Five Tips to Improve Your Chances of Getting into an Ivy League University

If you are in America, sure you have heard about the 8 elite Ivy League Schools that include (in random order, since the order is changing periodically): Yale, Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Brown, Stanford, Dartmouth, Cornell, and Penn. During the spring from January to April each year, high school students across America apply to colleges. Many of them choose one Ivy League universities to be their first choice. However, the admission rate is very minimal (often 10% in a pool of thousands of applicants). Thus, high school students often have 2nd or 3RD choice colleges, just in case their first choice don't come through.

Although the competition is fierce in those Ivy League college, but there are always a few things you can do to set yourself apart from the crowd, to be better prepared than your peers, and to get your admission officer noticed you. Here are 5 tips that can improve your chance to be admitted that first choice college of yours:

1. Know why you are applying to an Ivy League

Ask yourself why you are applying to an Ivy League School. If you are doing this to satisfy your egos, then you will likely be tired and frustrated very soon. Then if you don't get into a school of your choice, you will feel humiliated in front of your peers. Thus, it's best to think that you are applying to an Ivy League school because there is a program that interests you or its financial package may help you a lot in your education. Then, even if you don't get into one, there is no regret or humiliation. You know it's tough but you give it a try. You still have your 2nd and 3rd choice college.

2. Follow the hardest classes to your abilities

The Ivy League Schools are extremely selective in choosing students for their freshman classes. They are forced to do so since most of the applicants are extremely competitive bunches of pupils. So it's best to do some research on the college of your choice. You should pay attention to the minimum requirement of the college. Knowing the minimum so you can go 10 miles further. You can take several advanced course to prove to the admission officers that you are able to do those advanced works. You have to set yourself apart from the crowd and this is one effective way to do it. Many can achieve the basic, only a selective few can accomplish the advance.

3. Preparing for the SAT and SAT subject test

Many students don't like the SAT because they think that this test doesn't predict their abilities to succeed in colleges. It may be so but the reality is most colleges in America require the SAT as an important part of their admission process. That means the 8 Ivy League schools still require SAT scores. In the mean time, you have to make this standardized test score works for you.

Ivy League schools often requires SAT and SAT subject test. Subject SAT are basically SAT writing, SAT math, and SAT subject of your choice. The SAT subjects tests are often used to improve your academic record so you shouldn't take these test lightly. There are many SAT test guide available for you like Baron, Princeton Review, or Kaplan. You can purchase them in a bookstore which costs around 30$ or so. But if you want to save some serious money, you can hunt for a bargain at EBAY, Half.com, or Amazon. The SAT books there are extremely cheap, most of the good ones cost around 6 $. If you add the shipping and tax, you can probably get an SAT book under 10$. If you look really hard and check the sites regularly, sometime you can even get SAT books for only 2 or 3$. You don't have to get the newest edition of the books, you can get older edition to save some money. The materials aren't that different from one edition from another.

4. Know your Ivy League school

How many colleges you want to apply on your list? It can be 5 or 10 depending on how ambitious you are. But no matter how many colleges you might get accepted into, you can only enroll into one. So it's best to get to know your top 5 choices a little better, but the top choice the best.

There are many ways you can get to know an Ivy League school. There are brochures, film, catalog, and even You Tube. However, it doesn't matter how much you read about a college, you can always know it better if you actually visit its campus. Well, if you get accepted into an Ivy League, it doesn't hurt to know how the place that you might spend the next four years look like, isn't it? But the problem is you might not live in the same state as the college you want to apply. In this case, you just have to make the best out of the brochure and reading materials. You can even connect with a student in that college and find out more information. There are tons of forums online where you can get connect with students across universities. It's certain that there might be a few from the Ivy school that you are applying to. Go to Google and type in "get into an Ivy League school", you will get to know thousands of students have trying to achieve the same dream and thousands others have actually accomplished that dream and are telling others about their experience. You see, you don't call the net " the information highway" for nothing.
5. Your last chance improve your chance to get into an Ivy League

When there are thousands of qualifying applicants, there often multiple rounds of eliminations. First and foremost, "GPA and SAT" elimination. Second, "essays and activities" elimination. Third, "interview" elimination.

So if your GPA and SAT are in the range of the school's requirement, then you have a chance to get into the second round. If your activities are well-rounded and substantial, then your chance of getting the acceptance increases. What are substantial extracurricular activities? Something you would stick for a long time. It's best to have 3 activities where you participate for 3 consecutive years rather than 15 activities where you only stay with each of them for 1 week. Remember, quality is better than quantity in outside-classroom activities.

Another part of the second round is the essay. Aside from the cruel and faceless test score and long list of activities and achievements (which all of your competition also have) , the only thing that can wake up an admission officers from hours of reading applications is an exciting and interesting essay. Admission officers are humans, not machine. They too are refreshed by creativity and excitement. So you often ask what is your best edge against other students? An simple answer: your essay. That's the only thing the admission officers take a sneak peak into you as a person, not a boring pile to black and white writings. So it's wise to make the best of your essay. Write something you have experienced in your life that have deeply impacted you. Write something simple like how you fell down the chair and hurt yourself when you were ten and that was your first experience with gravity. Please just don't write a lengthy essay about how you think the college you are applying is great and magnificent. The college knows that it's great. The admission officer knows that his college is great. No one wants to hear it from you. Besides, you can bet that many students write the same kind of essay in this large application pool. So you are only hurting your chance writing this kind of sucking up essays. Set yourself apart.

So that's 5 tips that I believe can improve your chance into the college of your choices. All you can do is to prepare your portfolio the best that you can. I believe that everything in life needs luck. So with your best GPA, test score, essays, achievements, interview, and of course a little luck, I hope you can get into that Ivy League school that you have always dreamed of. Good Luck!