IVY LEAGUE Admissions Expert REVEALS College Admissions Secrets

I see the comments on YouTube and I see my Instagram DMS and there are some questions that come up all the time how do you actually make your application Stand Out can College just tell between High effort activities and fake passion projects does all of this even matter or is the process just random today I'm asking these questions to a college admissions expert someone with over a decade of experience getting students into IV league universities no BS actionable advice let's do it hey Joseph thank you for joining me here today my pleasure thank you for having me absolutely do you want to just briefly introduce yourself to my audience absolutely my name is Joseph dur I graduated from Harvard College in 2014 and I've been doing this College counseling and consulting stuff for about a decade now thank you that's great to hear our hopefully our goal here today is to lock in with some of this admissions knowledge get you guys my subscribers here some good tips answer some of their high demand questions and then hopefully we can take away from this interview some applicable useful information that you can apply to your own College admissions journey to hopefully build up your own resumes Joseph one of the most common questions that I get asked is if going to IV Le college is actually worth it now as someone like you who went through the Harvard pipeline graduated you're in your career now do you feel like it was worth the effort that you put in during High School do you want the real answer the truthful answer or the answer that I'm probably supposed to give I would honestly love the truthful answer okay well I'll start with the answer I'm supposed to give the I'm probably supposed to say yes but the real answer at at least at this point in my life is that I'm leaning towards no mainly because there are things that I wanted to explore in high school but did not get a chance to because I was stretched so thin doing what I thought was necessary to get into the best college possible not even shooting for Harvard I didn't even know that Harvard was a possibility I just put the application out there and ended up getting in that was kind of a shot in the dark but the whole time I was focusing on what I thought were the priorities to get into a good school and had to deprioritize some of the things that personally I was very curious to explore like acting uh screenwriting and and more entertainment focused stuff so I would say I'm leaning towards no but the answer that everybody's probably expecting is yes yeah I think that's totally fair you never want to have to deprioritize your actual personal interest for the sake of just trying to build up a college application at the end of the day I think the one of the best ways to think about it is to work on the things that you're truly passionate about the things that you want to do for your career in the future and then ideally you excel in those things in college applications can come as something secondary as a reward for your hard work rather than having to do it the other the way around and actually missing out on the things that matter exactly I would agree with that seniors College app season is right around the corner and it comes with two things anxiety and questions I make these videos to help but nothing beats a personalized one-on-one approach and quad education is as personalized as it gets if you're interested in Ivy League schools scholarships or bsmd programs quads admissions experts can help you maximize your odds of success one of my favorite things about quad is their match process where they look at your resume and your dream schools and pair you with the perfect counselor to help get you there they have over 400 Consultants on their team across dozens of Majors with a fantastic track record it's not often that I give a brand a shout out on my YouTube channel but this is something I think can actually help you guys and your first consultation with them is completely for free so you have nothing to lose if you want to impress colleges click the link in the description and tell them preaching peace sent you or use code preach to get 10% off any Services back to the interview another topic that comes up a lot is how I League colleges are able to differentiate between top candidates when everyone has the same grades and test scores especially at that high IV League level how do you feel that admissions officers actually assess students where do they look next yeah so once they see that you have the numbers then it goes beyond the numbers to the essays the extracurriculars any other value that you add athletically or otherwise if you already have published you know independent research that could catch their attention because you've already proved that you have the capacity to do that therefore it's much more likely that you'll go ahead and do that again once you get on campus and thereafter so you'll continue to put their campus their uh programs on the map if you just continue doing what you've already been doing so they they look for those pieces of evidence in order to extrapolate what you will be doing for the next four years and after okay that's really interesting I love the way that you kind of brought up that that second point in the sense that colleges are are almost looking for students who will take what they're doing in high school and some of the skills talents things like publishing papers and bring it to their University continue to do that I think that's a really cool way to think about it yeah I mean if you we were talking about entertainment before if you want to think about it in terms of movies the application is kind of like the trailer for The for a movie for these admissions officers if it's a captivating trailer they're probably going to want to watch the movie the movie being your four years and and your acceptance into the university so if you cut together a really good trailer odds are you're going to Captivate the attention of your audience the admissions officers and they're going to come see your your movie I.E let you into their school love that that's a really great analogy the next question I had for you was just in regards to standing out right I know that when building your college applications especially nowadays it feels like it's more competitive than ever the talent pool just keeps getting better and personally I just wish I had more actionable advice in a high school how would you recommend going about standing out when building a college application is it the answer getting involved in more clubs more competitions I would say perhaps it might seem counterintuitive but the best way to stand out is to go deeper within find the thing as I was mentioning I wanted to explore things that I didn't get to explore don't make the same mistake I did figure out exactly and try a bunch of stuff so that you know what you what you like and possibly even what you love what your passions are and then disproportionately invest your time in those things that's what admissions officers look for uh a big mistake that a lot of students make is going for volume or quantity over quality admissions officers don't necessarily like to see that you have every activity uh Slot full they'd rather see maybe a few missing but the the ones that you do you are wholeheartedly involved with and disproportionately invested into the areas that are points of Excellence for you so try a lot of stuff try everything you can early and often find what you love find your passion and hone that disproportionately invest your time in that to elevate it to a point of excellence and then it will catch the attention of admissions officers and don't just go for quantity over quality go for quality over quantity Joseph on a similar train of thoughts what do you think is the biggest mistake that students make when building up their college applications great question in addition to what I said said in the previous answer about quantity uh going for quantity over quality I think students trying to be somebody that they're not is a huge mistake so my best advice on that front is to be unapologetically you it goes along with my answer to the previous question find what you love disproportionately invest your time into it build your narrative craft that narrative and your story around that so that everything that you're talking about aligns it makes sense it's comprehensive and and it it makes you more than just a name or or some some statistics and and numbers on a page it makes you a a real three-dimensional person to these people reading your applications that's a really great point you bring up Joseph now another question that I had for you was if you've noticed any Trends with successful ivy league applications are there like certain extracurriculars or details Beyond stats that you think could help students stand out yeah absolutely uh get the most recognition that you can uh geographically like literally that means if you can compete for some sort of State title or Championship do it if you can get to Regionals do it if you can get to Nationals do it if you can get International recognition do it like each of these is another tier up national would will get the attention of admissions officers at Elite schools International will keep their attention so that's one thing I see with a lot of IV accepted students is National International recognition for a point of Excellence for a sport something that they've done another thing that I might have mentioned earlier is published research that is something again that these schools love because they're bread and butter the the lifeblood of the school is academic uh conveyance of knowledge and proliferation of that knowledge and how better to do that than publishing papers and journals and AC other academic um institutions that do so so I think the national International recognition uh doing independent projects getting them published writing a book is another big one starting a nonprofit these are all excellent uh independent projects you can take on that will separate you from the pack and make you look like nobody else applying when you need to and that's that's the key of applications when it's time to look like everybody else the numbers the grades the GPA look like the herd get the same or better grades as everybody else applying then when it's past the numbers don't look like anybody else applying your be your own person be unapologetically you and uniqueness is the name of the game each thing that you mention should be a unique differentiator that you can say and as few people as possible in the world also applying to that schooler program can also say that should be your goal if only you can say that then you should put that for sure that's such a great like actionable way to put it right chasing after those high level Awards things like Publications but I really like the point that you made about the stats right making sure that you're at the same level or higher than anyone else that's something I've always thought of when I was in high school as a great way to to keep yourself locked into the general pathway in this plight towards getting these high level Awards and Publishing papers things like that you don't want to let the absolute fundamentals like your grades or your test scores just slip away you got to lock in on all fronts I love that exactly lock in on all fronts I love that too I love how you put that and what about the types of students who are successful do they tend to have certain traits or skills yeah I would say perseverance resilience dedication discipline uh admissions officers love a good story and a good story in screenwriting just like in college essays tells a hero's journey and in the hero's journey there's some villain or some uh trial or tribulation that they have to overcome some big battle admissions officers love seeing how you respond to that big battle in your life whatever it may be it it could take many forms it could take infinitely many forms everybody's life is different so everybody's path everybody's trials and tribulations are different but a lot of them get us to the same place of realizing who we are in the face of adversity and that's what admissions officers want to see they want to see who you are when adversity strikes when Murphy's Law rears its ugly head and you have no option but to you know go big or go home so to speak if you are the type to go big uh an elite institution will want you because in college as in life it's going to throw stuff at you like in a in a boxing match you know there there going to be punches thrown and you got to you got to roll roll with those punches that's that's College that's life and admissions officers just want to make sure that you're able to do that at a high level before they admit you into a high level institution that's super interesting to bring up yeah uh the next question I had was actually a little bit more of like a a a question that was a personal curiosity to me and it's like do you think that colleges can actually distinguish honestly between uh High effort activities that students put a ton of time into and clubs that were maybe just made to to pad their college applications a little bit absolutely and there have been measures that have been taken it over the past decade but even more in recent years along the lines of how many hours per week how many weeks per year do you do this activity as well as the description in the uh the activity descriptions on on many of these applications that's an indicator to these admissions officers of throughout the year how consistent are you with this activity how invested are you in this activity and they can tell based on the the hours and weeks that you put in there so try to make it as accurate as possible and if anything I mean you're not going to be perfect on every single one you're not going to have you know a an itemized Google calendar for every single thing you've ever done so if you have to estimate I would say overestimate in in uh in terms of mathematical reasonability let's call it so if it's you know 133 hours round it up to 15 if it's 17 18 hours round it up to 20 something like that um make it make it kind of a round even number so that they can add it up easily and and and get a sense for what your typical week looks like but if when in doubt estimate and maybe overestimate just a little bit don't make something that's anything above 10 automatically becomes 20 hours that you've invested in that's too much but if it's 12 13 you're not really sure which one just put about 15 that's a really practical way to go about doing things I think the people who are especially entering this year's admission cycle will definitely benefit from that advice of course yeah cuz you you'll often not notice some of the time that you put into things in terms of communication logistical coordination other factors that might not count as on the clock uh but nonetheless are time that you spent and even even cognitive time even just thinking and spearheading a plan or coming up with a plan to uh to execute that's also time that you're spending on these things I think from an outside perspective when going ahead and looking at college applications sometimes it can feel a little bit random on where students tend to end up where they end up getting accepted from your experience being an admissions uh counselor for you know over a decade now do you feel like luck is a genuine factor in the college admissions process or how random do you feel like the admissions process really is another wonderful question probably on everybody's mind watching uh this this right now I would say the answer to both questions maybe surprisingly is yes there is Randomness involved in the college application process but at the same time there's also luck but simultaneously you can create your own luck Which is less lucky and more intentional in terms of Randomness it's all about your application getting into the right hands in front of the right eyes in front of the right reader at the right time of day when your story strikes them and resonates with them in such a way that they become your Advocate that's some part of the the randomness part of the luck component of it but the way you can create your own luck and make it less lucky so to speak is every step of the way every decision every choice that you make should align with adding value not necessarily just to your college application but to your to yourself to who you are because that you you're going to have to be unapologetically you on your college application so if you've put that work in to building yourself up and you know who you are really really well on that college application that will resonate and Captivate the admission officer reading it so in that regard if you take advantage of every opportunity that puts you closer to your goal that is creating your own luck so that you're one of the ones who gets quote unquote lucky or at least so it appears externally from everybody on the outside looking in when in reality it's more a grind to create that luck recognize and seize that opportunity that happens behind the scenes but then when it actually happens it seems like it's overnight but it's not it's really not that's totally valid one of the other things that comes up a lot between me and my audience is just in regards to like the nitty-gritties of admissions behind the scenes how colleges actually go about evaluating students so I wanted to ask you from your experience with your knowledge how do you think that admissions officers at a school like Harvard actually go about evaluating students how do they gauge how do they they they scale students is like a point system yeah so I mean I I'll get into Harvard specifically but most schools nowadays they try to have holistic comprehensive view of the student they try to get as three-dimensional a picture as possible of who this person is that they're about to let into their Community Harvard specifically as do many other schools actually has a 1 through six rating system that they use to evaluate their applicants um in six different components uh which are academics extracurriculars Athletics personal recommendation letters and alumni interview and different schools call these things different things so Stanford might call a recommendation letter support uh or you know Stanford might call the personal part intellectual vitality and and they do in fact so the the idea behind this one to6 grading system is if you get a one you're basically number one in their mind for being admitted that's that's kind of the top of the heat if you get a six that's basically unread or adds no value uh to your application possibly even negative value so you're aiming for that one that's what you want across the board but if you have you know certain things uh aren't as strong as other things but they're not your they're not your passions let's say you're you're an academic and you love doing research and publish papers and write books and things like that and you score a six in athletics but a one in academics and extracurriculars you're most likely going to have a one or maybe a one minus as your overall score it's going to skew towards your strengths because at the end of the day even at these Elite institutions where the vast vast majority of applicants are rejected just by default these admissions officers are not looking for ways to kick you out or not admit you or reject you they are actually looking for ways and reasons to admit you so give them those reasons Switching gears here a little bit how important are college essays in the scope of college admissions critically important especially at the highest level you have the numbers which are basically Gatekeepers once you put the key in the lock in terms of GPA and open that first gate and then once you put the key in the lock with standardized testing a high sat or ACT score and open that gate then all bets are off in terms of numbers the numbers cease to matter anymore now it's all about the story that you're telling it's all about what you've done because actions speak louder than words meaning activities and the story that you craft there so not even just the essays but the descriptions in your activities can can be little mini stories so those can be considered little essays and if you do a good enough job you can you can tell a microcosmic story within each essay as well as a macrocosmic story uh as a synergistic sum of the parts in the whole application so the essays are absolutely critically important especially if you do it strategically and have an overarching idea or goal for what you want to put forth what you want the admissions officer to Come Away with because you can subtly and sometimes even subliminally just with a choice of words your your diction your syntax your tone help them to come to that same conclusion you don't necessarily want to force that conclusion upon them that's not good convincing or good persuasion you the best way to persuade somebody including an admissions officer is to make them think it's their idea and then they'll be convinced and given how important college essays are just as a a more fun question for you what do you think about the use of chat GPT in college essay and students kind of chat gping their way through this whole admissions process I I think it's it's kind of fun and funny because at this point it resembles kind of a cat and mouse game you have you know AI is this this you know infantile technological breakthrough that's it might it might be you know in its infancy now it might be in its Nation phases now but it is exponentially learning and it will grow up very very quickly so recognizing the power of AI and and it's almost Universal applicability to multiple Fields uh education just being the tip of the iceberg among others um students are trying to leverage this power to at at the very least write their first draft and then add human touches to them uh that's a very common uh practice among students but on the other hand you know admissions officers and admissions offices are smart too so they know students are doing this so they're using the same or similar AI Tech technology to actually detect whether or not AI has been used at some point in the process now both of these are very Nation so it's cat and mouse because as one improves the other sees what it's doing and improves to catch up and then the other sees that the the let's say the tracker has caught up so it'll you know the the students will Implement a new Wrinkle in their use of AI in the essays and then the the admissions officers and offices will realize oh the students have done something new so they'll kind of ramp up their game and just keeps ramping up which is honestly really good for AI at the end of the day to be kind of in the middle of this this back and forth between students and admissions uh offices but it's a very interesting cat and M Mouse game at this point and definitely something to follow in the in the foreseeable future yeah absolutely I think the the use of AI and chat gbt in this has been pretty crazy I've had some subscribers actually email me college essays that seem like they're pretty blatantly written by AI like it doesn't seem like it's it's authentic or kind of genuine in that sense I kind of I feel for admissions officers in the sense that they have to look through these essays and it I mean it's hard to tell right it's not especially the better and better AI is getting it gets pretty tricky it it can be tough but there are certain indicators such as repeated yeah repeated syntax the same sentence structure but saying a new idea or saying the same idea that was said previously but in a different uh sentence structure a different way that is purely redundant and is not adding anything you could kind of tell at that point that the the person inputting the data points or or the parameters for the AI may not have done a good enough job so the AI ran out of things to say and thus has to repeat itself but in a new way to make it feel you know fresh or authentic keep that in mind y'all okay we want to keep high integrity college essays here but if you see someone's essay and it's looking a little bit suspect all right keep these things in mind I want to ask this final question from the perspective of some of my audience members some of my younger viewers out there um who are maybe in ninth or tth grade if you had to give advice to yourself at that stage of high school to someone who's motivated and eager to get ahead in their college admissions Journey what kind of advice would you give them to get started on early well just you said it right there get started early it is never too early to start and try everything or anything you're even curious about early be willing to fail fail hard fail fast fail often cuz those failures are going to teach you something fail failure is actually critical to success so don't shy away from failure in your earlier years in fact Go full head-on into it because that's going to teach you what you like about whatever you're doing what you don't like how you could pivot to not fail and actually win to succeed and it will inform your future decisions about what you do and what you disproportionately invest your time into your your passions try a lot of stuff uh it's it's trial and error sometimes to find your pass even even at this level even after doing this for a decade with some students who really aren't sure what they want to do you have to get your hands dirty you have to get some hands- on exposure in certain things that you're at least curious about in order to know yes I like this or no I don't like this or with a little qualification no I don't like this but there's a part of this I do like that in something else that I find I would want this I would want to retain this this little part of this component of it and you you can't have that perspective unless you've put in the work and you've gotten that Hands-On exposure which you have to go out and get you can't just wait for things to come to you you have to actually go out and get it and oddly enough that go-getter mentality and mindset is something that these admissions officers really really love to see so if you work on just that mindset earlier on as well as exploring your your passions to find that passion you're going to have the go-getter mindset you're going to have passions that are captivating to the admissions officer and you're going to if you have somebody like me helping you with your essay you're going to craft a captivating story that tells that puts your best foot forward and shows that you would be a a valuable candidate to add to their to their campus that's fantastic advice Joseph this has been an amazing interview session thank you so much for your time for all you guys watching go ahead and check out the quad education Link in the description um that'll get you some great admissions advice you get a free consultation call with them Joseph thank you for your time my pleasure thank you for having me all right take care you too shout out to my man Joseph it was fantastic interviewing him I've been thinking about doing a part three to our reacting to subscriber college application Series with someone like Joseph if you guys want to see something like that let me know in the comment section below also if you're a senior interested in getting some Consulting for your college applications having an actual expert review your college essays your application positioning and just overall increasing the level of your application go ahead and click the link to check out quad education in the description tell them that preaching peace sent you and you'll get a nice little discount I appreciate each and every one of you watching this video this has been prik peace

Channel: Preaching P

Views: 15,059

Keywords: harvard, ivy league

Id: aHc7IMkG5jg

Length: 26min 28sec (1588 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 26 2024