Before you dive into the full breakdown below, watch our exclusive webinar with Dewey Smart Founder & CEO Michael Gao. In just under an hour, you’ll learn exactly how top students craft standout applications that go beyond perfect grades.
✅ What Ivy League schools really look for
✅ How to tell your story with impact
✅ Mistakes smart students make — and how to avoid them
The Ivy League admissions process remains one of the most competitive in higher education, with acceptance rates consistently below 7%. While stellar academics form the foundation, successful applicants understand that these institutions seek more than just high achievers—they seek future community builders. This guide reveals how to craft an application that demonstrates both your capabilities and your unique potential to contribute.
Admissions officers at elite universities evaluate thousands of qualified candidates annually. Their challenge lies not in finding academically excellent students, but in identifying those who will:
This explains why perfect GPAs and test scores alone rarely secure admission. The differentiating factor is always how compellingly you present your intellectual curiosity, personal growth, and future aspirations.
The most successful applications tell a cohesive story that connects:
Consider the case of a student admitted to both Harvard and Stanford. Her application centered on transforming her family's struggle with food insecurity into a passion for agricultural economics. Each component—from her research on urban farming to her community garden initiative—reinforced this narrative.
Quality consistently trumps quantity in extracurricular activities. Admissions committees value:
Depth of Commitment
Intellectual Vitality
A robotics champion who also taught coding to underserved youth presented a more compelling profile than one who simply accumulated competition trophies.
Your personal statement should accomplish three critical objectives:
The most memorable essays often explore seemingly ordinary experiences—a daily commute, a family tradition, or a personal hobby—through a lens of self-discovery.
Strong letters of recommendation provide:
Guide your recommenders by sharing:
Ivy League admissions ultimately reward applicants who present authentic, well-developed portraits of themselves. By aligning your academic record, extracurricular pursuits, personal essays, and recommendations into a coherent narrative, you demonstrate the maturity and vision these institutions value most.
For students seeking personalized guidance, our admissions consultants specialize in helping applicants identify and articulate their unique stories. Schedule a consultation to begin crafting your distinctive path to success.
We’ve got you covered — here’s the complete transcript so you can absorb the advice on your own schedule.
Hello everybody, and thank you for joining me tonight for a webinar on secrets to Ivy League applications.
We're gonna get started in a few minutes here, but I wanna let Some of our latecomers trickle in here, so to get us started, um, would love for everybody to introduce themselves. name, state, and what the weather is like, where you're at right now. Uh, my name is Michael. I'm here in New York City where the weather is really looking up. Um, it is not cold and dry anymore. It's not raining, knock on, knock on wood. It's warm, it's sunny, spring is out. People are out and about. It is a really good time to be in the city. Um, my allergies are acting up though. So, uh, I have been taking a lot of allergy pills to get through the day. Uh, so if you hear me sneeze or rub my eyes.
Preemptive apology. Folks who are just joining, please introduce yourself in the chat name, state, and also what the weather is like in your part of the country.
Uh, let me know, would love to, to know where people are at in the world, um.
And also we will be using the chat for audience questions and engagement tonight. So please uh practice using it uh so that you can ask your questions throughout our conversation today.
Uh, Manish says, uh, he's from.
In California, the weather is awesome here, obviously, it's California, 55 to 65 degrees.
Uh, that sounds cold to me, Manish, but I was born and raised in Texas, so that is why, uh, Abby also California, amazing. Tina, California weather is great. Love the Californias. David from Washington, sunny. Interesting. I thought Washington always rained or is that somewhere else? I might be mistake it.
Muriel is from Pennsylvania, no electricity. That's happening in Texas too. I don't know what's going on. Um. It's also happening, by the way, very randomly, uh, in Spain.
One of our team members uh is working remotely there, uh, this week, and she said that the electricity totally went out, so very interesting. Claudia Orange County loved the California. That's awesome. California again, Kayleigh from Texas, Texas, where in Texas, Kaylee? I'm born and raised in Dallas, Texas. Allen, Texas, if you know the Dallas area well. Arus is from Arkansas, rainy and humid. That doesn't sound as fun. Uh, Theresa is from Arizona, low 80s. OK, OK. That's the type of Texas style southern weather I'm used to, uh, and Joshua is from, uh, Iowa, 60 degrees. That's kind of cool. It's kind of cold.
Daniel from Texas, 78 degrees. Oh my God, Kaylee, you're from Allen too. That's crazy. Um, I went to Ericson Middle School and then high school, I did, um, go to Lowry for a year and ended up transferring to a school in Dallas IC, but that's actually a story that you guys will be hearing more about today because we're gonna go through my application and how I got into Columbia just to help give you some specific examples about how you can make your application stand out for college admissions.
For 7 minutes into the hour now. People who are trickling in, introduce yourself, name, city, age, and then also make sure to share this webinar. It's free. It's open to the public. I'm about to drop some secrets to Ivy League applications that the Dewey Smart team has spent literally a combined number of years of 55. Plus years of college admissions experience putting together and putting together in this webinar. So take the, the link that you have in your browser and share it in WeChat and WhatsApp, on Facebook, on LinkedIn, and a text group chat and share the knowledge about how you, your student, your family and your community can get into the IV League. Um, let's get started.
Secrets to an Ivy League application. I'm going to prove to you tonight why strategy beats brute force. I meet so many families and so many high school students that are just so stressed out. They are working literally 80 hours a week on 20 different extracurriculars.
And then they also don't get into an Ivy League school, and there's a reason why. It's because you are working a lot and you're working hard, but you're doing it in 20 different directions. Instead, you want to work the same amount but have one direction, one strategy, one narrative for your college application and I'm gonna show you how to find and develop. Of that strategy here tonight. What are we going to talk about? We're gonna talk about the framework for thinking about Ivy League and competitive admissions. We're gonna be talking about extracurriculars, why they matter and how to find the most unique ones. We're gonna be talking about your essays and in fact, actually reading some of mine, and then we're gonna close off by talking about recommendation letters. Important, but nobody talks about them enough.
You might be wondering, who is the presenter today? Well, my name is Michael. I'm the founder and CEO of Dewey Smart. My journey to college was anything but straightforward. Uh, I went to a public school where we had one counselor for over 4000 students, I think was the number.
Kaylee from Erikson. You might know what I'm talking about.
Uh, I didn't have personalized college admission support. I, I had to rely on Reddit, applying to college, that's up Reddit, uh, my friends, uh, my parents, and the collective wisdom of the WeChat groups that they were in. And so when I got into Columbia myself, I thought there had to be a better way of of helping motivated students navigate elite admissions, and that became Dewey Smart. Dewey Smart is a full service.
One stop shop to help you navigate through high school and college. We do everything. Academic tutoring on APs, IBs, school classes, SAT ACT prep, PSAT prep, as well as college admissions counseling. We also have an internship match program to help you make the most out of your summer.
Um, we do this with a near peer model. What that means is you will first meet with one of our college admissions strategists. These are folks like me who have years of experience in helping hundreds of students with college admissions. Then you will also be paired with a near peer tutor, someone who goes to Columbia, Harvard, one of your dream schools, and can help you with the small bits and pieces of the application. What words should I put there? What phrasing should I do here? And frankly holds you accountable to making sure that you are meeting your goals.
Dewey Smart, we help with all types of students, but we know a lot, a lot, a lot about Ivy League admissions.
Before we jump in today, I'm just gonna put this up here. We're experimenting with some communities we wanna help not just parents and students directly, but also help parents and students help each other. I think there's a lot about wisdom of the crowds, especially if you are in a local area sharing resources, collaborating together. We helped to Dewey smart students meet each other and they started a local organization together that's gonna look great on their college applications.
Those are the types of connections we want to facilitate. So if you're interested, please connect with us on all social media, but the QR code up here is for folks in the audience who use WeChat. Uh, so scan it, add me on WeChat, and they'll then I'll add you to our growing group of parents and family members who are dedicated to helping their students succeed in college admissions.
Um, before I move on to the actual presentation about secrets to Ivy League admissions, I just want to ask a quick question of the audience. What do you think is the number one reason people get rejected from the Ivy League? Put that in the chat here. What's the number one reason why you think people get rejected from the Ivy League?
Not to get in. Now, why does someone get in? Why does someone get rejected? Put that in the chat. Let me know what you're thinking. Um, first one to put in an answer is the fastest thinker, and I think it's gonna have an advantage when it comes to college admissions. Uh, Ovi says GPA. You know, that is a great answer. Uh, GPA is always the foundation. If you don't have a good GPA, then there's nothing to think about, there's nothing to look at.
Um, Muriel and, and, and Manish I think say really great things. uh, Theresa too, bad essay, uh, you don't stand out.
Very true. Um, you just look the same. Maybe you have a great GPA, but that's all you have. There's nothing that makes you stand out. So MISA lack of variety, not showing a strong narrative, that can absolutely be reasons why you're not successful is, is you're not standing out. So, already I'm hearing a lot of you guys are thinking in the right direction. Um, so often when I ask this question, uh, people just say test scores, my test scores weren't high enough. I didn't take enough APs. Those are certainly reasons why some people get rejected.
Most of you in this audience today, I imagine, have perfectly fine GPAs.
Hopefully are working with us already on test prep and we're gonna do well on the SATs or the ACTs, um.
And so the difference maker is gonna be what these outstanding participants have stated for me already, your essay, your narrative, your extracurriculars, and that is what we're going to dive into tonight.
Um, what are colleges like the Ivy League actually looking for? What's the framework for thinking about how college admissions works? When you're looking at 43, 2% acceptance rates, you really might be asking yourself what on earth is going on in the minds of these admissions officers. Well, let me explain to you. They're not just looking for good students because they already have a bunch of 4s and GPAs out there.
They're looking for someone who, if that person goes to the school, they will contribute to the community. They'll add value and depth to class discussions, and they will be a unique and authentic voice in their community, unlike anybody else they let in. These colleges literally have limited spots. These are small campuses, especially in at at Columbia, my alma mater. Uh, we are in New York City, we don't have that much space. If I have a limited number of seats, who do I want to give it to that's gonna contribute and add tons of value to the rest of the company?
In order to prove out that framework, academics alone aren't enough. A 4.0 GPA doesn't mean you have a personality. It doesn't mean that you're gonna contribute to class discussions well. You need to show so much more. You need to show that you understand a direction where you want to go in life and how college is gonna contribute, and you want to show how you've already started down that path in high school by having impact on your school, your community, your family.
So that's the framework.
Try to think about how college admissions works.
We're gonna get into the first part of tonight, which is extracurriculars. What's a good extracurricular? What's a bad extracurricular? How do I think about my extracurriculars? If you are a 9th and 10th grader, you have the opportunity to change this right now because you're not applying it. If you're an 11th grader going 12th grader, you have less time, but you still have a couple of months and an entire summer ahead of you and a fall of senior year to change course and be more strategic about your extracurricular. So I wanna make sure you take advantage of that time. So I want to talk more about how you can think about a good or bad extracurricular and frankly, how Ivy League college admissions officers think about that question as well.
First is depth over breadth. Stop doing 30 different extracurriculars. First and foremost, the common app only has space for 10. But second of all, colleges care more about commitment to a few extracurriculars. Excellent.
Excellence in and quality extracurriculars than doing many, many things in a shallow way. Go deep on clubs you actually genuinely enjoy, because that's what's gonna make you feel the best, that's gonna make you the most motivated to do well. If you just join everything, you're gonna be burnt out and unmotivated. Don't do that. That was the mistake I made in high school.
Leadership matters, and this is a corollary to going deep in things because if you spend time on something, you're just gonna be better at it. Um, and so when you do one club for many, many years, hopefully you're going to elevate your leadership status. And that's the last thing is you don't want to jump around. Colleges want to see commitment. Why? The Ivy League is a hard place to be.
Classes are hard, professors are tough, and you're gonna need to graduate in 4 years. Otherwise it looks bad for colleges. So, as a college admissions officer, I want to see that you have done something hard for at least 4 years.
I wanna give you some examples of OK extracurriculars to awesome extracurriculars. National Robotics champion. It sounds awesome, right? You want a robotics competition.
It is truly great, don't get me wrong, if, if you're winning competitions, you're doing robotics, that's that's amazing. But like, let's be honest, a lot of people do robotics. Robotics is a pretty classic engineering extracurricular in a lot of schools. If you're in a type of school that's maybe more well resourced, or private school, it's almost an expectation that you are doing a club like robotics that aligns with your area of interest.
Um, and so it's good, but like, let's be honest, it's not that unique. And that's why we push our students to think bigger than that. What's something even more different that only I can do? That's why we talk to a lot of students about social entrepreneurship, founding organizations, whether it's a nonprofit, it doesn't have to be a nonprofit, a club at your school, an online community, kind of really showing that you have the initiative to start something new. Publishing research, publishing an entire book.
Because it shows that you have such a depth of knowledge on something they are able to produce such a big piece of work. It shows your interest in a given topic and shows your ability to um take your own initiative and stand out, which colleges really, really love. Be unique about your activities, don't just join the couple of clubs at school. Find ways to get involved and start your own initiatives.
Now, you started your own initiative, um, what does that look like in terms of, of, of leadership? Um, and so I don't think that if you're a freshman in the audience here, you had to start a club in freshman year. I think that's asking too much. Um, when colleges are looking at extracurriculars, they're looking at growth over time. They want to see an arc, and they want to see that arc go up. And how you do that is by starting in freshman year as maybe a participant. And then growing over time, a contributor and sophomore.
You are taking on more responsibility. Maybe you're not a club leader yet, but you're clearly on the track to be junior and senior year, you become a leader, senior year, maybe you start a new initiative in the organization. Colleges like to see arc in your extracurriculars, and they want to see real substance. I think that's what people forget is that it's not just about slapping a name of a club on a resume, like math club. You need to actually write a description on it.
The common app gives you 150 characters to describe each extracurricular that you are in. 150 words is not enough, but if you just joined a club for show, you will have nothing to write for those 150 characters. So you actually want to make sure that the clubs you join, you're doing something, you're demonstrating and delivering impact. Now here's some tips for how to make those 150 characters shine. Active verbs, start with active verbs, launched, created, orchestrated, transformed, pioneered, spearheaded.
Try to use verbs that bring the activity to life.
So that admissions officers are really excited when they read that resume.
Quantify results.
If you're a parent out there who's written any resume, you know what I'm talking about here. Students, ask your parents to see their resumes. You want to write numbers of what you were able to achieve, the impact that you were able to deliver, because that helps colleges see what you might be able to do for them when you get to their college campus. You increase membership, you raised a specific dollar amount, you recruited 30 new students. If you don't have a number, find one, and if you can't find one, Make something up that sounds reasonable. Truly, you do not want to have a description section that's just text.
And of course your progression, um, show that you were a leader.
Your freshman, you're you're a participant freshman year, a senior year. I wanna see that work.
OK, I know that was a lot.
I'm gonna pause here.
Any questions about unique extracurriculars that you want to talk about before I move on to showing you my extracurricular resume. Feel free to jump in here and engage. I want this to be more of a conversation. So if you have questions throughout today's presentation, please feel free to put them in the chat.
OK. Well, maybe you guys will think of something as we continue on tonight. I want to show you what my application looks like. This is something, this is a resource that Dewey smart students have access to. We have a team of 80 phenomenal coaches that go to top schools across the country, Columbia, Harvard, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and 80 coaches means at least 80 college essays, applications, extracurricular stories that we put together. In a resource repository for you to look at. No more asking that one senior 3 years ago who got into Stanford to look at their essay, you'll be able to see 80 examples of stellar applications by joining the to be smart community. Now, let's talk about my application and why it stood out from an extracurricular perspective. To give you some context, I was applying at at the time to be a political science major, um.
And I think that's important to start with, because if you looked at these activities, debate, community service, music, and I told you I was studying math, you'd probably be a little puzzled. Where's the math and all this? The volunteer activities weren't related really to math or science, or tutoring or academics. What's going on? Colleges want to see aligned resumes. If you say you want to do something in the future, you want the past to line up with that future.
So because I wanted to study political science in college, I worked backwards. I had activities that I started in 9th grade focused on debate.
Um, my volunteer experiences like Cityhouse Youth Advisory Board was focused on youth homelessness, which is obviously a political topic to deal with. Um, I was a volunteer leader, I was president of my National Honor Society, so clearly I had to be elected to something.
And then I, I also played the viola.
Um, a couple of things to dig into on a detailed basis.
The first is the ordering of these activities.
You'll notice here that I put debate first, and I think the reason why is because that's the clearest related to my future interests in political science and the law. I put music 4th, and I put even less relevant activities 5th and onwards, because they aren't related to polysci.
You'll notice the text, uh, debate, college level philosophy, novices, speech state champion, 3 time qualifier, top 50 debater, 6th speaker at nationals, putting. And condensing as much achievement as possible in 150 characters, as well as talking about the parts of the experiences that stand out, like college level philosophy. That's pretty cool. 150 character is not a lot, so you'll notice that these descriptions feel like they're almost Lists or bullet points. You're not writing in free flowing complete sentences like you are on your on your essay. Here in the common app resume, you're writing in short, sweet, crisp bullet points.
You're using abbreviations, you're never writing the word and A and D, and that is a waste of space. Don't use the word and just put a comma and the next thing that you want to say. I use abbreviations. National is a really long word, and so I abbreviate it to apostrophe L.
College admissions officers read a lot of applications.
They know what national means, they know what state means, so you don't need to write out the entire word because again, you are trying to preserve character count.
Now, One thing you might notice here is I I I in my resume wrote that I quote unquote read college level philosophy.
Could I have improved that? I want to hear from you in the chat. How would you change that first bullet point, red college level philosophy. How could you make it better? Put it here in the chat.
I think you know the answer.
And don't be afraid, to be honest with me. I am not afraid to to hear criticism and feedback because honestly my application was not perfect. I still got into Columbia.
Wharton, Brown, and other top schools and scholarship programs. But looking back on my application, there's a lot of regrets and improvements I'd want to make that I pass on to students like you. So when you look at that first sentence, red college level philosophy, how would you have made it better?
Kayley has something. Maybe give specific examples. It's a great idea. I could talk about specific philosophers I wrote, uh, frames of thought. I don't have the space in my resume, but Kayley, that's a great idea, because I can put specific examples in what's called the additional information section. So in the common app, there's an entire paragraph where you could put anything else you want, and I could have put a list of the philosophers that I've read.
Hema, niche inspired, studied, exactly. This is what I'm trying to get you guys to think about is the details matter, verbs matter, words matter, letters matter, the spacing you use matter because all of that is characters and the word red, R E A D.
Does nothing for you.
It's not vivid, doesn't engage you, but something like inspired really, really does. So that's great feedback, Manish. Hopefully we can help you get into an Ivy League school, and you can join us to be a coach one day.
Um, Awesome. We looked at the debate team here, we looked at the team captain, um, we talked about the ordering of activities here, and we talked about how to pick activities that truly, truly stand out. Um, I want to talk about essays, I wanna talk about recommendation letters, but before I do, I see a couple of questions that I'm going to answer now.
Manish asks, in 150 words, do you write how much you spent like 10 hours, 10 weeks? That's a great question. Do not waste your space on that. Do not waste your space on that. You only have 150 characters, and that information is actually shown.
Elsewhere. So when you talk about an extracurricular, you're gonna put the name of it, like debate speech, you're gonna put your title team captain.
And you're gonna put the hourly commitments, so 20 hours a week, 50 weeks per hour. You're gonna do that separately outside of the 150 character description. So don't waste your space putting numbers like effort.
On that topic, The position part of the resume is an open-ended text field. You should use it to write your position like team captain, but if you have extra characters left over, you should use that space to brag about all the other ways that you engage in that activity. That's another piece of feedback that I have for myself. Instead of just writing team captain here, what I would have written in retrospect, if I was guiding younger Michael, is I would have said team captain and lead.
Debate trainer, because I also coached a lot of students in debate, and that adds to the theme growing on my application that I'm someone who helps others with the other two volunteer experiences.
So, really great question, Manish, um, and a great starting point to a conversation.
CJ asks, what activities should you do if you are not sure about what you want to study in college? Well, quick plug for you, CJ, we are doing a webinar in a couple of weeks on what to do if you're applying undeci to college, and it feels like you might Fit into that boat. It's hard to say. I don't know much about UCJ, but I'm pretty sure there are things that you do not like to do. And so if you are pretty sure you're not going to study that in college, eliminate extracurriculars related to it.
And then try other things. Um, if you're young enough, CJ, hopefully you'll have the time to try out 5 different extracurriculars and 5 different fields of study, find one you really love, and focus in on that one area of of of of focus and concentration.
Does volunteering in church and teaching retreats, working with the teens, help or herd a resident?
It always helps. It always helps. Put that on your resume because that's really great work and volunteer that you're doing, and I'm sure it can help with college essays as well.
Erica asks a question that's pretty specific. What would a line volunteer be for mechanical engineering? We actually have an entire resource bank for you, Erica. So if you're a Dewey Smart student, make sure you reach out to support at Deweysmart.com. I'll put that email in the chat here. Erica, if you're a student with us, reach out to support at so that we can share our resource library. It's a list of extracurricular activities um that are aligned with each and every major for you. Um, we have this resource repository. We've spent years and years building it out. It's really, really impressive. It has different extracurricular options, school, college options, summer program options, course options dedicated to specific.
Pathways of interest. So, uh, do we smart students already have access to this, and if you don't, please reach out so that we can get you access. Um, and while we're here, I guess I could just show folks, um, the type of resources that um you would have access to as a Dewey smart student. So I'm just gonna quickly rotate away from the presentation.
Um, and share my screen. Give me.
1 2nd here.
Um, to, to pull this up and to actually show you how you can use our resources to find the best extracurriculars for you. Let me share my screen here, share my screen.
And then I'm gonna ask for someone to put in the chat. Do you share, do you see my screen?
So someone just say yes there for me if you see my screen.
Just put in the chat, yes. OK, thank you, Arrosh. Thank you so much, Arrosh. Um, this is uh the Dewey Smart admissions hub. Let's say, Erica, to your question, you want to study the social science, uh, the, the mechanical engineering. We would go in here and go to extracurriculars.
Um, and then we would go to engineering.
And then you would see a list of competitions, Olympiad, robotics, math works, physics Olympiad, mate ROV 3M young scientists, a lot of stuff that is things you may heard about for robotics, and also things that you've had no idea what it is, like mate ROV competition. Passion projects that you can do, things that are unique extracurriculars to stand out, research programs to participate in, and also virtual internships that you can take advantage of.
Find something you like, well, you can just click into it to get some more details.
For instance, if you want to develop a prosthetic limb, you can see what that looks like. You can add it to your profile. And so this is how we help you build a college admissions plan, is we have resources that you're able to add to your plan.
And so you'll see here that we added that to the list of passion projects that I'm interested in doing.
Great question, Erica, and I hope you find that resource really, really helpful.
We've talked about extracurriculars. We've answered questions about extracurriculars, and if you're an 11th grader, you've done extracurriculars for at least 3 years.
Now, it's application time.
How do I stand out in the writing and the essays that I'm doing?
Essays that stand out are focused on a clear, unique personal story that you have. What does that actually mean?
First, what's your identity?
What shapes your worldview? Who are you? And this could mean race and gender, it can mean location, it could mean whether or not you're an immigrant.
But it can also mean other things, like, are you a gamer?
Are you an athlete? Are you a nerd? Are you a geek? How do you identify yourself in the world? What shapes your world?
What are your values? What do you care most about when someone says something, what pisses you off? What makes you laugh?
What makes you really engage? Challenges. What are mountains that you've had to climb? Things that you've had to overcome.
And last but not least, passions, what are you most curious about? What can you spend?
An entire day going on a Wikipedia rabbit hole.
These are the type of questions that if you can answer and articulate, you one, know yourself really, really well, and 2 can come up with a college essay.
I was not able to answer these questions when I started my application process. You don't have to be.
The answers to these questions will come over time as you're thinking about it. And if you're an 11th, 10th, and 9th grader, start thinking about these questions now.
College essays, the good ones at least, are really thoughtful, intentional reflections of who you are. And the only way you write a good one is if you actually know who you are. So if you are one of the fortunate students who doesn't have to apply in the next couple of months, Don't blow off the next couple of minutes and go on Instagram and TikTok.
Start to think about these questions so that when it comes time for senior year, you're not scrambling. Like some of the students in this chat maybe.
How do you brainstorm ideas? We've talked about some guiding questions, but I wanted to point to a couple of other places that I've seen really amazing college essays and ideas come from. The first is identity and background. These are immutable characteristics. What do I mean by that? You literally, if if you took away this from you, you would not be who you are today. So an easy one.
I am.
The son of immigrants. If you took that away from me, I would no longer be Michael Goo, I'd be someone very, very different.
These types of fundamental characteristics about who you are often the best essays to start with because they truly are the most unique things about you. If I took away a characteristic from you and you would no longer be you, then that is probably the thing that makes you the most unique. And that can stem from cultural background, family background, where you grew up, things that were really formative in your childhood.
Um, make a list. You don't have to write an essay just about one thing. I didn't write my essay just about being the child of immigrants. I strung that together with many different parts of my personal identity, and wove those things together. I'm gonna show you that in a bit, so, so make sure you stay tuned. Talk about challenges you faced. Uh, 4 years of high school probably was not that easy. You've had personal setbacks, maybe family setbacks, school setbacks, share those challenges, and feel free to get personal with it. College admissions officers want to know who you are, because you're not just gonna be a number or a student to them, you're gonna be a member of a community. So you're gonna wanna share those personal experiences that you went through.
Transformative moments.
What changed who you are? How have you grown or improved over time? Talked about ways that you've changed. One prompt that I ask students all the time is how do you think you're different between freshman year and senior year?
They'll give some answer, and they'll ask, why do you think that? They'll give an example, and they'll say, oh well like debate made me a better speaker, and I'll ask what about debate? When in debate? What year in debate? Was there a particular activity, person that was involved? And by asking those questions, oftentimes students can write their own essay. And that's really the Dewey smart method when it comes to college essays is we're really good at asking the right questions that push students to think thoughtfully about the past 4 years, their lives, and their futures.
When you're writing your essay?
You want to be you, you wanna use your voice, which is why you do not want to pay someone else to write your essay. You don't want to let Chat GBT write your essay, because it's not you, it's not who you are. Um, you really want to spend time here understanding yourself, because if you can't understand yourself, you can't write a good essay. Don't try to write. What admissions wants. Don't try to write in overly formal English, to try to use transitions like wherefo. Henceforth, just because you think it's fancy and sophisticated, admissions officers don't care about that. They already know you're a good writer because you got an A plus in English, and you got a 5 in English living exam. They want to know who you are, and if you don't talk.
Like a 19th century British author, don't write like one.
Um, You want to connect the dots.
The best essays I've seen bring together many, many different parts of your life, of your application, of your story, of your identity in one overarching narrative. Why are these types of essays successful? Because they're most unique, because they're the intersection of many, many different things.
Many people are debaters, many people are sons of immigrants, but fewer are both. And so if you add many different things, and you find the intersection between all of them, that makes a really unique essay.
It also makes for a really interesting one, because you have to be pretty creative to find a theme or a narrative that's able to bring all of these things together.
So, the question on your minds might be, great advice, Michael, what does this actually look like? This sounds impossible for me to think about an essay that could fit this scope.
Well, let me show you my asset.
I'm not gonna show you the whole thing. That's something that Dewey smart students have access to, and we might do an additional webinar on it some other day. I'm just gonna show you a summary, the first paragraph and the last paragraph, and that'll be enough to get the gist.
Before I read this out loud, a little, little bit of context. I wanted to study political science in college. I grew up in a fairly well off suburb, but I went to school in downtown Dallas at a school called the Law Magnet, where it was, let's say, not the suburbs. Um, and so my essay was about how going to that school and traveling every single day.
Um, made me realize my mission or or vision.
In life.
Um, so, let's read.
Uh, 7 a.m. leaving home. Honk, the cantankerous cars blare as my attention drifts to the sidewalk, filled with younger neighbors walking to school. Just like me, many of them will attend enrichment classes in the afternoon and weekly music lessons and test prep lessons when they're older. Behind the pedestrians are rows of classically suburban cookie cutter houses. Another honk wakes me, reminding me to swerve into the crowded parking lot of the public transit station. My day had begun.
What do I like about that first paragraph? It's engaging. It starts with action, honk. It has a really unique structure to it. 7:00 a.m., 8:30, the times create this interesting header or chapter-like style. The language and the wording is really great, cantankerous is a cool adjective, if I do say so myself.
And then I'm just sharing a lot about myself in these details, right? I'm sharing that I grew up in a classically suburban place, clearly, like, relatively well off. But then I also introduced this thing about public transit. Why is this kid in the suburbs going to a public transit station? This ends up being a really important theme in my application, because I am someone who actually took the train to school one hour each way every single day.
I think that alone makes me pretty unique. Very few suburban students can claim that. Most of them drive. I took public transit, um, and I did it for an hour each way.
Um, but it, and so it also just introduces another circle here, right? Another unique thing that when you put all of these things, these things together, make you uniquely unique.
The next paragraph, the train. Looking through the window, a race past suburbia, searching for the pale white house where it all began, with its shaky foundation and constantly clogged bathrooms. It was my parents' first house. After spending their childhoods in cramped apartments, they wanted more for their kid. When my parents came to this country, they had thick accents but received student visas and college acceptances. America took a chance on my parents, they took it through determination, sacrifice, and a little luck, they built a life for themselves and the.
This is an unbearable paragraph reading it many years later. It's so obnoxious, but It shares details about who I am.
It shares details about my parents and my upbringing.
The fact that we weren't always in an amazing suburb, my parents are immigrants, um, and it also connects to the theme of political science and wanting to make a difference, right? I mentioned America because I want to study government and political science and its impact on public policy. So I'm already teasing to the admissions officer why I want to study political science and why all this stuff about the.
You know, economic well-being of my current home and my parents' economic past, why that matters. It's because this kid is someone who really cares about government and what means it means to to be in America.
Um, the essay continues like this. It has a couple of other paragraphs of me getting to, to school, a couple of other specific anecdotes about things that happened on the train, people I've met at the school, which is lower income, not like the suburb I grew up in, and then I conclude with this paragraph.
I know I alone cannot fix it. Spending 3 years talking to friends who didn't grow up in middle small neighborhoods has made me realize the complexities and inequality will go beyond what any one person can do. It will take everybody following the lead of those who have lived it, to advocate for changes. As a debater, I've learned how to advocate for myself, but in the future as a lawyer on class action lawsuits, I can advocate for others to help ensure the voices of the voiceless are not forgotten, blah blah blah blah blah. Um, why is this paragraph good?
It is truly unbearable looking at it many years later. Like, I'm embarrassed reading it out loud. I'm embarrassed, I submitted it for my college applications, but It worked.
So why did it work? Well, it's because, one, there's a clear reason why I'm going to college. I am going there to do my mission, which is to help others and fight inequality. Specifically, what that means is I'm gonna take my experiences in the past with debate, turn them into a poli sci degree in college so I can be a lawyer in the future. There's a clear connection between the past, the college, and what happens after college, and That really matters because colleges want to let people in that are going to be great alumni. They're gonna donate them lots of money, there are gonna be great pictures and headshots to put on their website. And so, if the college admissions officer is reading this, they're gonna recognize me as someone who, hey, I don't know for certain, but Michael could be one of those people on.
My website. That's what this paragraph indicates, and that's what you want your last paragraph to indicate too. What's your mission? Why are you the best one to achieve it, and how have you already started to achieve that in the past?
OK. 15 minutes left here, um, Essays do matter, so I don't want to just like rush through a couple of other slides. I wanna pause here. What questions do people have about writing good college essays, Coming up with strong college essay ideas.
Feel free to put those questions you have here in the chat. I'm pausing here because this matters. College essays are one of the most important parts of the application process. They're one of the few places where you can let your story transcend the numbers of GPA and test scores. They're what help you stand out. So this is a place where you should be spending a lot of your time thinking, reflecting, writing, editing. So I want to make sure we give it time here in today's presentation. For questions that you guys might have about writing good college essays.
Feel free to put it in the chat if you have any questions.
OK.
Well, as questions come up, feel free to ask them, but the last thing I want to talk about here is letters of recommendation. Too often, students are getting generic templated letters of recommendation. And you want to go beyond that. You want specific examples of why you're good. You want your letter of recommendation to have, just like your common app, basically your your letter of recommendation is just another common app. The same level of thought and detail that went into your common app, it should be in your letter of recommendation too. Now, in most cases you're not writing your own letter of recommendation, so how can you help your recommender write that? You want to give them your resume, you want to give them an outline of what their letter of recommendation looked like, so they can't screw it up.
And you can even ask to read the letter of recommendation before they submit it. I think that's totally reasonable to ask. You might always get it, but if you do get it, you want to read it.
And if it's really generic, if it's clearly templated, just ask someone else. Letters of recommendation matter because they're basically another essay written from a trusted adult's point of view.
I have covered a lot of ground in 48 minutes. So to bring it together.
What do stellar Ivy League applications do, and how did I do it as someone who is admitted to three Ivy League universities. One, a unified narrative that connects the dots between your background.
Your college major.
And your future plans.
Be authentic.
Don't write what the college admissions officer wants to write, really think about who you are for yourself.
The last piece is be smart to be strategic.
Choose the things that really make you stand out. Find the 50 things that bring it yourself together, because that that that that thing that brings 50 random things together is what's gonna make you stand out.
There's a bunch of questions here in the chat, please keep them coming.
Future webinars, just a little bit of housekeeping here.
Uh, we have a webinar upcoming this Thursday actually, um, specifically targeted to students who live in New York City, or students who want to go to the University of Michigan. We're going to be hearing from Dewey Smart's own coach Dan Vitterman, who's both interested in business, but also healthcare and pre-med, an awesome combination.
That's also, by the way, a way that you can make yourself unique is I'm not just a pre-med, I'm not just a business major, I'm both. Again, bringing two things that are kind of different together, and it's at that intersection where uniqueness is created. We're going to be hearing about Dan from Dan about his journey from a competitive New York City magnet school to an amazing flagship university, University of Michigan. So please scan that QR code if you want to sign up. Then next Tuesday, we'll be doing a webinar just like this one. About your target schools.
If you're smart, you're not just applying to the IBS. You want to make sure that you're finding good fit target schools that you have a realistic chance of getting into. It's always hard to think about what these target schools are. If you're in this chat, you probably know that you're going to apply to Harvard, but what else? What are your safeties, what are your targets, and how do you make sure those are strategic?
One last piece before I start answering questions.
We do one on one college admissions consulting, and we would love to partner with you and your family, your child, to figure out the pathway that makes the most sense to help you get you into your dream college. I'm gonna put the link to that webinar consultation link here in the chat. It's free. You'll either be meeting with me, I'm the founder and CEO of Dewey Smart. I've helped hundreds of students get into their dream colleges, or you'll be meeting with my director of admissions, Emerson Blaze, who spent over 15 years navigating elite college admissions, working with students in the.
Hong Kong, the UK, the stakes are high when it comes to elite admissions. So if you want just a quick check in on your applications, you have some specific questions that you need answered, please go to that calendar link, book some time on our calendars, and we're happy to chat. And Manish here has a pretty good glowing recommendation. Emerson is awesome. Thank you, Manish, for saying that, and I'll make sure that Emerson gets the message, um.
And, and, and your compliment.
Awesome. Well, thank you guys so much for joining with me for 52 minutes here. I'm gonna leave this QR code up so that we can get some people some free consultations. Um, as you are scanning that QR code, I have a couple of questions that I'm gonna help answer.
Um, Arrosh asks a question. How do you fit an entire narrative into a 650 word limit? It's a great question, and this is why we work with students one on one, because it depends. It depends on what your narrative is, it depends on how you want to communicate it.
Now, a couple of tips on on word limit. The first is only pick the most relevant details. A lot of people put fluff words, fluff adjectives that don't really add a lot of value. They don't paint a picture of the scene, they're just big words that sound fancy, eliminate all of that nonsense. Um, also make sure that the parts of your story that you're telling are truly relevant.
Um, the way that we help students do this is we start with the theme. What are the 50 things that you want to try to bring together into one? What is that one thing that's at the intersection of all these other parts of your application and of your personality? If anything in your essay doesn't connect to that one thing, cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. You only want things that tie your application together in your 60 or 50 word essay.
Colleges already have a resume. They already have a GPA. They already have test scores. They do not need you to write those things in your essay. And so if you feel like you're duplicating information that's already present in another part of your application.
Skip it, delete it.
I hope that's helpful.
Obvious, in essays, do students need to mention grades from 9th to 12th? Really great question. Do not waste your space on that.
Colleges already have transcripts, they already have your GPA. They already have recommendation letters from your counselors and from your teachers that will have grades in it. Your essays should not have that information. The most boring essays are written about academics, classes, homework, overcoming a C to an A. Don't write about that, write about something much more unique. It's a great question, Abby, and I'm glad I could steer you off the wrong road.
Uh, but it's a good question. It's a good question. I understand why you're asking.
Kayley asks, if you don't have a clear path, How do you write an essay that shows the college what you'll bring? Well, Kayley, you're still in middle school, it sounds like, so you have plenty of time to figure out what you want to do, and I would recommend you doing a whole bunch of extracurriculars to help you find that out. Again, we're doing a webinar on undecided applications. I would highly encourage you to scan that QR code and join. But if you are an undecided college applicant and you're thinking about what your essay should write about, Oh, you wanna make sure that even if you're undecided, you're not directionless.
You may not know exactly where you want to go. You may not know you want to study polysci, and you want to become a lawyer, but you want to have a direction. Maybe it's, I want to spend my life working with people and helping people on a one on one basis, or I want to spend my life chasing discoveries. And I don't know whether it's chemistry or biology, but I'm really wanna make something new. And innovative or maybe I don't know what I wanna do, but I know I wanna start a business and I don't know whether that's the science business or computer science business or something that's more business business, uh, but I know I want to do something entrepreneur.
You want to have a direction. And you might be saying to me, Kaylee, like, I don't know what that direction is at all. What do I do? Um, what's the best one for me? I mean, you're not, you don't want to just come up with a direction for a college essay. You want the direction for yourself. You're gonna plop down potentially $5 million on an Ivy League school if you don't get financial aid.
You want. To know what you're gonna get out of it. And so I actually think writing a college essay is not just about standing up for the admissions office, it's about figuring out what you want out of a college education so that when you get into whatever school you get into, you're gonna make it the most productive experience possible.
Manish asks, Can we get a letter of recommendation from the BJJ instructor where my kid has been going for almost 7 years and has shown consistent progress? The answer is an overwhelming.
Yes. You absolutely should be getting that recommendation letter. On the common app, there's a section on the letter of recommendation that's specifically for extracurricular recommenders or additional recommendation letters. You'll get At least 1 from your counselor, you'll get at least 2 from your teachers, and then you'll often from many schools have extra space for extracurricular recommendations. If you don't have it on the common app, oftentimes after you submit, you'll be invited to a college portal where you'll be able to submit additional recommendation letters, essays, documentation. So Manni absolutely get that recommendation letter. Now, one thing about the BJJ instructors I'm not sure if he's used to writing letters of recommendation.
He's just like not a teacher, um, and so given that you want to make sure that you are giving him a lot of structure, a lot of guidance about what a recommendation letter is, what you need, when to submit it, um, giving them an outline and a brag sheet that that's uh it's really, really clear how this BJJ instructor can be helpful to you.
Perfect. These are some really great questions. We have 3 minutes left in our hour long time tonight. I know it's late, but any other questions from the audience here about how to get into a top tier Ivy League school? Any other questions that I can help answer?
Well, perfect, guys. Thank you for joining. If there's no, oh, rush has a question. If I have one summer left for applications, what should I spend it on?
Arushi depends obviously on your college and major of interest. I encourage you to set up a consultation with our team or send us an email if you're already a student, so that we can give you a little bit more personalized guidance. You have one summer left, you're probably a junior. We really like internships because that's practical work experience. We really like passion projects because that helps you stand out. And we also want to make sure that you're dedicating time to actually writing your application. Start now, start early, don't wait until October 15th, 15 days before November 1st as a deadline.
Or you wanna share a little bit more about what your major is or what you wanna study?
And no worries if you don't want to do it in this public place. Feel free to reach out to us separately after today's presentation.
Um, we're about a minute left.
Thanks for joining me. I know it's late for so many people here, especially out on the east coast. I hope those folks in California, uh, are having a great start to their evening. Um, if you have questions, please reach out. Please use this QR code to book some time with the college admission strategist.
And I will be in touch with a recording of this webinar and more information about how you can help your students achieve their Ivy League dreams. Thank you all so much for the time. Please have a great night.
