40,000+ applicants. How do you stand out?
With many schools now receiving over 40,000 applications per year for admission, you may be wondering what the best way to stand out is. While there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this, it is obvious that anything you can do to make yourself more unique in the vast ocean of applicants is probably a good thing.
Good grades? Valedictorian? President of 3 clubs and organizations? Great SAT scores? Boring.
The 40,000+ applicants are probably largely self-selecting.
If they wanted to, elite college admissions offices could randomly pick the entire class out from a big hat and still likely get an amazing incoming class. Most of the applicants to top colleges are likely self-selected and not just a random sample from the country/world. It’s not worth the time (and often money, unless you get an application fee waiver) to even apply to Harvard, for example, if you’ve failed out of 5 classes, aren’t graduating from high school, did no extracurriculars, and kept getting in trouble.
Instead, you’re likely to mainly get applicants who at least think they’ve got a chance of getting in. That’s right: lots of people with great grades, great extracurriculars, great test scores, etc.
How do you stand out?
Again, there’s no easy answer to this. Some students show an incredible passion toward a certain interest and/or cause and are amazingly talented/accomplished in that field (all while having good grades, scores, etc.). Some are just well-rounded, driven individuals who are extremely smart and motivated. Some may show other qualities.
The bottom line is that anything that you can do to make yourself unique in the huge pool of applicants is probably a good thing. You need good grades, good test scores, good extracurriculars, etc…but everyone applying will have those things. If you can show an intense passion or dedication to something, great! If you are extremely talented at something, great! If you have anything that sets you apart from the ‘norm’ of extremely high-performing individuals, that’s probably great too!
We can help.
Here at Firsthand Ivy, we can help guide you to help you put your best self forward. We’ve all been accepted to and have attended the best colleges in the world. We’ve been there, and we’ve done that. And we can help you to do the same.