How to prepare for the competitive world of Ivy…
New York Post might obtain income from affiliate and promoting partnerships for sharing this content and/or when you make a buy.
Top colleges are still laborious to get into. The lessons of 2031 at Harvard and Columbia will get between 50,000 and 60,000 candidates this fall, and the acceptance charge for those universities is traditionally around 5%.
To make issues worse for the world’s 15 and 16-year-olds, the admissions panorama continues to change. Universities are revising standardized testing necessities, evaluating how candidates use artificial intelligence and wanting for evidence of mental curiosity, initiative and personal development past the classroom.
For dad and mom hoping to give their kids the best likelihood of attending Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia or another extremely selective college, these modifications raise important questions. How early ought to college students start getting ready? Which actions matter most? And how can households help their kids stand out without turning their teenage years into an infinite exercise in résumé building?
When to start getting ready for the Ivies
The reply begins properly before senior 12 months, when school functions are due. According to Christopher Rim, founder and CEO of Command Education, some dad and mom need to start school prep in fifth or sixth grade. He says that’s a bit early, but “it’s wild that parents starting as early as middle school [are] already thinking about this, but that just shows how competitive it is.”
“I would say the first thing is let your kid really be a kid. Allow him or her to explore different projects, different sports, different activities,” Rim tells the Post. Though profitable, high-achieving dad and mom need the same for their children, Rim recommends letting them “get involved without pressuring them, without holding them to one activity that they picked three years ago.”
Columbia University campus in Morningside Heights. Martin – stock.adobe.com
The problem is that admissions selections should not decided by a single method. Academic efficiency, standardized assessments, suggestions, extracurricular commitments and personal essays can all affect the final result. Universities also contemplate candidates within the context of their colleges, communities and obtainable alternatives.
Parents can assist these efforts by serving to their kids plan coursework, determine educational weaknesses and set up examine habits. They ought to also acknowledge that the most demanding course schedule will not be essentially the best one if it prevents a pupil from succeeding or pursuing other significant pursuits. It’s equally important for college students to uncover what genuinely pursuits them.
For many households, this course of begins during freshman 12 months of high college, although center college can present alternatives to explore educational topics, sports activities, music, neighborhood service and other actions without the fast strain of school admissions.
Early exploration provides college students time to uncover their strengths and pursue pursuits that might ultimately develop into sustained commitments.
The return of standardized testing
One important development is the return of standardized testing necessities at a number of extremely selective establishments.
For the 2026-27 software cycle, Yale University requires candidates to submit either SAT or ACT scores. The college beforehand permitted candidates to fulfill its testing requirement with Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate outcomes, but narrowed those choices for the current cycle.
Yale admissions officers say the resolution displays inner research displaying that standardized check scores help predict college students’ educational efficiency at the college.
Nevertheless, check scores stay only one element of the admissions course of. Students also need to exhibit that they’ve challenged themselves academically and taken benefit of the instructional alternatives obtainable to them.
That means enrolling in appropriately rigorous lessons, sustaining strong grades and developing relationships with lecturers who can ultimately write informed suggestions.
Standardized assessments have made a comeback. Adobe
Parents can help — by fostering independence
Private and public colleges offer different ranges of access to school preparation assets. Some non-public colleges present intensive counseling, tutoring, research alternatives and extracurricular packages as half of their tuition-funded companies.
However, access to these assets doesn’t guarantee admission. Even college students attending colleges with devoted school counseling departments might need to search further steering on specific educational pursuits, summer season packages or software necessities.
Rim notes that the assets colleges, public and non-public, have to commit to school counseling and steering merely aren’t enough to guarantee an Ivy final result. “I went to public school myself in New Jersey,” he told the Post, “and there were two or three counselors for the entire school, and that was it. That’s because of budgeting, and you know, I think that I think it’s not even hours that I spent with a counselor, but minutes through the process.”
Fostering independence is better than doing it for them. Adobe
According to the National Association for College Admission Counseling, the average public college counselor was accountable for 405 college students during the 2021-22 educational 12 months, considerably exceeding the American School Counselor Association’s really useful ratio of 250 college students per counselor.
More latest figures cited by the affiliation show that states averaged 376 college students per counselor during the 2023-24 college 12 months. Although that represents an enchancment, it exhibits how individualized school planning may be tough for college counselors to present.
That’s where non-public school counseling comes in.
High college counselors, even at elite boarding colleges, might not be in a position to spend the time with every pupil strategizing what competitions to enter, what awards to win and what variety of course rigor is acceptable for your school aspirations. (Is getting an A+ in a common class better than getting a B+ in an superior class?)
When the Harvard Crimson collected responses for its annual freshman survey in 2021, they discovered that 20% of respondents reported receiving help from a privately employed counselor while getting ready school functions. Regardless of whether or not college students obtain non-public counseling, educational achievement alone hardly ever tells admissions officers every part they need to know.
Graduates headed to Harvard Yard. Boston Globe via Getty Images
Highly selective schools obtain functions from 1000’s of college students who have earned wonderful grades and carried out properly on standardized assessments. As a consequence, extracurricular involvement, mental pursuits and evidence of personal initiative can help admissions officers distinguish among academically certified candidates.
Rim gave an instance of a strong candidate who proved by his pursuits why he’s proper for a selective college. “We had a student who was very much interested in sneakers. [He] was waiting outside of a sneaker store, and they were doing a limited edition drop of 200 sneakers worldwide.” The pupil in query waited in line in the rain for hours to buy these sneakers in order to resell them — for 10 occasions the price.
The dad and mom got here to Rim, and they had been “literally crying, saying, ‘Chris, what is my child doing? Tell him to study for schoolwork and his SATs, I will pay him that amount, the profit, if he just does this!’ And I said, wait, wait, wait! Nobody else from this private school that he attended, which was arguably one of the best private schools in the country, could write a college essay on how they waited in line to start to buy inventory, essentially to resell them to start and a speaker reselling business.”
Entrepreneurial spirit is proof of grit. Adobe
That distinctive expertise borne out of the pupil’s drive to do one thing he discovered significant was the key differentiator that bought him into his top colleges. The distinction between an “astro-turfed” résumé and one that exhibits true initiative issues because admissions officers don’t essentially anticipate every applicant to have based a nonprofit group, accomplished university-level research or gained a national competitors.
In September 2026, Princeton University’s dean of admissions, Karen Richardson, explained that the college evaluates how candidates spend their time both inside and exterior the classroom. Richardson particularly recognized actions such as working at a grocery store, taking part in a college newspaper, performing in an orchestra and caring for youthful siblings as experiences that can help admissions officers perceive candidates.
She also emphasised that Princeton needs college students who will contribute to the educational and social life of the college. That perspective gives an important lesson for dad and mom. A component-time job, household accountability or sustained neighborhood dedication might reveal as a lot about a pupil’s character as an costly summer season enrichment program.
What ought to college students do in the age of AI?
Recently, Rim sat down with New York Post reporter Lydia Moynihan and other industry leaders to focus on why qualities such as resilience, emotional intelligence and authenticity stay important as technology modifications how college students be taught and prepare for their careers.
Rim argued that AI instruments can help college students research schools, evaluate educational packages, manage software deadlines and explore unfamiliar topics. They can also help with brainstorming and reviewing written work when used within a college’s insurance policies.
However, relying on AI to produce personal essays or manufacture extracurricular narratives can create a host of other issues for candidates. An AI-generated essay could also be grammatically polished, but it may well’t independently talk the experiences, motivations and judgment that make an particular person applicant stand out.
For dad and mom, this means serving to kids use AI as a studying useful resource fairly than a substitute for pondering — and positively don’t use AI for its own sake or to leap on a development. “You want to be authentic,” Rim told the Post, “and don’t try to just do anything involved with AI.”
AI is a device, not an end in itself. Adobe
Richardson addressed this issue straight, explaining that admissions officers need to perceive how candidates assume and what issues to them. According to her, the capability to ask questions, develop concepts and talk concepts independently not only helps prepare college students for Princeton’s educational necessities, but it also exhibits through in their functions.
“I have so many students and so many parents tell me, ‘Chris, like what can we do with AI? Should I develop an AI project together with my son because I’m learning about it too in real time, and I think I can help.’ I’m like, ‘No … you want to be authentic,” Rim told the Post. As a lot as issues are altering with AI, the advice that was good before the AI period continues to maintain: Doing one thing that everybody else is doing or only doing to look good for schools is strictly what you shouldn’t do.
There is no proper factor for all college students. What an admissions officer needs to see is a pupil’s genuine pursuits — one thing that they own, that is impactful in their life — to get a sense of how they are going to contribute to the next freshman class and the college’s neighborhood. And that they’ll get that read in a matter of minutes through your software.
This article was written by Brooklyn-based financial journalist and Commerce Editor for the New York Post Will Kenton. Specializing in investing, personal finance and retirement planning, Will’s experience is rooted in behavioral economics — a discipline he explored as affiliate editor of the New School Economics Review. Will goals to help readers navigate the “predictable irrationality” that influences financial selections, offering sensible real-world options to pupil loan debt, investments, mortgages and more. Before becoming a member of The Post in 2026, Will lined the intersection of money, economics and tradition for Investopedia, AP News, Business Insider and TIME Stamped.
Stay in the loop with the latest trending topics! Visit our web site daily for the freshest lifestyle news and content, thoughtfully curated to inspire and inform you.
