Accepted to an elite college: What does it take?
Look, I'm not going to try to convince you that getting into an Ivy League college is the ticket to fame and fortune.
But we work with plenty of kids who felt like getting into an Ivy or other elite college was a major game-changer for them.
But here's the thing...
Your idea of what it takes to get accepted to a top college does not resemble the real world truth of what admissions officers actually value.
There's a lot going on behind the closed doors of the admissions committee, in secret.
Sure, a high GPA, perfect or near-perfect SAT or ACT scores and a ton of AP classes are important.
But all in, those factors add up to only 60% of the equation, according to my ultimate insider business partner and friend, a former 30-year admissions committee member of Princeton University.
What's in the other 40% of the pie?
The short answer: stuff that's in your control, and stuff that's OUT of your control.
An example of the former: impactful extracurricular activities. Not the "same old, same old" stuff that everyone else does.
And college essays, of course.
What about the later category? The high school your child attends. Race (yes, still). Whether the applicant's parents went to college.
Tonight, I'm hosting a new workshop that I've never given before (and may not ever present again).
It's called The College Application Edge System, and it's for parents who want to help their kiddo get an almost unfair advantage over his/her tens of thousands of near-identical competitors, so that they get picked out of the Sea of Sameness that characterizes college admissions today.
Here's where to learn more, and sign up:
Let me put the skunk on the table. If you were wondering, there's nothing to buy tonight. This isn't a time-share tour and "free" lunch.
However, at the end of the presentation I will offer attendees a freebie way to get more information about our program, but 1. that's only at the end, for two minutes (so you can skip it if not interested, no hard feelings) and 2. this will be available for only a small fraction of families, 1-2%, max.
That's it! Hope to see you tonight!
- Andy Lockwood
P.S. If your child is gunning for a competitive college, he needs to make sure that he doesn't suffer from "Application Incest", when his Common Application gets lost in the crowd because it's basically indistinguishable from 50,000 others: same clubs, same volunteer hours, etc.
I'll go over how to avoid that at the workshop.
