Ivy League College Admissions Tests

Welcome to our feature, Ivy League College admissions tips.

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Ivy League admissions are not a piece of cake.
As a matter of fact, they require serious amounts of effort and determination.
It is quite difficult to even be eligible enough to apply to any one of the Ivy League schools.
The schools under this league usually have an acceptance rate of only 9%.
An average student will never get admission to Ivy League schools.
A handful of the brightest and best state-educated youngsters do head to the US for university.
Charities such as the Sutton Trust help students with their applications, and offer tailored support to prepare students for navigating the US admissions system.
The education charity, which aims to improve social mobility, is helping 44 state-educated teenagers to start out at US universities this autumn.

Top Global Universities

Many famous institutions such as Oxford, Harvard, Cambridge, and MIT consider students who can speak good English and it is the major reason for admission in these Ivy League universities.
Besides, such teachers are the ones who can make a diagnosis for the psychological elements that intervene in the process of learning.
As a result, when they identify elements impacting the performance of learners or students, they can effectively make a positive change in the process to communicate and obtain learning.

How to get into an Ivy League College

These schools lookout for those candidates who have achieved quite a lot compared to their age. For example, students such as elite students, elite performers who are either publishers and writers or child actors, and finally elite connected students. The last category includes students who might not meet the first two criteria but have a massively connected family background. In these cases, some major donations are often common during admission.

Ivy League College admissions tips

When to Start Preparing your College admissions

Even as early as sixth grade.
Honing your skills can help you when it comes time to take your ACT or SAT and also to have a terrific scholarship and college admissions resume.
Starting to think about and to prepare for college should ideally start during the summer before your high school freshman year, but getting help later can still be of benefit to you.

In your Freshman Year

When you start your freshman year, you will begin with a clean academic slate.
Your course selection is very important, as are your grades.
If your school offers advanced placement, international baccalaureate or honors classes, you should take them instead.
Highly selective colleges want to see that you have engaged in a rigorous curriculum while you are in high school. They believe if you succeed in those, you’ll succeed in college.
You should also make certain to sign up for extracurricular activities that fit your areas of interest.
But do not need to spread yourself too thinly. So, if you love math and science, sign up for math club, technology club or science club.
Being involved in what you are passionate about will serve you well later.
Keep an eye on your grades throughout the year. Don’t be afraid to ask for help if you need it.
Following a regular study schedule may help you to achieve your best grades.

Ivy League College admissions tips

Your Sophomore Year College preparation tips

When you reach your sophomore year, it is time for you to again take as many rigorous courses that you can. During this year, you might also begin thinking about the different careers and majors that you might be interested in. It is not too early to start visiting different college campuses.

This may help you to understand which universities might be a better fit for you. Continue actively participating in your extracurricular and volunteer activities, and try to run for leadership positions in the clubs that you are in.

You will need to continue studying and working hard to get good grades. During the spring or summer after your sophomore year, take practice tests for the PSAT, ACT and the SAT. This will give you an idea of the testing formats and content while also providing you with an idea of the areas in which you might need more help.

Junior Year College preparation tips

During your junior year, you need to continue building on what you’ve already accomplished in your freshman and sophomore years.
Continue with your rigorous courses and extracurricular activities.
It is a good idea for you to seek out internships in the areas that you might be interested in for your future career during this year.
Want to be a doctor? Then finding out about a medical externship program at your local hospital for high school students. This will help you gain career choice info.
Plus confirm it’s what you truly want to do. Your junior year should also contain some focused preparation time for your ACT or SAT that most students take in the second half or summer after junior year.

Your Senior Year College preparation tips

Top grades? Excellent resume of extracurriculars, volunteer activities and internships?

Then consider applying to the colleges of your choice via the early action / decision process.

Doing so may improve your chances of getting accepted.
Do not slack off with your studies.
Take rigorous courses, and don’t give up on anything.
If your scores need a boost, take the tests during the fall and apply to colleges during the regular application period.

Advantages of getting an Ivy League place

Experience of living in dorms on campuses with fabulous facilities.
Access to scholarships, especially sports scholarships, covering most of the fees.
An alumni network that helps graduates into internships and jobs.
Chance to work your way through university, with many of the top universities offering part-time jobs to students.

What are the Ivy League Colleges?

Before discussing the process and tips for getting into Ivy League schools, it is important to understand what Ivy League schools are in the first place. Ivy League schools are like an athletic community resembling the operational structure of PacWest. These leagues of schools came into existence in the early 1930s and have been bringing in some of the most talented minds from all across the country.

One should know that Ivy League schools are not the best schools in the country. They focus on education for sure but the primary focus is always on the sports quota. They are well known for tailoring potential athletes to future sports superstars. Almost 90% of all successful sportsmen in the world were once a student of any one of the Ivy League schools in the UK or the US.

Ivy League College applications

How do Ivy League admissions compare to Oxbridge admissions?

Comparing admissions at Oxford and Cambridge on the one hand, and the Ivy League on the other, is difficult because they are fundamentally looking for very different things.

In the Ivy Leagues admission statistics are complicated by the use of racial preferences, legacy admissions and recruited athletes. But even if we ignore all of those, all of the Ivy League colleges assert that they take a ‘holistic’ approach to admissions, and they are looking for passionate and well rounded individuals.

Unlike Ivy League colleges like Harvard, there is nothing holistic about admission to Oxford and Cambridge. Oxbridge wants narrow and deep, rather than well-rounded. They are simply looking for the very brightest people that they can get Hence their admissions process is driven towards finding them. Unlike Ivy League admissions, a Oxbridge admissions are irrespective of

what race you are;
who your parents were, or
whether you are a world class athlete.

None of which is to say that one approach is harder or easier. But they are very different, and so direct comparisons are very hard to make.

So can you compare Oxbridge and Ivy League admissions?

People often try to compare the admissions rates (which is to say the percentage of applications which are successful). But this is pretty misleading for two reasons. In the US, you can apply to all eight Ivy League schools and a dozen other schools besides. In the UK you may only apply to Oxford or Cambridge (but not both), and you are capped at applying to five universities in total. Accordingly, there are inevitably far fewer applicants per spot in the British universities than there are in the American ones.

Ivy League College admissions tips

Can international students get into Ivy League schools?

International students can get into these schools quite easily, provided that they follow certain crucial steps which will assist in the admission process.
Firstly, the student will have to appear for different examinations such as TOEFL, SAT, or ACT and show some kind of proof of financial aid, in the case the student’s family cannot bear the cost of admission and further tuition.
For an international student, the whole admission process is quite confusing and complicated. It is quite difficult for students coming from a different country, as the funding approval usually is permitted in domestic schools.
Since the overall acceptance percentage remains somewhere around 10% at the maximum, someone planning to get admission to such a school should be the very best. However, for international students the percentage is even lower, it remains somewhere around 2-4%.
Harvard and Cornell are two of the most reputed Ivy League schools in the US and their acceptance rate is below 5% on average.

Ivy League College application tips

Tips for getting into Ivy League schools

Getting into Ivy League schools is definitely not easy; however, one can make the process relatively less difficult by following the below steps accordingly.

Firstly, formulating a plan in the first place is very important. If someone has made up their mind to get into an Ivy League-level school, then the rest of the steps toward securing that goal will be quite easy.

Ivy League Admissions Tips

The second step is learning what kind of tests are required to appear for the examination and clearing them as soon as possible. Certain schools require special kinds of tests; however, the general criteria remain the same for all admissions.

The third tip to keep in mind is building an image. For example, extra-curricular activities always come in handy when an individual is working towards building a profile that will impress the school administration.

Coming from a sports background will be most beneficial, alongside some of the most common side potential future profession options such as drama, music and finally educational merit. It is important to keep in mind that Ivy League schools do not only operate based on merit.

The fourth tip is to keep a lot of time and energy aside for preparing a personal essay that reflects one’s personal traits, characteristics, likes and dislikes and why the school will be effective in building their future self.

Finally, one of the most important steps is filling out the application on time. The application for admission in such schools is out for a short period of time only and one needs to fill them within a stipulated time with all the necessary and authentic details.

Preparing your Ivy League College application

One should have a vivid understanding of the timelines for filing the application.
The application consists of certain core elements.
The submission deadlines for acting early, so being proactive is very important. Taking regular action and making decisions is very important alongside making sure that financial aid is available.
There can be a demand for funds at any point during the admission process.
The final acceptance of the dates of recommendation is also important during the admission process, so candidates should keep an eye out for them.
Now that candidates are aware of the important elements of the application process for the Ivy League schools, the process should be easier for them for future admission.

Ivy League College applications

How to get an Ivy League College place

Over six or so sessions and countless email exchanges:

perfect application
support essay-writing
editing drafts and correcting grammar

Nowadays, students literally start companies. They will abandon them after getting an Ivy League place. They go through with it, get funding, create an Instagram … That’s the level of what you need to do rather than, ‘I was on the netball team’.

Ivy League College Admissions experts

While most admissions experts are above board, there is a murkier side to the industry — one that makes its biggest beneficiaries millions, and has led to myriad allegations of unfairness.

Sometimes, companies fabricate their students’ extracurriculars. Having others write essays for them, and fabricating elements of a CV, are seen as the easiest ways to cheat, the coach says.
A trick that has become more popular in recent years is getting students’ names on research papers alongside university professors, one UK-based counsellor says. Companies charging as much as £3,000 per paper have sprung up to cater to the demand.
In other cases, companies will charge “success fees” or use other tactics to boost their profits.
Other firms take a commission from the universities themselves for sending students their way, usually lower-profile institutions that struggle to attract as many applicants.

So where does all this leave the genuinely disadvantaged — or even just ordinary, state-educated students? Do they have any hope of making it onto a coveted US scholarship?

Even for “middle-class families” who are otherwise comfortable, affording the fees is often out of reach. “There are some middle-class families who want to keep their horizons quite wide. They can afford £9,000 a year in the UK. But in the US it’s $75,000 a year. They really need the scholarship,” she says.

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