The Ivey Files blog contains advice and tips to help students navigate the college and graduate admissions process and plan successful careers.
We're excited to announce our latest book, The Ivey Guide to the Stanford Application. Are you already envisioning yourself in Cardinal Red? Fantastic! You and lots of other people. With an acceptance rate below 5%, how do you make your Stanford application stand out? The Ivey Guide to the Stanford Application offers you the strategies and tips you need to make the Stanford application work for you and show you off at your very best.
Check out our latest interview with MarketWatch about the new “Adversity Score” that has been announced by the College Board, makers of the SAT.
"As applications to top schools continue to climb, students are increasingly relegated to waitlists. Colleges ostensibly use waitlists to fill spots that open up when admitted students decline to attend. But the lists have ballooned so much — some are even bigger than the size of a college’s incoming class — that college counselors have grown skeptical of their usefulness."Anna spoke with MarketWatch recently for a piece about waitlists at selective colleges. Read the rest of the piece here.
Wow… it’s been a wild couple of days in the wake of the federal indictment against parents, sports coaches, a phony admissions consultant, and phony SAT/ACT proctor. It’s the Justice Department’s largest ever college admissions prosecution.
Well, not surprising, we have a few things to say about that. A lot, actually. Here’s the latest.
Every law school application I know of asks about some mix-and-match of criminal disclosures. This post is all about helping you figure out what the key words in the disclosure questions are, and how to figure out what a particular school is asking you to disclose. (They are law schools, after all, so the precise language they use does matter.)
For readers who aren't familiar with how LSAC handles international transcripts, you can find their rules here.
At a recent LSAC forum, I met a guy who is a refugee and is currently in the middle of the law school admissions process, as am I. He is studying for the LSAT, but having much trouble due to English being his second language. I offered to assist him in preparation for the LSAT. I have been working with him on this, but he has recently asked me to review his personal statement, and I am unsure of the ethical constraints in such work.
An important reminder this time of year for all the law school procrastinators out there: Talking about doing something is much easier than actually doing it.
If you've been talking about your applications since September but are only now getting around to writing your first drafts, or you're on draft #27 of an essay you could have submitted weeks ago, that's a sign that you're looking for excuses not to finish your essay and send it out.
Have you summoned up the courage to ask a professor or an employer for a recommendation, only to have that person say, "Sure, send me a draft and I'll sign it?"
That happens a lot, mostly with professional recommenders, but sometimes too with professors. It puts applicants in quite a pickle.
Because it's so common, applicants often turn around and ask if we can help them with those recommendation drafts.
Have you heard about the lawsuit against Harvard’s affirmative action policies? Anna Ivey gave this interview recently about how race factors into the college admissions process in the US and abroad. Watch the clip here.
