Ivy League coach reveals why HARVARD didn't accept me

I'm going to show you my exact Harvard essay and an Ivy League admissions coach is going to tell us three reasons why I didn't get into Harvard even though I had stats in the 99th percentile at the end I'm going to reveal the one thing you need to keep in mind to even stand a chance at getting into a top school let's go I'll read the first paragraph and then briefly walk through the rest the Red Lantern Line Street is a buzz with chatter and the yells of Street vendors offering Trinkets and warm food from the Pagoda roofs banners covered in elegant symbols wave over people's heads some of them riding bicycles and others precariously crossing the busy roads how different it is than the US I thought yet how similar it is too as I walk among hordes of people each person with his or her own story to tell I think back to the first time I went to China not for enjoyment but for a cure next I describe how I had eczema and finally we found a cure from a Chinese medicine doctor after 13 years of not having eczema I went back to China to thank the doctor but I was really sad when I realized that he already passed away I reflect did about how I was thankful in more than one way number one his actions helping me live my life to the fullest potential and then number two by realizing how altruistic he was and the impact that we can have on each other by you know helping each other I said how I've been able to have more empathy which is why I help my friends with their schoolwork Etc and I talk about interdependency between two cultures Chinese and Western and I like this last paragraph where I'm talking about how there is strength in unity and that ended with a lovely quote as Buddha says thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle and the life of the candle will not be shortened I personally really thought this essay was perfect at the time I was like bang bang look at how good that sounds another day another slime period but that just shows how important it is that you have expert advice to guide you through all the things you're doing wrong and you're not even aware of so test yourself a little first which is something I didn't train myself to do to make sure you know how to avoid these same essay mistakes can you find them on your own first for Harvard I use the same Common App materials as in my Stanford video so check that out for the complete beats as some quick background as to why people were so surprised I didn't get into any ivy league these are my stats and I had some State Awards as well I love helping you with The Insider information I wish I had especially because I tried so so hard but I just ended up crying a lot wondering what I did wrong that's why I'm excited that today's ivy league coach is from curricular and their today's sponsor curricular has College admissions advisors from the top 20 universities and the coolest part is that they're super affordable even with all the free resources out there I was still pretty lost in the college application process especially because I was a guinea pig of immigrant parents we didn't even consider a consultant because we just thought it would be way too expensive they have a variety of services including essay reviews and interview prep they've also helped students get into Stanford and Harvard even if you're not a senior curricular can get you ready for the college process so I would love to go back in time and spend just thirty dollars to get that feedback that could have made the difference of me getting into my dream school if you want personalized College advice then check out curricular in the description box use my code to save 10 on any service all right class take out your notepads because it is time to get into the three reasons so listen carefully and take notes so you know how to do better than I did and increase your chances drastically the writing itself was good but I feel like overall one of the main issues was a lack of continuity I feel like you had some really good themes and ideas it would have been really helpful if you perhaps stuck to the theme of getting a second chance at Health it would have been good to see how that impacted your passion or how that influ fluency it's fine to talk about things that may not be 100 related to your theme but it's always important to find a way to link it back like multiple last ages coming together to form one regardless of how many like different interests you have Etc you need to find a way to make them seem like a whole we're very multi-dimensional people and we have different interests and it's like we want to convey who we are on the application and that's kind of what we're told to right to show who we are on the application but it's not actually fully true it's more like we want to give a part of us that would make the most impact that's the kind of brand we want to show as a candidate right yeah especially for like a really competitive School you do want to seem like you have a lot of diverse interests Etc but you don't want to do that at the expense at maybe the one thing that you could focus on that might be really unique or impressive know that sometimes it is okay to focus on one thing quality or quantity like passion is such a buzzword in the application world but it is really important I said I did like so many different things but I feel like it was hard to tell which one of those things not just because you were good at them but because you truly loved doing them for that to come across would be through time commitments make sure that you put aside a lot of time toward this specific thing you don't want to be like one dimension but within your many activities you still want to show that there was at least one thing that you dedicated maybe like a bit more time towards because you're really interested in it and it meant a lot to you just crazy how like students work so hard they do all these things that maybe school counselor advises them to do and in the end of the day it does more harm than good if it's not framed properly it could in the end cause more harm than good so that's needed a lot of activities if there are three activities about like one thing that you're really interested in and then they like other seven are like different so you have really diverse things but you have like three allocated to the one thing that you're really passionate about it shows that okay I put a lot of effort into this one thing and I found like different ways to get involved in it different ways to explore this thing that I'm really interested didn't but yet I still have seven other activities that perhaps might be different even though we have the activities in the application itself we still want to include that in BS even though we think it's already said absolutely thank you like a good writer and sometimes not just enough to say that okay I like enjoyed it you want to show like well it made me more confident or it made me take new risks how you got from this point to the other point and you want to see like the connection when you're writing essays in particular to be able to provide tangible evidence for some of the things that you did that's where like your activity list and your assays merge so instead of giving these slightly vague examples you see on my activities list that I did this in here I'm giving a bit more context about what exactly happened for example one of my activities was doing a lot of math tutoring so I should have written that as how I'm helping people instead of just saying that I'm helping my friends with schoolwork having the essay telling more than showing you would say that that could be a reason in and of itself for someone to not get admission yeah you could have a great assay and you could like mention all these great things but it's really important to have this tangible thing that proves that you actually did it and maybe it could be a passion project when you're making claims on the assay I think it's important to show or like even link it back to something that shows that I actually did this I'm not just talking about it no matter how well we write it it's still not going to be enough if we don't show enough absolutely it's like a really stressful and difficult process and sometimes you really don't know like who's reading you're asking if you had one thing that you could tell students to help them get into their dream school then what would it be it is like super important to have something that you're genuinely interested in not just like for the sake of getting into college because I guess Harvard has a lot of students that are really good at so many things so you need to find one thing that could differentiate you from everybody else if you had a really big like passion project and you really stand out in this one area that you're very committed to would you say that you might have a little more leeway in terms of grades and stats mine are like pretty perfect but would you say that like they would be valued or like have an edge over someone like me absolutely but of course you still have to have like good grades because everyone has good grades at the end of the day like no one exactly knows how College admissions work we have a good idea but nobody knows that one thing that is gonna get this one student accepted opposed to another so all you can really do is try your best but in trying your best I again would highly stress on having something that you're passionate about showing a post to telling and as long as you do those things don't be too hard on yourself and I think you'll get into the school that's meant for you if you take away one thing from this video it should be this drumroll please you and me at the time likely spent spend a ton of time thinking about how to present yourself in the most impressive way but we are looking at it from a narrow lens of what we think is impressive as a standalone application so we might treat it like a place to Rattle off a bunch of different achievements the key is to think of your application from the admissions perspective they get thousands of applications that was weird so how are they going to remember yours when you're writing your application and then look at the product ask yourself if the admissions reader works you vouch for me what Snappy description would they refer to me as that kid who blank just like Kath said you still need good grades and you can get that high GPA if you watch this video till next time peace tell me what the meaning heck oh my gosh [Music]

Channel: wAmy

Views: 596,705

Keywords: Harvard, how to get into Harvard, how I got into Harvard, stats, rejected from dream school, dream school, college rejection, college reactions, college admissions, college applications, common app, STEM, top 10 school, Ivy League, rejection, why I got rejected, advice, college prep, perfect stats, MIT, caltech, rejected from Harvard, Waitlisted, affirmative action

Id: D4_4TSQZyOY

Length: 9min 46sec (586 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 29 2022