"This is Part 2 of a 3-Part Series. See Part 1 here.
In a previous article, we outlined several of the lies and falsehoods told by outsiders about Ivy League school admissions. Those lies can have damaging effects, to the extent they undermine applicant strategies.
In this article, we list 6 more lies, along with ways successful applicants can ignore them. (In a third and final article, we list the remainder.)
In particular, successful Ivy league applicants never believe…
- That all high schools are equal. Because they're not. Some schools simply have better facilities, atmospheres, teachers, students and curricula than others. And many of those schools prepare students specifically for elite college entrance. As a result, their graduates are better prepared and better acclimated. They understand achievement culture and know how to thrive within it. They know how elite school students think and what elite school professors want. As a result, a higher fraction of students applying from these elite high schools gain entrance to elite universities. For example, some elite high schools send as much as 30% of their graduating classes to the world's top colleges. But if that sounds unfair, don't be dismayed. That's what money buys. If such schools could not better prepare students for elite universities, no one would send their children to those schools. At the same time, this explains many things about the acceptance numbers. Legacies understand the path students must follow to gain entrance. Thus, those alumni make every sacrafice to send their children to the best schools. It's no surprise then that their children gain entrance at a higher rate and, as we should earlier, often perform better beforehand. Moreover, it's clear that Ivy League committees are aware of prep school advantages. This is all the more reason why committees pay less attention to scores and grades than to the applicant's total package. That's just fair. But not everyone agrees. Hence, we see other, even more heinous lies that persist, such as..." ...