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New Haven, USA – May 4, 2015: Yale University campus on April 4, 2015. It is a private Ivy League … More research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701
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In years past, a 4.0 GPA and at 1600 SAT score nearly guaranteed top students a spot at a top institution. Applicants who showcased superior academic skills, demonstrated leadership, and community service could feel confident in their odds of admission at even Ivy League schools. But those days are long gone—students with perfect stats are a dime a dozen in the Ivy League application pools, from which only a single digit percentage of applicants are admitted each cycle.
For instance, Columbia accepted just 4.29% of applicants to the Class of 2029, Yale 4.60%. Even schools that used to take a back seat to the Ivy League now boast single-digit acceptance rates of their own. For instance, New York University, which admitted 34% applicants in 2014, saw an acceptance rate of just 7.7% this year.
In order to make the cut in today’s admissions landscape, it’s not enough to earn perfect grades, secure an eyecatching internship, spearhead numerous clubs, or enroll in college-level coursework; top schools expect students to do all of these things—and more. Most importantly, students must curate unique, interdisciplinary, and impactful profiles through community engagement, independent initiatives, and creative hooks that anchor their profiles.
Particularly in our increasingly technologically advanced and globalized world, teens are more adept than ever before at pursuing their passions on a larger scale and with greater impact. This means that today’s applicants must think bigger about how they can showcase their unique perspectives and core interests to admissions officers. The more students can innovatively leverage technology, social media, and virtual partnerships for good, the more likely they are to stand out in the competitive admissions landscape.
Consider Eva Paliouras, a seventeen-year-old student at Score Academy in Wellington, Florida, who balances her time between studying, professional show jumping, and raising funds for women in rural Peru. At just thirteen years old, Eva founded the initiative Bonnets of Hope for the nonprofit Knitting Hope, creating products that include purses, pouches, wallets, and equestrian bonnets to help raise funds for women in rural Peru. Eva, who learned to knit and sew during the Covid-19 lockdowns, designs the accessories and promotes them to raise awareness and funds throughout the international equestrian world.
“I wanted to create something that tied my love for riding to giving back,” says Paliouras.
By leveraging social media and connections fostered through the internet, Eva has been able to develop Bonnets of Hope into an organization with global reach—all while maintaining academic excellence and preparing to compete with the Peruvian Show Jumping Team in this year’s Bolivarian Games in Lima.
Prestigious colleges aren’t just looking for academic overachievers; they want to admit teens like Eva, who authentically leverage their unique, intersecting passions for positive impact in their communities. This kind of passion can’t be manufactured—but it can be nurtured.
It’s true that students gunning for Ivy League admissions must find increasingly impressive ways to not only excel in their professional endeavors, but do so while making positive changes in communities they care about. But students applying to college in the coming application cycles should not be intimidated by their peers’ successes; rather, they should look to students like Pauliouras for inspiration. In today’s holistic admissions evaluations, students are evaluated not only for their profiles’ rigor, but also their creativity, ingenuity, and originality. While some students may find this freedom intimidating, applicants who will stand out to admissions officers at top schools are those who will embrace the opportunity to develop and showcase their groundbreaking perspectives and distinct voices through their materials.
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