular uh website you're just trying to show to them how do you connect with them uh just randomly putting in college course names or numbers they already know this as well uh again it's not just about name dropping stuff it's about being able to uh talk about what would you hope to learn and grow from this experience and then lastly not to mention like particular professors or people from the school or major that's not really valuable either like just to show that you are knowledgeable about these things uh it doesn't really give me more detail about you what's the difference of me trying to highlight I don't know John Doe versus Jane Doe at a school does that make a difference at all like let's let's take it this way as an admissions officer would I really actually know who the professor are in my school probably not honestly like as an admissions officer I don't know what these specific people are at the school and nor will I care what I care about is you and why is it that you want to apply to the school so remember that throughout this whole entire time with the supplemental applications the kind of takeaway here is focus on yourself right just don't try to focus on trying to educate me about the school itself all right so that was a quick overview in terms of the uh kind of ivv League missions here in terms of being able to demonstrate so just as a quick recap right we talked a lot about like the academic rigor right it's not just about the test scores it's not about just the grades but it's about being able to take the right courses because you want to show that you're taking initiative to uh to demonstrate that you can handle the amount of college rigor that's expected at this higher level second remember for personal projects and activities the goal there is to show that you're taking initiative to learn more about your field and that you don't need to wait till College to begin your your interest in your studies and lastly for the supplemental apps really you're just trying to be able to demonstrate your cultural connection to the university don't just talk about the university itself talk about why it makes so much sense why it is the uh it is so essential for you to go to this University because it is part of your fundamental growth okay and so if you uh want this notes and replay and you want this PowerPoint presentation uh feel free to to text notes and replay to 949 775 865 and also if you haven't received our Ava missions guide before um this is available to everyone just text IV Guide to the same number there 7 949 775 865 where we kind of detail more about this that I just talked about and also other useful information about what it takes in order to get I League schools uh also for 2026 uh Juniors if you haven't already registered for the college app intensive this is where we will help you get your applications done so uh we'll have a workshop at the very beginning of the summer why not the very end and the goal is to be able to help you complete your final drafts by the end of the entire summer and so this will be available and we have very limited spots left uh for in person so if you plan to join in person I recommend people to RSVP ASAP because I think a few spots we only have like three or four and there's a few sold out already so take advantage of that we also have virtual as well so if you can't join us in California then feel free to uh join these virtual ones also uh if you like this call you're new to our community uh join our free fa assessment call this is where we'll be able to tell you um like how to prepare for college is a free action plan nothing's going to be sold on this call our goal is just to be able to give you some free information about how to get started so whether you're in seventh grade eighth grade Junior sophomore whatever um we'll be able to help you here okay and then also newsletter if you haven't already uh you should definitely register for our newsletter this is where we get free information on a weekly basis just generally about hey this is our top college admissions learning uh it doesn't hurt to just have this in your inbox and just like leave it there and like come back to it when you're ready we'll share you our tips and secrets about what is it that you could do to increase your your College admission chances and again these are the kinds of uh things you could text to our number to get some free resources and now let's go into the Q and a okay all right so pulling it up okay uh if our school allows an optional 7eventh period uh should we be sure to take advantage every year my son would like to but it's allowed for certain course compos yeah definitely so um one quick tip that a lot of people don't realize that hurts them do not take open periods uh don't take teacher Aid periods either okay uh those tend to be like considered as break right those are like chill classes for a lot of like students and like they like students really love them just because like they don't have to do any work uh they'll take those open periods like if you are going to take open Period then at least like like uh supplement uh do enrollment as well so there's a opportunity and especially for I leagues you want to take every single optional uh period that you can to be able to take an additional course okay uh why do colleges want students to complete college courses before entry why won't they lose money uh when those students graduate early uh no not necessarily I mean it's one of those things where again the goal is to be able to stand out and the goal is to be able to um see which of the they want to know who are the cream of the crop of the students right because it's a College's incentive to try to hire the to get the best of the best because when they go off to do great things they can always say oh this is an alumni that graduate from Harvard or from uh from Yale and like the thing is they're looking for people who are exceptional and exceptional students are those who go afar and Beyond and the whole point of these uh admissions is they're going to be making money every single year on students anyways it's more so about who C who are we excited to put our brand name on who is it that we want to be able to stamp and say like this is our student that graduate from from our school and so that way they can take credit I mean that's that's their goal at the end of the day all right uh do you have a sample schedule for everything else category student my kids are strong academically but their passions in arts and what and that's what they like to major in yeah so at least for that sample schedule of everything else it's just more so of high generally High academic rigor all around um I know that doesn't sound as useful but what that means is uh you don't have to specialize as much as the computer science and engineering students or specialize as much as the um stem in business students so the goal there take as many AP courses take as many honors courses and take general education courses at the community college uh usually the best thing um that's always helpful is just get ahead on math uh I think usually math is the number one thing that we always tell our students to get ahead on uh just because those are the things that differentiate students because if you notice when students enter High School uh and when it comes to math they have a lot of different like uh routes or um for example some students started geometry Algebra 2 Algebra 1 one and so math is usually the one that is the main differentiator all right uh another question here for Community College uh classes do competitive colleges consider it better to take general education courses to transfer or subject specific classes asking particularly for engineering what is a better addition to your application uh for engineering it's always going to be math that's the that's the main thing to go for um but anything that's transferable so the thing is math and especially calculus is always going to be transferable for the most part general education courses are like secondary to that so I would go for math first and then secondary is the general education courses uh the UCS count as CC classes to recalculate GPA if if so are the CC classes weighted in the recalculation no so the thing is um you have two separate transcripts you have a uh a transcript for high school and a transcript for your community college you you submit both of them separately so in ways your GPA is going to be different in this case right you have one for your high school GPA you have one for your commun college gpa and at the end of the day GPA doesn't really matter as much it matters about the the specific uh grades in particular classes so for example if you are in engineering or computer science all I care about is your math and physics for the most part does everything else matter yeah sure it does but not as much okay so in reality we look more past than just the GPA number we look at the specific grades on each course um do IBS consider your ninth grade uh uh ninth grade yes they do uh is it accurate that some IVs want senior year first semester grades uh yes and it depends like as in like they might ask you for more additional information so senior year is never a time to slip up uh a lot of students might think that senior year is something that I can take a relax like relaxation in no uh it's totally possible where some students get their admissions rescinded because they didn't do a good job in their senior year so definitely always try to make sure that the senior year grades are still very strong uh do IBS care more about summer programs versus States schools uh it's not like a a summer program is required more so it's more it's more about like what they they learn from the experience summer programs help tremendously in that just because students don't typically get that exposure about what do they want to do or what are some activities that they can get more involved in and so yes it is it looks good um is it required no not at all so it's just one of those things of uh they're looking for those who are into learning they want to see those who are taking initiative that want to invest in that how do you balance summer programs versus taking summer CC classes think of this way is um how many hours is students actually in a summer program like they're not in it all day like it's not like they're in it for eight hours a day usually summer programs they might be in it for like what two three hours a day four hours it's not much and so generally speaking if you want to get into IID League level you can handle a summer program and also take a community college course as well so that's something that um I would recommend there do schools like Stanford MIT look at at uh different factors than Ivy no it's it's very similar uh again generally speaking all these college systems they they generally look at the same kind of information uh okay and uh you any there's more questions here do I care about the number of courses select in senior year for example six versus seven um so will it play a huge impact like not necessarily but they do get to see like what are you enrolled in so when you do apply you still get to put down like what are you going to be enrolled in in senior year and so they take everything in comprehensive review uh just to be clear about how missions works it's not like oh you didn't do this one thing therefore you're disqualified so I don't want folks to think like as if like oh just because I didn't take that one extra course like that's going to mess up my chances the goal here for this particular webinar is to show how do you maximize your Poss best possible chance to get in right because the goal is is how do you stand out and the challenging part on your side as a parent or a student you don't know what the other students are doing right that's the hardest part remember if you are going against your peers you're going against your rest of your school if they're doing like the most amazing stuff possible then that's what your expectation is and so I can't tell you that like oh taking one course less or one course more is going to make a dramatic difference because again it kind of depends on what is your rest of your peers doing because we see everything in compar in comparison to each other other uh do Ivy Leagues see service trips as a paid trips of no value uh service trips as oh um well it's about what you learn again it's not like I don't want to say there's no value uh the thing about the way that emissions works is that everything is additive meaning everything you do is still very much helpful so whether it's a service trip or whether it's like any type of community service that you go somewhere else it's fine right again it's about the learning it's about the insights it's not about like did you do the specific thing here uh so it's about how you talk about it again like if you've been to our other webinars you'll know that the application is the most important thing followed by activities followed by academics academics is the least important thing across all three of them so if you can talk about it very well then that means that you're good but if you did something that like you did a service trip and you can't talk about it you don't know how to talk about it then that's where it's going to hurt you because you didn't do a good job of relating to it okay any other comments or questions all right going once going twice all right I hope folks had a really amazing time today and uh thank you all for participating and we'll see you all next week take care