Every year, families ask me the same question: What does it take to get into an Ivy League or other highly selective university in the United States? And every year, I give a version of the same answer: It’s not about checking all the boxes. It’s not about perfect résumés, polished scripts, or even flawless transcripts. It’s about who the student is at their core—and whether that authenticity, drive, and intellectual vitality shines through.
In other words, the students who make it into these schools aren’t crafting themselves to be impressive. They are impressive—because they’ve pursued their interests with passion and purpose long before college ever entered the picture.
Yes, some are recruited athletes or legacy admits. But most are not. Many have never won a national award or started a nonprofit. What they do have is deep intellectual curiosity, an entrepreneurial spirit, a natural sense of leadership (not just titles), and a sustained interest in one or two areas that they’ve explored through courses, research, self-study, internships, paid work, or volunteering. They’ve found something they care about—and they’ve gone after it. Not because an adult told them to. Because they wanted to.
As one colleague put it, the kids who get in are “too busy being extraordinary to worry about whether what they’re doing is enough to get in.” They are thinkers, builders, readers, writers, tinkerers, creators, and problem-solvers. They are deeply interested—and that, in turn, makes them interesting.
Sometimes, they come from places of privilege. But just as often, they don’t. I’ve seen remarkable students from rural towns who have never visited a museum or flown on a plane. Yet they’ve taught themselves quantum physics from YouTube, guided river trips, driven combines to harvest wheat on their family farms, and found ways to pursue knowledge with very few resources. These students—humble, hungry, and wise beyond their years—are exactly the kinds of voices top schools want to amplify.
Across the board, Ivy admits tend to share certain traits: authenticity, grit, academic strength, maturity, likability, and a genuine desire to make their communities or the world better. They often possess what one of my colleagues called “out-of-the-box extracurriculars”—not just club participation, but actions that show creativity, courage, and conviction.
And of course, there are institutional priorities at play. Colleges are looking for students from underrepresented backgrounds, geographic diversity, first-gen status, rare majors, or experiences that fill a gap in their community. That’s not favoritism—it’s strategy. These schools are building ecosystems, not just classrooms.
So who gets in? I describe them as “unicorns”—the rare students who stand out not because they followed a formula, but because they didn’t. Not perfect. Not manufactured. But deeply human and profoundly compelling.
