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## Intro....How Ivy Admissions Actually Work [00:00] What's up everyone? Coach Tony here. In this training, we're doing an IV League admissions 101. So, if you're aiming for one of the Ivy League colleges, this training is perfect for you. My name is Coach Tony. I'm actually a former uh admissions reader at UC Berkeley. Uh I was behind the scenes saying yes or no to a lot of different students uh over my time, tensions of students. and doing so you start to understand that admissions is looking for a particular set of things and that I think if you understand that every school out there is also looking for a particular set of things and once you understand that that's the key to admission a lot of families out there just try to do what looks good do what your neighbor is saying to do and that sometimes doesn't work I'm sure you guys have seen stories firsthand of students who did all the impressive things and still didn't get into these schools. So hopefully in today's session, we're going to break down the Ivy. It's a little different than all the other schools, but a little but the thing is the Ivy admissions, we're going to go ahead and talk about that today uh and focus on uh focus on how to uh uh stand out here. So I'm going to go ahead and share my screen really quick. Let me know if on your end, so those who are here, I'm going live right now to a group of folks. If you guys can see this on your screen, let me know. Drop a quick little yes in the chat. If you guys can see what I am showing on uh the screen there. So I know I am good to go. So I'm not just talking uh to to to group to a blank screen is all. Um looks like we got a few yeses coming through. Fantastic. Cool. Cool. So again today we're going to talk about two three different things. Number one, we're going to talk about how Ivy League admission officers uh review application is part number one. Number two, we're going to talk about the biggest misconceptions about Ivy Leagues, the biggest myths. And number three is how to craft an application that again does what the readers are looking for. Again, that's kind of the trick here. There's no need to kind of do a lot of random things that may not may or may not make sense. you want to do things that does stand out that does um matter in this process here. Okay. So let's first off let's talk about how Ivy League admissions actually works. Okay. So the first thing to understand uh when it comes to Ivy League admissions. Ivy League admissions uh uses holistic review. Right? So what holistic review is is that they don't just look at it's not just your GPA, right? People be like, "Oh man, I have to get a good GP in I'm good to go." That's not it either. It's not just your SAT or ACT ## What “Holistic” Review Really Means [02:45] scores. People are like, "Oh, no. I had to get a certain score and I'm good." Right? That's just one piece. Or the num number of API IB college level classes that you took in. That alone may may not matter too much as well too. The big thing that colleges want to know is who is this person and what will they bring to our campus community? I think that's going to be the big question that as a reader that's what they're going to be thinking about uh and as they're reading through your application, they're trying to understand this part. Okay. And what part the the whole the whole application process itself, it has a few parts. It's going to ask you about your academics. is going to ask you for your activities. It's going to have the essay questions and the recommendations uh as well to your personal background, right? All of these are going to play part actually to put put in the right order. It's actually the first is first, right? Then academic sense. So this is all can be considered together in the entire application itself. Right? So again it's not just pure numbers, right? It's you're sharing who you are to the reader, not more than just the numbers itself. And that's the big thing here. Okay. So, what is what are they looking for? So, the first part, right, let's kind of break it down. The first part is the academics. The academics is an important part of the process here, right? Uh so, first off, we always talk about grade trends, right? What we're looking for here, right? Do you need to get straight A's? You can, right? you can get straight A's, but are they looking for exclusively straight A's, right? No. How do I know this is actually if we we interviewed a bunch of our Ivy kids this past year, 2025, and then a lot of them had A's and B's all throughout high school as well, too. So, if these Ivy students who got in this most recent round had A's and B's, not like we're making things up from the past. This is current this current year. If they had A's and B's and they still made in, that's going to be the big thing as well too, right? Because keep in mind, not every GPA is built differently. Not every is the same, right? Meaning, right, what if you got a 4.0, right, with regular classes versus a 3.9 with hardest classes available as well too, right? Which which one would matter more? Which one would weigh more as well too? So, it's not just the grade trends. A big component we talk a lot is got to be course rigor, right? The biggest thing we tell students to do all the time is did you max out did you max out your school's offerings? Right? So ## How Course Rigor + Context Beat Perfect Grades [05:30] meaning if your school offered uh two APs in 10th grade, did you take the two APs in 10th grade? If your school offers five APs 11th grade, did you take five APs 11th grade as well, too? And that's kind of what they're trying to look for. So to maximize their course offerings. Okay. Something else that's be a newer factor, right? Newest it's always been there but again it came back right is tests right tests as well too. Think of this the SAT, ACT, even AP scores as well too will fall into this area as well, right? The text, right? This is also just more contextual uh information about you, right? It can help add add value, right? One of the cool things uh I don't know, cool, but one of the things that our current seniors, a lot of them didn't have the greatest scores, right? A lot of our students were in like the 1400s, right? 1500 about people like oh people think oh I need to get at least a 1500 or 1550 or higher or else there's no point a lot of our kids didn't even get to the 1500 mark and they still make it maiden to the IVS too so it's not there's no set number that they're looking for of course the the higher the better of course right and keep in mind not every IV is required there are some schools that are optional I think I believe it's a Colombia Colombia is optional uh as well too so that's going to be a big thing here okay next part is going to be the activities. the activities, right? So, when it comes to the activities as well too, there the focus is on a focus on impact. Focus on impact over quantity, right? So, you you don't just want to do a lot of random things with no purpose, no things, just do stuff. Just pat up your your resume or anything. You want to focus on making a a uh impact in the things that you do in intentionally. What you want to look for is you want to focus on depth, right? how deep you go into something. Uh leadership and unique contribution. What's something that only you brought to table that no one else kind of did as well too? Okay. So, I think this is the big thing. Uh when it comes to activities, there's no magical list, right? Did I say you have to research? No. Did you I say you have to internship? No. Some of our kids didn't have any of this stuff. They still made it, right? But can you again, can you do it? Of course you can, right? These are all of course you can things as well too. One of the things also is if you do awards, right? If you do awards uh as well too, right? If you can get to like statewide uh national or international, ## SAT/ACT Myths + Test-Optional Truth [08:00] right, is definitely going to help. Can definitely help as well too, right? Does that mean if you don't have this game over? Nope. That's not that's not the case as well too, right? But again, if you can go for it, it means that if you can do it, go for it. Is the other piece of the puzzle right over here. Okay. Next factors as academic activities. There's also personal qualities, right? Again, the Ivy's don't take every single person. They literally take, and keep in mind, the Ivy's are a 1% kind of school, right? There there's like I think we looked up last week, there's 5,000 colleges. The Ivy's is a list of eight schools, right? So, it's like 0.1% point something percent, right? Is there you want to be one of that group, right? So, they're looking for people. Think of them as a stamp of approval on them, right? So once you're leaving that school, you're going to be a Harvard alum, right? A uh a uh a Princeton alum, a UPEN alum. They you're going to have their kind of school on you for the rest of your life. So what they want is they want people who they'll be proud of to have that name on them the rest of their life as well too, right? So the the thing is they want to know who you are. Who you are as a person is the key in this section uh right over here. Right? So like the traits that they're looking for in a person, right, that you want to demonstrate is probably leadership. They want to look for maturity. They want to look for resilience. Did you fall down? Did you step stand back up? Integrity, right? You're honest and you do what you say you're going to do. Uh next thing is um kindness right are you kind to others and yourself uh and other one is intellectual intellectual curiosity that's the big thing right these schools uh I would joke the full nerds right people who uh love to geek out about knowledge that they care about the most as well too right this is where right this you reflect you share this within your essays right your interviews and your recommendations, right? This is where you share all this type of information uh interviews, right? This is where you share this type of information is in these specific sections here. Okay? So, basically, think of it as uh the question is would I want this student to be part of our ## What Activities Matter Most (And What Doesn’t) [10:30] alumni network in the future? Right? Think about it, right? If you would you want them if you were a college, right? If you were college and you had a student who wanted to go to your school, would you be proud to say, "Yep, that's one of our students." And if you're not proud of that, then that that that shows you what you look for in a student there, right? So, I think that's the the big thing here. And probably the the factor that people overlook a lot uh uh outside of just the academics, activities, and the uh and the personal qualities is going to be context. Context is huge, right? It's one of the big things about here. So when it comes to context, what they look for is what was your school's environment, right? Environment uh like as well too because again we have students from let's say the Bay Area where they are taking three APs as a ninth grader. Spoilers, that's not normal, right? That's definitely not normal at all. Most students don't even get any close to that nth grade year. But for that school, if you're not taking three, you're behind as well, too. So again, what was like what classes were available to you, right? Uh specifically, what advanced classes, what advanced classes, right? Advanced classes were available to you. Okay. Uh was your school resource, right? Do they have resources? Right? Was your school was your school competitive? Uh as well too. Some of you guys say, "I go to very competitive school." That plays a role, right? they they understand that within that context where is there any uh personal or family circumstances family circumstances circumstances right that played a role in your thing as well too because we're human right because we're human we we navigate through life uh as well too so when it comes to here right uh is there anything that was in their way for them and keep in mind colleges is or this Ivy's right Ivy's and colleges in general, right, are not looking for students with the most resources, right? These schools are looking for students who are the most resourceful. I think that's the big key. Resources doesn't really matter as much as being resourceful, right? When people tell me, "Coach Tony, my school doesn't offer this." I'm like, "Okay, does your community offer that? Does your does the school next door offer that? Does the online community offer that? So, there's a lot of ways especially in today's world 2025 now, right? That there's lots of opportunities for you to do things that's not directly related to your school either. You can do things outside your school and that's total fair game um as well. Okay. Now, when it comes to the this is like some behindthe-scenes stuff for you guys in case we're were interested. The process, right? the process uh behind the scenes process behind the scenes behind the scenes uh is that once you guys apply right when ## How Ivy Readers Score You Behind-the-Scenes [13:30] you apply readers will read your application all right and score it right those going to go ahead and score your application as well too all right it's either one to five or one to nine scale right one is saying uh the uh most outstanding student right so if you're one you're fighting for that person uh as well too. And if it's like a four, five or like a 8 n, right, that typically means unlikely to be admitted, right? Unless something is truly extraordinary. Extraordinary as well too, right? So they usually will rate you on skills and the categories, right? the categories that they will probably rank you is from your academics, your extracurriculars, your personal qualities, uh qualities, your uh recommendations, your essays, right? Everything we talked about above, right? So, everything that we talked about earlier, that's what they're looking for. They're giving you a score for each of these things. And your goal is again to compile the best scores that you can is going to be the goal itself, too. Okay? So at the end they're kind of balancing everything through this process and then at the end they're going to argue for you right they're going to justify like hey we because the biggest thing that the reason why the reason why admissions is uh competitive is that there are so many spots for for from so many application applicants right so there's only a set amount of spots every single year and then but more and more people apply every single year because there's more people applying the the pool the the rate is smaller because again let's say you take only 10 students out of 100 that's 10%. If you take 10 students out of a thousand that's 1%. So you see how like the the the size here hasn't changed but the pool changes. Why when you hear schools adding housing and why they're so proud of adding housing is because when they can add housing they can legally up the limit of how many students they can enroll because again they have the room right and that there is room in the classrooms there are room and other things too. It's just everything has to match up and if there's no housing for you you can't really go there is all is is the logic. So that's why housing is a really big like if you guys understand behind the scenes kind of how admission um how um like the size of this applicant pool is. Okay. So that's be the first thing here. Okay. That's pretty much the oneonone knowledge of the IV admission itself. Now the misses biggest misconceptions. Right. So here's a few myths myths that we see a lot of people talk about every time when we talk to a new family about like IV admissions like they always bring these up. Right. Number one, they think uh you need a perfect GPA or perfect SAT ACT score, right? Uh uh in in the chat for those who are joining me live, we have see what we have. We have uh 111 people here. 111, right? If in ## Common Myths That Hold Families Back [16:30] the chat, is this true or false? For those who are joining us live, is this a true statement or a false statement? Do you need a perfect GPA? I'll say and or andor uh perfect SAT ACT score to get accepted to the Ivy League colleges. Um a few people saying no false false that is true. If you if you joined earlier I kind of spoiled this answer as well too right so this is definitely not true uh many 4.0 0 plus students are rejected and then also many 1600 students right 1636 students are rejected year after year because again right there's more what does a GPA tell you what does a test score tell you a GPA tells me that again you probably took honors courses and this stuff but did well but again does that mean you took the most that you could no there's always a way to gamify uh the score to make it higher than it should be same thing with test scores you're a good test taker does that mean you're a good person or anything else? Not really. Right. Can not saying you're not a good person. It's just that is that a direct correlation? No. Right. Like for me, I am probably the one of the worst test takers of all that. Uh if you saw my score and you used that as my indicator of success, I don't think you'll put you back then you'll be like a this guy is nothing. Today we have the largest UC group. We have one of the largest IV groups. We're helping so many students every single year as well too. So these are definitely not the most important thing. instead, right? You want to focus on you want to focus on grade trends, right? Keeping the grades over time very strong, right? As many A's as you can. If you get a few beasts, I always joke, mom and dad will get mad at you. I'll be fine with the student, right? Try to get as many strong as you can. And the other piece of this is as much ri uh is maxing rigor, right? Maxing out rigor. If your school offers that class, you take it. Your school offers two, you take two. Your school offers six, you take six. And here's the thing I do hear a lot that families said to you like, "But coach Tony, that's so many, right? That's so many classes." And I'm like, "All right, let's take a step back, guys. Number one, is someone doing that?" I'm not saying do something impossible. I'm saying you want to match the top student. In theory, someone else is doing this. So, it's not impossible. Someone else is doing the same thing that I'm telling you to do. Number one. Number two, you are trying to get into one of the top eight colleges in the world, right? As well too, that's top, not even 1%, even smaller than 1% of all the colleges out there in United States. Don't you think you have to do things that are only top 1% of people do uh to make it into top 1%? And if not, then all of us will be millionaires and billionaires. No, there's only like I think there 3,000 only 3,000 billionaires in the world, right? out of like was it 8 billion people, 7 billion people, right? That many that's so little, right? Same thing with the concept of Ivy's, right? If you want to go to the Ivy, you're aiming for to be literally the elite, right? So, you got to perform the the behaviors to match that. Does it just little segue now, right? Does that mean if you can't do it, you're not good? Absolutely not. Many students again, you don't have to go to the IVs. So, I don't think in today's world to to get the success you you need, but again, it helps, right? It helps as well, too. alumni network's pretty strong. Uh they can help you with opportunities as well too. Okay, so that's that's the big one. Number one. Number two. Another one, your goal is to be well-rounded. Goal is to be wellrounded. Uh let me know in the chat, is this true for IV admissions, right? Uh is this true? Yes or no? Your goal is to be wellrounded. True or false? I see a few trs. I see someone saying false. Two people saying false. The answer this is false. Right? ## Why “Well-Rounded” = Rejected [20:30] So you do not want to be well-rounded is the key, right? When it comes to IV admissions, right? We call it pointy or spike. You want to have a spike in your application itself because again imagine this. you are trying to do stuff that people are not doing anyways. If you're wellrounded, you look like everyone else, right? Everyone is wellrounded. Everyone looks the same as well, too. So, when you're aiming for a school, you want to have a spike, a point. Basically, what's something that you do that no one else can copy? No one else can replicate what you're doing, right? So, basically, you want to do be deeply exceptional in like one or two areas, right, of your application itself, right? And that's the big thing. If I were you, by the way, if you're taking notes, I don't recommend this being academics because there's a lot of people who are really really good academically. If you if you start to eliminate stuff where you are pointy and spiky is through your activities, your activities is where you want to be spiky or pointy as well too, right? Doing things that again only you uh can do. And again, this doesn't mean research, internships, you know, how many other kids are doing internships and research. So that's not what I meant either, right? this is what's something unique, right? Unique that again, wow, I've never seen this before. And the only way you do that is you have to do more of you because when you start copying other people, you're just kind of c you're a copycat of someone else, right? But if you're focusing everything on you yourself, that's the true uh twist here. Okay, that's that. Next one. Number three, right? Legacy admissions is the way in, right? Let me know if this is true or not. Legacy is your way in. You guys heard about uh IV admissions and heard about Legacy. Oh, Kush Tony. My dad went here. My mom went here. My dad's parents went here. My mom's parents went here. They all went here as well too. I'm going to probably get there in as well too, right? Is this true? Yes. No. People in the chat, shout out to you all. No. is not no longer the case. Uh as well too. Most students right most students oops most ## How to Build a Spike (Even Without Research) [22:45] students get accepted gets accepted nowadays without uh legacy. Plus I think it's also illegal now in in certain in certain uh schools as well too. So that's not right. And then the only way and if it does I always ask our students our families like how much have you donated to the school as well. A funny a funny story. Again, this is not the Ivy's. This is Berkeley, right? Still still a pretty top school. Um I remember I was at Berkeley and I was uh helping out with some event and then they Berkeley got a check for five I think five million $5 million, right? And all they did was say thank you. They just said thank you to five mill. If you give it to a high school, they will rename the whole town after you, right? But if you donate that, so imagine the ivy, how much you donate to have a significant impact there. So again, this is definitely not one of the big factors in today's admissions anymore. And last one, right, last one is that I just need strong grades and strong uh extracurriculars, right? Is this true? Is this true or false? Let me know in the chat, y'all. If all you need is strong grades and strong extracurriculars. That's right. Chat is on top of it is false as well too. The most important section I would argue is the missing piece. Right. Essays are usually the piece that tips the scale uh in your favor or or out or out of your favor as well too. So the ses that's why a lot lot of families say coach can you chance us can you chance our things I'm like I can't because the biggest piece is unwritten. I don't it could be a yes could be a no depends how you write uh everything is the biggest piece as well too. I tell families the essays are probably one of the most important pieces to make sure you have correct here. Okay, so that's that. Moving on to last piece. Really quick in the chat. Is this pace good? You guys liking the material so far? Uh can I give you guys some tips on how to craft an application? Because we're at times ## What to Do If Your School Lacks Rigor [25:00] we can end it here or do a last section. Let me know in the chat. We you want to end it. You wanna you want to do tips for the tips? tips. So once it's finished, all right, let's let's go ahead and finish as well, too. Okay, so how to craft an application? A few things, right? Number one, when it comes to the academics, you want to max rigor relative to your school's offering. What does your school offer? Max that, right? Again, I always tell students, what's the what's the what's the student doing the most at your school? You want to match their rigor. You might not match their GPA, which is fine. I don't that's not what our our goal is. Our goal is to max the rigor. And keep in mind there are more than just your school. I'm like, "Coach Tony, my school doesn't offer. My schedule doesn't allow blah blah blah." I'm like, "Cool. There's things called dual consider, right? Outside courses, right? So there's there's things called UC Scout. There's things called BYU. There's Silicon Valley High School, right? These are online high schools that offer AP level coursework, usually online, usually self-paced, um, usually asynchronous. And what you do is you go ahead and take and it shows as the same rigor as a fullear AP course that you're taking. These do cost money. So heads up there, right? The other option is dual enrollment. Uh for those who've been following me for a long time, I love dual enrollment. One of my favorite strategies of all time. These are college level courses, right? College level courses uh that you take as a high school student and then they can get you college level credit if you take the right ones as well too. So that is a way to kind of supplement if your school doesn't offer a lot but or you can't physically cram more class in you can consider these options as well too. Okay. Second one, when it comes to activities, right? Activities, what you want to do is you want to demonstrate what the college is looking for, leadership. You want to demonstrate depth. You want to demonstrate originality. Origin originality uh and u tangible incomes outcomes right uh so first off leadership. Leadership can be also uh formal or informal. People think it's only like, hey, I have to be a president or a founder or vice president. No, no, no. Right? You can help lead a group during an event, right? That's informal. No one gave you a title, right? But you just did stuff because you're a natural leader. And that's kind of what leadership is, right? Death. Instead of doing like 50 things for an hour, maybe spending like uh 10 things for five hours each or five things for 10 hours each, right? It's ## Essays....Why Voice and Vulnerability Matter More Than Trauma [27:30] again we're measuring the depth of each one rather than just being surface level for each part here. Originality, what's unique just to you? Going back to the spike, right? What's so unique just to you? We teach our students something the concept called personal projects. Personal projects are things that you do that uh that's uh around your personal interest, right? That you build around that that's going to be unique if you start there versus try to do something that looks good. And tangible algorithms is important because when you share on your application, metrics and context are really important. You can't just say, uh, I won a competition. You're like, cool, that's cool. So what? But if I told you, hey, I finished second in a competition. That's better, right? But what does that mean, though? Versus if I told you I finished second in a in a international contest of over 17,000 people. Holy moly, you're a rockstar, right? See you see that context is really important. So if you can give tangible outcomes that's going to be a big key of this uh as well right and this one again there's nothing that you need to do right this is one of the big things that always people always ask me coach Tony give me give me the secret give me the magical list give me the which which research program which uh internship which summer program all these things as well too right there's none of those that exist right it's all around your student and what they want to do here okay next one their story uh the students personal story as well too got an authentic voice especially in the world especially nowadays with our 2026 seniors about to start and starting their essays right AI is really big uh this year as well it's only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger as the years go on uh is the biggest one and again AI is good it's getting better every day but it's not as good as a human yet right you can kind of tell really fast when a student wrote something or when AI I wrote something as well too. As long as you're authentic to you and your voice, you're good to go. Little pro tip, fun fact, by the way, you see how I'm use I'm writing this on my Google doc. Another pro tip for scenes. This is a super off topic, but some a good pro tip for students, start using tools like a Google doc uh when you do stuff, right? The reason why is in today's world, a lot of people are going to accuse people of like, oh, you used AI, you used this as well, too. However, if you use a Google doc, right, it tracks literally minute by minute, right? So again, there's so much I can type in a minute, right? If I if I if ## Rec Letters That Actually Help You Stand Out [30:00] I'm want 60 words a minute, you see 60 more words. If I'm like a 100red words a minute, you see a hundred words. AI is usually like a paragraph, multiple paragraphs, few hundred words. So if in a minute you see I crank out a few hundred words, oops, a little red flag there. That's the big thing. So again, I always tell her that's why all of our students use Google Docs when they're editing their prompts is we can showcase if anyone got accused everything like no look look here look at the history look at the history of everything that's going to be uh that's what help our students out as well too. Okay, another thing is don't force any essays. Right? Meaning, right? Some people are like, "Let me try to make the reader cry. Let me try to make the reader laugh. Let me try to do things that is not them." Right? And again, there's no need to make your reader feel any emotion. Just again, just be yourself. Just be what you're trying to talk about and talk about that. That's kind of all you pretty much need there. Okay. And then uh the other big part when it comes to personal essay is focus on the who and the how over the what. This is the other big red flag a lot. They focus so much on telling me what you did rather than tell me who you've become as a result and or how you've become the person that you are today. That's that's more important than the actual what that happened here. Okay. And the last piece little little freebie here is letters of recommendations. Right. When it comes to lesser recommendations, your goal is to add new value to your application. Uh the big reason why most lesser rec suck is the reason why is they always say nice things. They always say Johnny was a great student uh uh here or uh Sally was a pleasure to have in class, but as a reader, I don't really care about uh that because I already know that. I can look I can see you're great in school. I see you have all A's. I see you're great in soccer. I see you're a team captain. So, there's things that I already know about the student. I don't need to be ## Real Student Examples + How You Can Start [32:00] reminded. Again, you're not you're not proving anything to the readers. What the letters of recommendation are doing is something new. You're going to add a new part uh that I haven't I haven't learned about yet. Maybe I haven't learned how resilient you truly are. And that's a story that comes from your soccer coach uh as well too. Maybe I haven't learned about your true leadership skills. And that comes out through your math teacher as well too, right? So, new things that I don't already know. That's the key to very very strong letters of recommendations itself. Okay, at the end of the day, right, if you guys want to see it for yourself, here's a little challenge for you guys, a little todo uh afterwards, right? If you guys want to see real life case studies, right, uh to see real life case studies, uh case studies of these stories, check us out, check us out on YouTube, right? Uh check us out look Google up eagle lock. All right on YouTube that's the word college backwards. And then you'll probably find a bunch of our uh our students and we asked them like we asked them again. We asked them what classes they took. We asked them for their grades, what activities they they do uh why they applied to the schools they did uh as well too. And they all shared all that to you guys. So if you guys are interested in seeing like hey I'm saying all these words and it sounds cool but again what you want to see in practice you see our students are the exact epitome of everything we said not not every student is a perfect student academic not every student is doing all fancy stuff are there they are we do we have some really smart kids we have some really awesome students who are doing really cool things but is that everyone nope and then you can see it for yourself in this section over here okay that is pretty much it uh for this training here. Uh so before I bid you guys, I do if you guys are interested in my notes, go ahead and just text us um 9497750865 for the notes and then we'll go ahead and send you guys the notes uh to this call uh over here. Okay, so that's it for me. If you guys have any questions, go ahead, let us know in the chat. If not, I will see you guys in the next training.