Beware of Becoming the Average “Above Average” College Applicant
There is a common mistake that students make who want to apply to the most selective colleges in the US and world, a mistake that leads to not achieving that aspiration. It’s a mistake that they don’t really know their making until it’s too late, until they are reading the rejection letter to their “dream school.”
At that point, they’re probably asking themselves, “Why I didn’t get in?” And as nicely as the rejection letter is worded, as true as it might be — “it was difficult to select amongst one of the most competitive application pools ever this year” — there is something that could have done better.
Despite how “above average” an applicant might feel, which they would only know when comparing themselves against their peers, “above average” at a school is actually quite average, common, and abundant in an applicant pool to the most selective schools. There is a surplus of “above average” applicants.
What is scarce and in demand is the outstanding, exceptional, unique applicant.
But first…
Defining the Average “Above Average” Applicant
The average “above average” student is really just that: above average, emphasis on the average. Which is to say that there is an abundance of above average applicants from most high schools. They are students who are in the top 10% of a high school, maybe even top 5% or top 1%.
The average above average applicant is typically the captain of a school sports team, maybe even two; holds a leadership position in one or two student organizations that may include student government (being a “president” or “founder” is actually quite common); and probably even has a nearly perfect GPA and SAT/ACT score.
It’s not that it isn’t worthwhile to become an above average applicant, one who performs near the top academically at their school and leads or collaborates with many of their peers in creating a genuinely positive impact on their local community. That is always worthwhile.
But if you asked me would that be enough — just being the best student at your school — to give you a strong chance at gaining admission to some of the most prestigious or selective schools in the world? My response would be: “You should check out the top students from the top 5 other schools from your country.”
This is most “problematic” amongst students of high achieving cultures, such as Asian cultures and backgrounds, and who try to compete with one another in the most competitive and saturated of fields (e.g., business, computer science, economics, engineering).
The Statistics of Applying to the Most Selective Colleges
Honestly, above average applicants do have a chance of gaining admission to most undergraduate programs. There is nothing inherently wrong with them.
But when you have over 20,000 above average applicants applying to your college and your college only has 1,500 freshman spots available, you will need to be much more selective to decide on who will be admitted and who must be denied admission.
Especially towards international students, whom a college can only allow (let’s say on average) 10% of the 1,500 spots available for, which comes out to about 150 freshman spots. And it’s not like schools are looking to allocate all their international student spots to just one country. Assuming they want at least one student each from over 100 different countries, a college might only be looking to admit, at most, up to 1 to 3 students who share your nationality.
All eight Ivy League schools combined have just a little over 15,000 freshman spots available.
Being in the top 1% of a graduating class as small as 100 students (my own high school had more than 1,000) will still have 1 top student for every high school. In the US alone there are 27,000+ high schools. So there’s a chance more than half of all applying valedictorians will be denied admission to Ivy League schools.
Every high school has multiple above average applicants. And even their top student still might not gain admission to the most prestigious and selective colleges.
So if your goal is that — to gain admission to the most prestigious and selective colleges such as the Ivy League schools which include Harvard, Yale, Princeton, UPenn, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Cornell — the riskiest thing you can do is end up becoming an average above average applicant.
Who You Should Become Instead to Become a Competitive Applicant at Selective Colleges: Option 1
What you should do instead is uncommonly exceptional applicant, one who stands out on an international scale even when (and especially) compared to applicants from around the world. This means competing in and almost winning or winning long-established international competitions. But even Olympiad semi-finalists, finalists, and winners are competing against each other. So they too must seek out ways to stand out against other Olympiads or students who have published research or patented an industry-disrupting medical device.
Because it’s not what I think or what you’ve done. It’s about what other applicants have done and who else is also applying to the schools you’re applying to this year. And when there is an above average student from every one of the thousand schools around the world apply to a college, suddenly “above average” starts to seem pretty average.
Who You Should Become Instead to Become a Competitive Applicant at Selective Colleges: Option 2
The above is answer number one.
Answer number two is to become the type of applicant who would have succeeded in life regardless of where they gained admission into. An applicant who was always industrious, courageous, perceptive, proactive, organized, and charismatic. This is the applicant who will succeed despite their circumstances, not because of them.
I call it an option because it is. It’s a choice to choose to become this type of applicant.
The only question isn’t should you do it, it’s whether or not you will.
