In a world where disconnection seems to often prevail, we are looking for students who embody the qualities of bridge builders—students who can connect people, groups, and ideas to span divides, foster understanding, and promote collaboration within a dynamic, interconnected, and vibrant global academic community. We are eager to understand how your experiences have prepared you to build the bridges of the future. Please consider one or more of the following questions in your essay:
What personal experiences or challenges have shaped you as a bridge builder?
How have you been a bridge builder in your school, community, or personal life?
What specific actions have you taken to build bridges between diverse groups, ideas, or cultures?
How do you envision being a bridge builder during your time at our university and beyond?”
Dunno if they’ll come out with a new one for this cycle, and if they do, not sure if she’ll find it any easier.
So, I spoke to a friend of mine recently whose daughter was accepted to a pretty selective Ivy. They had hired an admissions consultant, but noted that they spent a LOT of time on the essays both with the consultant and they themselves helped both on the essays, but on crafting the overall application strategy/story. They told me, “Your kid isn’t competing with my kid; your kid is competing with me!” And, fwiw, my D26 is also competing with another kid’s admission counselor. It’s WILD out there. I’m sure adcoms can see through some of the noise, but I’m not convinced they can see through all of it.
I’m reasonably convinced that unless you’re willing to go the mattresses, you’re at some type of disadvantage. There’s too much money chasing the prestige. I’m not sure I or D26 wants to be in this type of heavy competition, but I’m no longer naive to believe that it’s all about authenticity and finding the candidates to build a class. This might all be too negative for this chat, though.
Yeah, I think that if a school is filled only with kids who got tons of time from parents and professional consultants crafting and polishing everything in their app, it doesn’t sound like an appealing bunch of classmates for my D.
But I’m also not convinced this level of adult help even helps!
(Also, putting myself in the shoes of your friend’s D, wouldn’t it feel weird if her parent thought it was their efforts that got her in to this school, rather than hers? Or maybe your friend was joking around?)
D26 knows this because she sees all the paid assistance her peers have. Perhaps we’re naive, but hoping that the recruited athlete thing might help move the needle in her favor.
Wow not surprised to hear but still crazy!! I gotta ask what region of the country do you live in?? My 26 is in a large public HS about 1000 students in the Class of 2026. We maybe have a couple students that apply to t20 schools each year. The Class of 2025 had one IVY acceptance which is unheard of typically. Using outside college Counselors is pretty much non existent, that being said we do not have really any adequate actual College Counseling going on at the school. This is what brought me to CC in the first place.
The type of friend that’s just trying to tell you that the competition for admission is intense and that some are going to leverage everything they can to secure a spot. That’s all they were trying to express. I appreciate that the nuance is difficult to convey on an internet forum.
Our HS has quite a few folks going to super selective colleges as well… but for the most part the culture isn’t like that (fortunately). I can say that S23’s close friends who now attend MIT and Stanford (and UChicago and others) weren’t among the folks we know who used consultants that cycle. I don’t personally know about the kids at our school that ended up at HYP; since S and his friends were mostly going into engineering, those schools weren’t as much of interest to them.
Edited to add: I forgot that D has a senior friend who’s going to Princeton this coming fall, also no consultant for that particular kid. Of course these are all anecdotes…
I’d probably say it’s half-joking or maybe 3/4 joking. Certainly their kid did the work throughout high school, studied for SATs, got good letters of recommendation, participated in extracurriculars, etc. But the college application process is different. I think that’s where others could help. I mean, as someone else noted, that’s why a lot of us are on CC, right?
I feel it’s a pretty big jump from getting advice on a college list and an essay sanity check, to having adults craft and polish every aspect of a kid’s application.
I agree! But I do think it comes down to degrees and where people want to draw a line. I’m drawing the line differently than my friend, but everyone’s drawing a line somewhere. And I do understand why some might want to use admissions consultants, essay specialists, etc.
Our neighbors (who happen to be immigrants from the same country as us!) used consultants for their 2 kids that got into Penn. Did it help, I guess. I think the one ED’d but not sure about the other.
Our high school always has a number of kids going to tippy tops/T20ish I guess. It does seem to be more since the school got a dedicated college counselor- which maybe shows that some input helps but it doesn’t need to be outside private. Definitely some of those kids have used. But there are also a number of athletic recruits so it’s hard to always know what swings it.
As an aside, a fair number of the parents went to top schools as well. Some of them seem to understand better than others that getting into HYP now is much more difficult than it was in their day. I have some stories about parents too…
I know some of these consultants have been hired from sophomore year to direct ECs, etc. that is insane to me. Let the teen be a teen and do what they want, not have every single aspect of their high school life in and out of school focused on the college race.
What I’ve noticed with talking to my D26 about ECs is that I do constantly have to watch myself when giving her advice or talking to her about her options, so that she doesn’t see my comments as being about what will be most advantageous for college (even when I’m not thinking about that at all).
D currently has a fairly substantial EC that she’s thinking about dropping. It takes up a lot of time during her week and weekend. Typical of my D, she’s having a very hard time deciding (D is notorious in our family for never being able to decide things ). I keep trying to help her to figure out what she actually wants to do… but it’s hard for her to separate that from “what would look better on college apps.”
I can’t imagine what it would be like if we had a paid professional advising her on her ECs!
A good friend.
The type of friend that tells you what you need to hear, rather than what you want to hear.
They are telling you that for college admissions, especially as you start to go from triple digit rankings towards #1, -if- you think the scales are weighted evenly between students of equal merit, you are unfortunately mistaken. There may be equal measures of merit on both sides in balance, but for many students, there’s an extra finger or two on the scale tipping it in their direction.
Would you rather have your good friend only tell you this after applications had been submitted and decisions came out… “well, we used a professional college admissions consultant to help position their application and ‘help’ craft their essay… and our child go in with lesser grades and test scores and fewer extra-curriculars than yours… I guess it worked”.
D26’s school is not heavy with students applying to Ivies. Every year only about 15-20 students apply (out of a graduating class of over 500). Some years a few get in- but most years not.
So we do not see much in the way of these competitive practices.
I will say though- If either of my kids was Ivy bound- I would not shy away from using resources that we have available to help them out as needed. Would I do it for them (write the essays or such)- of course not.
Would I pay someone who knows the needed process to increase the chances of acceptance and have my child work with them- dang right I would .
At the end of the day- it only makes sense that the student is the one driving the process and even with ‘help’ they need to be doing the work (most Ivy bound kids are in fact putting in the work- but may need guidance on the process). Otherwise, I would fear that they would end up not being a good fit at some of these schools even if they get in!
We are in the bay area and it’s insanely competitive, I had no idea people were planning for college since elementary school. Everyone deals with it differently. Here’s how a few in my circle of friends plan for college.
2 of my friends have a counselor they basically advise the kids on everything since freshman year and help with essay writing those cost 10-15k
Friend is retired and figures the kids will have plenty of money from him so they focus on having fun with the kids there is no pressure on college. Up to the kids how much effort they put in.
Another friend’s kid is a recruited athlete. Since middle school the kid has been in private clubs 1:1 coaching etc and was accepted to a T10 as a junior. It cost them plenty of money and time,I could never take that much time to just focus on kids sports.
A few pay for very expensive private schools 40-60k/year and the kids have counselors to help them with the process.
For us I paid a one time fee for a call with a counselor they explained the process of application review and recommended S26 take more science APs in his senior year. There was a full package that was 5-6k but I passed on it. The school partners with a retired counselor who can advise the kids and that’s enough for us.
I have had other parents tell us they had counselors basically re-write the essays for the kids and they were accepted into T20. So paying to get into top schools works just depends on how important it is for you.
). I keep trying to help her to figure out what she actually wants to do… but it’s hard for her to separate that from “what would look better on college apps.”
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