CUPERTINO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / August 6, 2020 / College admissions will be very different this year.
The recent global coronavirus pandemic has made its mark socioeconomically and politically as millions of Americans are put out of jobs. Retail stores are shutting down and going bankrupt. And students are forced to experience virtual education as the new mode of education - or go back to school and face the risks.
As the nation is divided over wearing masks and as the BLM movement continues to take hold, another industry that has been impacted significantly this year is college admissions.
For decades, universities such as the Ivy League, Stanford, UChicago, MIT, and Caltech have touted themselves as the epitome of elite education. It's where the highest achieving, most deserving students go to pursue their education in pursuit of intellectual discovery.
But anyone who has worked in admissions knows that is far from the case.
The student body at these universities are diverse. There are students who were accepted as recruited athletes, legacies, URM's, LGBT's, first generation, low income, which are all given a leg up in college admissions. Behind the Ivy gates, admissions officers call these institutional priorities.
These institutional priorities typically put middle and upper middle class Asian and White students at a significant disadvantage as acceptance rates have dropped to all time lows of 4-7% at elite institutions.
Eric Eng, Founder and CEO of IvyCollegeAdmit
IvyCollegeAdmit, an elite college admissions firm, has cracked the code to get into the Ivy League. The college admissions consulting company helps prepare the highest achieving students navigate this complicated process to stand out and get that coveted acceptance letter.
Many of their clientele, who tend to be Asian Americans, are portrayed as unique, interesting, and fascinating - shying away from the stereotypes of the tens of thousands of Asians who excel at math, science, and the violin.
In fact, IvyCollegeAdmit boasts an exceptional acceptance rate of 75% to the Ivy League, sending high achieving students to the most competitive schools in the country. The Founder and CEO of IvyCollegeAdmit, Eric Eng, a Princeton graduate, navigated this exact process himself as a standout math and science applicant back in high school.
Top scores and grades are no longer the differentiating factor when it comes to Ivy League admissions, and now the standards for admission demands much more of students. The highest achieving students are challenged to compete in regional and national competitions like the Intel Science and Engineering Fair or the Scholastic Art and Writing Competition.
College admissions isn't a meritocracy, and in fact, far from it. There are more than enough qualified students who can perform quite well at the HYPSM schools, yet don't get admitted every year due to institutional priorities.
Should our society sacrifice meritocracy for diversity? Or is diversity an answer to meritocracy? These are all very challenging questions to answer, especially given the current state of the art in our country.
In past admissions cycles, IvyCollegeAdmit has helped students with as low as 3.3 GPA get accepted to UPenn, and another with a 1450 on the SAT's and 2's and 3's on the AP's get into Yale. "The reason this happens is because we played the right cards to present the candidate in a compelling manner, especially when it comes to the personal statements," Eng says.
"If you really think about it, you're only as good as you are on paper. The admissions committee never gets to see you, nor meet you personally. And so you really want to pour your heart and soul into the personal statements and college applications. That's how you stand out among the tens of thousands of applicants," says Eng.
Recent Changes in Admissions Due to Coronavirus
The global pandemic has thrown further confusion and complexity into an already imperfect admissions process. Given COVID19, there will be significant changes this year, including:
- The SAT is now considered optional by many universities such as Princeton and Harvard.
- Princeton has announced they will cancel their early action program for this year.
- Yale and MIT, for the first time in history, announced that they will no longer be accepting SAT Subject Test submissions.
- The UC system recently announced they will no longer consider the SAT in the future and will create a second battery of exams.
- Testing dates have now moved to August and many centers have closed down, limiting the opportunity to take the SAT Exam.
- AP exams were truncated to abridged exams and moved completely online.
- An additional 250-word essay about the impact of COVID on applicants has been added to the application.
The trend to discontinue or make optional the SAT and SAT Subject Tests comes as no surprise. The SAT has often been criticized as favoring middle and upper middle class students. The exam questions, topics, and vocabulary in reading passages not only cater to an upper class demographic, but also wealthier students who can afford expensive test prep to boost their chances of admission.
Amid the global pandemic, Eric Eng from IvyCollegeAdmit believes that their students will continue to perform exceptionally well in admissions. "We work incredibly hard for our clients, and the acceptance letters speak volumes," says Eng, who commands one of the highest acceptance rates in the industry.
By working with an experienced college admissions consulting company like IvyCollegeAdmit, your child may just stand the chance to crack the code to get accepted into their dream schools.
Media Contact:
IvyCollegeAdmit
Eric Eng
[email protected]
1 (650) 338-8226
SOURCE: IvyCollegeAdmit