The One Trick That Almost Guarantees Your Child's Admission Success
We've had the privilege of being able to get behind closed doors as to what the wealthy are doing for their children to get them in a position to get into almost an school they want. While they do have some advantages as it comes to influence and connections, they know this one thing that helps their children stand head and shoulders above all other applicants in the race for the few spots at an elite school.
In this post, we're gong to cover what exactly that is.
Now that we've covered the acceptance rate multiplier, have gone over each of the student types, and covered each type of school, we can finally dive into the schools each type of student should apply to; and, in particular, how specific schools can boost their odds of getting into an elite university, or even better, the school of their dreams.
With that being said, let's get started.
In our last post, we introduced a concept known as a student's acceptance rate multiplier (ARM) this is simply the relative acceptance rate of a student within their given group divided by the acceptance rate of the school as a whole.
This concept is especially important when applying to elite schools because it can be the difference between having a decent chance of gettin into an elite school and having a better chance of being struck by lighting than getting into the school of your dreams.
Generally speaking, across the 237 top schools we surveyed, these were the general acceptance rate multipliers for each type of student.
Across the board, Professional Polymaths stand the best chance of making it into elite schools. While on the flip-side, Humanities Intellectuals stand the worst chance of making it into the schools of their dreams.
Here is what this means in practical terms:
Let's say that there was an incredible school that was one of the top 10% of schools in the country and had an acceptance rate of 25%.
A random student who applied as a Professional Polymath to this school would have over a 90% chance of making it into that school, on average, compared to a 16% for a random student who applied as a Humanities Intellectual.
This makes sense. Many top schools look for students who are supremely talented and can do many things well, and more often than not, the Professional Polymath is exactly this. While other students may excel in very specific areas, the student who does as well in many areas is going to be a better prospect for that particular school.
This is important to begin with because it helps set up the rest of this post in perspective as we analyze how each type of student fares when applying to each type of school.
For Humanities Havens, here are the multipliers for each type of student:
For Political Science Paradises:
For Technology Towns:
Finally, for Business Boroughs:
Application Strategies
Looking at these numbers, it is very clear which groups perform the best when applying to different types of schools. Overall, it is also very clear that being a Professional Polymath pays off the best, in the long run, regardless of the type of school a student wants to apply to.
With that being said, our first suggestion to any student trying to boost their odds of getting into an elite university is to join a sport as soon as possible.
We have found that students who play sports at the varsity level for at least 2 years double or triple their odds of making it into their dream schools. This is because when a university sees a student who has played a sport at an elite (varsity) level for a couple years, and beyond that, that student is a good student, they know that this student will be a huge asset to their campus. This student can not only be an active member on the sports field, but they can be an active member in other academic clubs as well. When combined with being stellar in the classroom, a student like that is a "must have" on any campus and thus universities will climb all over themselves to accept them.
The Application Strategy For Humanities Intellectuals
If you classify yourself as a humanities intellectual, you face an uphill journey ahead of you if you want to get into an elite school.
As a result of the overwhelming abundance of Humanities Intellectuals who apply to elite schools, the multiplier that humanities intellectuals face when applying to these schools is actually punishing. The multiplier in almost all cases is less than one. For this reason, regardless of the school, it is substantially harder for a Humanities Intellectuals to get into an elite school as compared with any other student type.
If you're a humanities intellectual, the best thing you can do for yourself right away is try to make yourself more of a Professional Polymath or Sharp Social Scientist. This means that you should try participating in a sport for two years at the varsity level, and if possible, trying your hand at extracurriculars in the Social Science or STEM fields. By doing this, you'll move yourself away from being a Humanities Intellectual and closer towards a Sharp Social Scientist or Professional Polymath and increase your odds of getting into your dream school dramatically. Any sort of move in either of these directions will give you a much more favorable multiplier as it relates towards applying to your dream school, and this will help you out tremendously.
If you've decided that it's too late to become a different type of student and that you are going to apply to college as a Humanities Intellectual, we highly suggest you avoid Technology Towns. Schools like this, being avidly technology focused, do not typically accept many people from the humanities fields. However, they often receive a flurry of applications from students who wish to be in the humanities fields at these schools. With a massive surplus of applications and not too many spots open for those who apply, these schools are notoriously picky, even to the point of accepting less than 1% of those who apply as Humanities Intellectuals. Stanford, for instance, accepts less than 0.5% of Humanities Intellectuals that apply to the school.
On the flip-side, Humanities Havens are the way to go for Humanities Intellectuals. While these schools do receive a flurry of applications like other schools, they have a sufficient department size as well as the resources to accept a larger pool of Humanities Intellectuals who apply there. For that reason, the multiplier for Humanities Havens is positive (larger than 1). Schools like Harvard University and Wellesley College are schools Humanities Intellectuals can find solace in as at these schools there is a decent probability of your application not entirely going to waste.
The Application Strategy For Sharp Social Scientists
If you classify yourself as a Sharp Social Scientist, the multiplier on your odds of getting into the schools of your dreams are relatively static. You don't have nearly the same level of an uphill battle as Humanities Intellectuals face when applying to your dream school. However, you do face a similar problem when it comes to the sheer number of people who are Sharp Social Scientists.
Many students applying to universities and colleges in general are Sharp Social Scientists; and to stand out, you'll need to be something different. As with the Humanities Intellectual, the best thing you can do for yourself right away is try to make yourself more of a Professional Polymath. This means that you should try participating in a sport for two years at the varsity level, and if possible, trying your hand at extracurriculars in the Humanities or STEM fields. By doing this, you'll move yourself away from being a Sharp Social Scientist and closer towards a Professional Polymath and increase your odds of getting into your dream school dramatically.
If you've decided that it's too late to become a different type of student and that you are going to apply to college as a Sharp Social Scientist, we suggest you avoid Humanities Havens as they often have an overabundance of students who apply as Sharp Social Scientists than they can accept. Apart from that, any school you apply to has relatively the same odds, more or less, of accepting you and we suggest trying your hand at them all to position yourself in the best way so as to capitalize on that.
The Application Strategy For STEM Scholars
If you classify yourself as a STEM Scholar, the multiplier on your odds of getting into the schools of your dreams are more or less the same across the different school types except for one, Humanities Havens. In this category, you have a massive advantage.
If the dream school of yours is a humanities haven, we suggest that you double down on your STEM abilities and strengths to further stand out from the rest of those applying to the school. By doubling down on this, you have the opportunity to stand out from the STEM Scholars and have a substantially increased chance of getting into the school of your dreams.
However, if the school of your dreams isn't a Humanities Haven, we suggest, similar to the other groups, moving towards becoming a Professional Polymath and picking up a varsity sport for two years and an extracurricular in the humanities or social sciences disciplines.
By becoming a Professional Polymath, you'll be able to reap the rewards of the massive multipliers Professional Polymaths have, and if need be, when applying to Humanities Havens, you'll be able to accentuate the STEM Scholar aspect of your application and have that multiplier as well. This way, you'll have the best of both worlds when applying to college.
The Application Strategy For Athletic Academics
If you categorize yourself as an Athletic Academic, you don't have too much to worry about as your acceptance rate multiplier is fairly constant independent of the type of school you apply to.
However, we suggest that to truly increase your odds of making it into your dream school, you adopt more academic extracurriculars and maybe some class officer roles in order to move closer to the direction of the Professional Polymath.
For the most part however, you have nothing to worry about as your odds of making it into your dream school are much better than average.
The Application Strategy For The Professional Polymaths
For the person who categorizes themselves as the Professional Polymath you are in great standing. Across the board you have a phenomenal chance of having much better odds of getting into the school of your dreams. All you have to do is exactly what you have been doing and you should fare very well when it comes time for application.
The only piece of advice we have for someone like you is that when you're applying to a school that is a Humanities Haven, accentuate the portion of your portfolio that is a STEM scholar and downplay some of the other aspects of your portfolio.
Other than that, you're golden and should have no trouble applying to the elite schools fo your dreams.
In Conclusion
Humanities Intellectuals, STEM Scholars, Athletic Academics and Sharp Social Scientists should move towards becoming Professional Polymaths during their high school career as this will give them the best odds of making it into their dream schools.
Humanities Intellectuals should avoid applying to Technology Town as the multiplier for those types of schools is more punishing than most others. Instead, they should apply to Humanities Havens as the multiplier there is positive for them.
Sharp Social Scientists should avoid Humanities Havens as the multiplier there is negative for them and instead should apply anywhere else as they fare a relatively equal level of success applying anywhere else.
STEM Scholars should aim to apply to Humanities Havens as they face a massive multiplier when they do so, but should be more or less ok if they apply to any other school.
Athletic Academics have a relatively constant acceptance multiplier at any school of their choosing and thus are free to apply anywhere they wish.
Finally, Professional Polymaths face a huge multiplier for any school of their choosing, but should accentuate the aspects of their application focusing on STEM when applying to Humanities Havens as this does them the most good when applying to those types of schools.
In the next post we're going to be changing topics and discussing a typical student timeline from Pre-k to Senior year and what parent and students themselves can do to give themselves the best odds of the incredible success they want.
Next Post: From Pre-School To Princeton ->
Closing Words
As usual, you can always contact us here to suggest a topic we could cover, or, if you'd like a one on one consultation about something personal that you would like some guidance and advice with, you can contact us here.
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We're glad you've stuck with us this far and look forward to continuing this journey with you when we release our next post in the newsletter.
We'll speak with you soon.