The Habits, Traits and Achievements of Top 10 US College Admits
If you’ve ever wondered what students admitted into universities like Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Pomona, University of Chicago, Duke, and more have accomplished to earn their spots, keep reading.
These admits did achieve near perfect grades and standardized test scores on the SAT or ACT, but even that’s not enough. There are more perfect GPAs and test scores than there are freshman spots available at top 10 schools.
Having worked with and mentored multiple students who have been admitted to top 10 universities and more, these are the habits, traits, and achievements I have seen consistent across admitted students.
1. Genuine Curiosity and Desire to Learn
While they don’t love every single day of school (who does?), they like school for more than just the socializing it offers. They don’t just complete schoolwork to avoid getting bad grades.
Instead, they take an interest in what they’re learning and engage in it beyond just what’s being required of them.
Top admits care about mastering a subject, often to the extent of asking for extra help or practice, or seeking additional opportunities to engage with the material through either engaging with the teacher or finding other experts to learn from.
2. Learning Beyond the Curriculum
What most high school students don’t realize about college admissions is that if you hope to be admitted, you must not only stand out as one of the top students at your school (through transcripts and recommendation letters), but also a top student in the world against the many other students who are also applying.
How else do you stand out against all the other students who were enrolled in the same curriculum at your school and students who you are also applying against nationally and internationally?
Here are ways to do this:
1/ Reading Widely and Deeply
You can read books, follow blogs, or regularly digest articles from publications relevant to your intended field of study. Just make sure their sources are credible, their material is high quality and well-written, and that the writing staff are notable and distinguished experts in their field.
Recommended: read in the future field you want to study. If you can’t read a book in what you want to major in, take that as a warning sign that you might not enjoy it, especially if you’re miserable. College requires much more intensive loads of reading than high school.
2/ Online Courses by Colleges and Universities
Coursera and edX offer numerous courses by universities that go beyond the high school level curriculum offered at high schools. Their offerings span biotechnology, blockchain, literature, machine learning, philosophy, and more. For those who don’t attend elite private boarding schools who offer courses like Organic Chemistry or Multivariable Calculus, this is an ideal, inexpensive alternative.
Just note that completing and doing well in these more challenging courses requires self-discipline and drive. Most students give up, but all of the ones who did had a choice to keep going, fill in gaps of knowledge and ability, or simply find a more manageable course instead.
Bonus: once you take these online courses, you can leverage your more advanced knowledge towards a project that will help showcase your knowledge and the application of it, or qualify yourself for internships or research positions with adult organizations and institutions.
3/ Summer Programs at Colleges and Universities
Warning: these can be costly, but the most competitive and prestigious ones offer financial aid.
At a bare minimum, a worthwhile and notable college summer program offers college credit for the course and college coursework and examination in the subject. These are essentially college level courses taught by actual professors and should ideally span at least 3 weeks. Many go up to 4, and some even stretch as long as 6–8 weeks.
Some offer financial aid, but usually only for US citizens (sorry, international students). Again, the ones who charge no money at all such as RSI at MIT or TASP are some of the most competitive ever. They admit less students every year than MIT itself and other Ivy League schools.
4/ Podcasts
Search up the most accomplished, well-known, or interesting experts in the field you want to study and search their name on Google with the added keyword of “podcast episode.”
You can also look up the faculty of the your dream school’s major department and try to find if they’ve done podcast interviews. They might even have their own podcast.
5/ YouTube Lectures by Professors and Field Experts
Just go on YouTube and search up professors you have found at your dream school or other experts, professionals, artists, engineers, scientists you admire. There’s a good chance there are YouTube videos featuring them.
Watch, listen, absorb, then ask yourself if there are any ways you can apply or follow up on what they’ve discussed, shared, or taught.
Developing subject matter expertise can help translate to qualifying for the next higher level opportunity or inspire an extracurricular achievement for many Top 10 University admits.
3. They Have Vision and are Driven to Compete, Achieve, or Pursue Interests Deeply
If the only thing you want is to scroll on Instagram everyday from sunset to sunrise, binge Netflix, and not do any schoolwork, you won’t be appealing to a college.
But more importantly, you’re missing out on all the interesting and important work that you’re capable of if you combined your curiosity with the courage to try things that might not work. Your life as a high school student could be so much more interesting, colorful, and substantial.
With enough dedication, diligence, patience, and focus, numerous high school students have achieved things that even many college students and working adults haven’t. These are the students top universities are drawn to and want to join their institution.
4. Collaborating on Projects and Work with Other Students or Adults
Not a single one of our admits to top 10 universities were involved activities where they worked solely by themselves. They have all joined, contributed to, and risen to the top leadership position of a student organization, whether at school or outside of school.
I highly recommend pursuing opportunities and organizations beyond your high school campus, because if you think about it, how else do you distinguish yourself against the other students at your school? There will be other students who are also presidents or founders of their own clubs or even presidents of the entire school student body. If you can join an organization where you are collaborating with adults and entrusted with work they would assign to another adult, this is a strong signal of your maturity and competence.
Here are real-world examples of going beyond the opportunities on your campus by connecting with and then contributing to larger organization (school organization + larger opportunity):
- School Debate Club President/Debate Team Captain + President of Non-Profit Debate Organization
- School Science Club President/Academic Science Team + Research at a University Lab
- Co-Leader School Community Service Project + Writer and Editor at Adult-Run Publication on Culture and Philosophy
- Entrepreneurship Summer Program + Co-founding a Successful Venture Funded by Adult Professionals/Investors
- School MUN Club + Executive Leader of City-Wide/National MUN Organization
Note: these students didn’t just land a position at a larger organization and did nothing (you need both a title and achievement of substance). They worked at these organizations for multiple months for up to one or more years. Throughout their involvement, and as a result of it, they helped contribute to the organization’s impact beyond just performing and handling basic entry-level tasks.
Unfortunately, even if you possess, apply, and achieve all of the above, you still might not be admitted to a top 10 or even top 30 university. Academic and extracurricular achievement aren’t the only factors that matter. There is still you socioeconomic status, financial need, ethnicity, your current high school, likelihood to matriculate, and also which other students from there are also applying to your same schools.
However, the kind of student who is genuinely curious, is driven to learn and figure out complex academic and work challenges while being able to effective lead their peers and collaborate with adults will do well no matter where they are admitted to and attend.
Attending college should really just be a smaller part of the much larger purpose of leading a happy, fulfilling, interesting, and rewarding life.
For the students who are still in high school and seeking to apply to college in the future, the paths and achievements listed above aren’t meant to stress you out by the competitiveness of the process or create anxiety over how much you (maybe) aren’t doing.
It’s to serve as an opportunity for reflection, to ask if you’re engaging with the world in a way that not only helps your admissions chances, but creates the type of interesting and potentially impactful journey that is worth more than the end destination.
Go learn with curiosity.
Seek to master yourself, interesting subject, and valuable and impactful skills.
Set your sights on creating a change you truly care about.
Do all that because that’s the path that awaits and is available to you after your graduate college anyways.
