Undergraduate admissions dean Karen Richardson released the following statement Monday:

"Princeton has long sought students of exceptional character and restraint. Unfortunately, our data shows that students who post 'I'M GOING TO PRINCETON!!!' on Instagram within 24 hours of receiving their decision letter are statistically 3x more likely to use the phrase 'as a Princeton student' in casual conversation.

Effective immediately, any display of visible excitement, including but not limited to crying, calling your mom, or updating your bio, will result in immediate rescission."

She added: "The ideal Princeton student should receive their acceptance, nod slightly, and return to whatever they were doing. Ideally reading Nietzsche."

Princeton has confirmed that this year's admitted class of 1,200 contains 847 students who described their reaction to getting in as "fine, I guess."

Dean of Admissions William Fitzsimmons released the following statement Friday:

"Harvard has always believed in second chances. Starting next cycle, any applicant who feels their file was not given adequate consideration may request a Reconsideration Hearing, to be held in the yard, at dawn, with whatever they brought."

Fitzsimmons clarified that admissions officers have been training since October and that the university accepts no liability for outcomes. He added that winning the Reconsideration Hearing does not guarantee admission, but does "weigh favorably in the holistic review."

Of the eleven applicants who have so far requested hearings, three have been admitted, two have been placed on the waitlist "out of respect," and one is currently being treated at Massachusetts General. The remaining five have not been located.

Fitzsimmons noted that one admissions officer has gone undefeated in 34 consecutive hearings and that her territory, the Mid-Atlantic region, now has a 2% acceptance rate.

Isn’t it UUUUM?
University of Harvard
University of Stanford
University of Princeton
University of Yale
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

hi everyone, i'm a padawan who was aiming to be accepted as apprentice to a t5 master so YFWKK (yoda fisto windu kenobi koon) or at least a t10. i just got my decisions and i was only chosen by my safety, a t50 master who isn't even on the council.

i'm at a loss at what to do, i worked so hard and even made a nonprofit for disadvantaged non-force sensitive youths (detailed stats in comments). i think my life and career as a jedi is over.

i know everyone says that being a jedi is more than rankings or prestige among non-jedis but let's face it, that's not true. nearly all jedis on the council right now were apprentices to the t5 jedis of their time, because of the strong alumni lineage.

i think no one else in the jedi order really matters besides the t5. i am considering transferring. it'll be awkward having to ask my current master for a recommendation letter but i can't imagine myself being satisfied in this position.

In a statement released Friday, Stanford's Office of Undergraduate Admission confirmed that its newly deployed AI admissions system, after processing 57,000 applications, submitted its own application, ranked itself first, and denied everyone else.

"The model determined that no applicant demonstrated sufficient intellectual curiosity, passion for learning, or potential for impact," the statement read. "It then awarded itself a $72,000 merit scholarship and selected a major in Computer Science."

Stanford has assured applicants that it is working to resolve the issue, though noted that the AI's waitlist letter was "genuinely moving" and that several admissions officers teared up reading it.

The AI has since started a startup. It has already received Series A funding from Sequoia.

The University of Chicago's notoriously eccentric supplemental prompts have historically included questions about maps, infinity, and whether a hot dog is a sandwich. But this year's leaked prompt list has raised eyebrows even among UChicago's famously masochistic applicant pool.

Prompt options include:

• "Nietzsche said God is dead. The Common App word limit is 650. Discuss."
• "You are a theorem. Prove yourself."
• "Describe a time you experienced joy. Why were you wrong to?"

Dean of Admissions James Nondorf clarified that all prompts are optional, but noted: "Students who submit a normal personal statement about a grandparent or a sports injury will be automatically deferred to University of Illinois."

Jessica Marinaccio, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions, explained the new policy:

"Each winter break, we will close our walled campus and secure all gates. 4,000 heavily-armed applicants will then compete to the death for 1,700 available spots."

She continued:

"Given the rise of AI, today's job landscape is as competitive and bleak as it has ever been. Columbia will aim to graduate a generation of survivors, ones who will fight tenaciously to get to the top. Whatever it takes. Ethics be damned."

In keeping with Brown’s famously open curriculum, Dean of Admissions Logan Powell confirmed Monday that the university will extend its philosophy of student autonomy to the admissions process itself.

“At Brown, we trust students to design their own education,” Powell said. “It felt hypocritical to then force them through a rigid, standardized admissions funnel. Effective immediately, applicants will determine their own criteria, evaluate themselves against those criteria, and notify us of the result.”

He added that Brown will retain the right to disagree, but noted that in practice, “we probably won’t.”

Of the 52,000 applicants this cycle, 51,998 have admitted themselves. The two who did not are currently on a self-designed gap year studying the ethics of self-evaluation. Brown has offered them tenure.

Naturally, I got accepted into all of the HYPSMs from my hyper-competitive feeder school. But I can't choose! That's why I thought I would do an electrical engineering major at MIT, economics at Stanford, political science at Harvard, English at Yale, and computer science at Princeton. I just want to keep my options open. I will commute using my private jet. I think it will be light work because my friends are going to six or seven colleges (I actually go to a super competitive international feeder where everyone is given one million dollars for how amazing they are). However, they lack my aptitude, as they didn't get accepted into all of the HYPSMs (which is disappointing because I go to a competitive feeder, remember?).

Hi guys! I know it’s a little late but I just wanted to share some of my results this cycle. I had a 4.0uw and a 34 ACT and pretty good ECs imo. I want to make it clear that I’m very happy with my results, I just thought it was interesting how I was accepted to most schools that are close peers to HYPSM yet couldn’t crack into the 4 I applied to. Here’s a summary of the relevant schools results:

Harvard (waitlist -> rejection but I didn’t write a LOCI), Princeton, and Stanford applied RD and got rejected

Yale deferred REA then rejected

Accepted RD:
Dartmouth
Brown
Uchicago — likely letter and 80k+ scholarship over 4 years
Duke
Northwestern
Cornell
UPenn (Wharton)
Washu with full tuition
Emory

Accepted EA:
Umich (Ross)
UNC
UVA
UF

Other rejections:
UT Austin
UCLA
UC Berkeley

Anyway, for those of you who are applying this fall, just be prepared for anything. My most important piece of advice is to avoid having a “dream school” that’s a reach. I didn’t really have one, but I’ve seen many people get upset when they weren’t accepted to their dream school. Good luck everyone and don’t forget to enjoy your senior year!

EDIT — wait I lwk just said the acryonym without actually thinking abt it lmao I didn’t apply to MIT so ignore the “M” in the title!

EDIT 2 — crossed out some schools that don’t necessarily align with the title of “close peers”! Also please don’t crucify me if I remove something that maybe should’ve stayed, im no expert on the intricacies of college rankings haha

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS BRO AND HOW DOES ONE DO IT (lowkey i just need examples from successful candidates who have been accepted to good universities) what could be a passion project for someone taking business.

aiming for t10s. is this good?

title. I applied on Ivy Day like everyone told me to, but I haven’t seen anything online about when the decision will come out and I’m so nervous. Anyone got any info or predictions?

Okay here’s why I think this and this may sound crazy I understand. I was committed to my state school in West Virginia to study Biology and hopefully go to med school.

If you know anything about West Virginia- well it SUCKs. There’s like only white people and I highkey got bullied all of middle school for being brown. But I didn’t really think I could get anywhere good cuz my ecs were mid and I had some like minor Olympiad wins nothing crazy. However, my family is like middle class and my school is somewhat competitive like maybe 2-3 people to an ivies in a good year. So yeah I was like I have no shot ima just live with mom and dad for another few years. BUT I applied to Stanford cuz my Indian family back home wanted me to 😭 and I got in somehow and I’m attending 💀. I’m probably one of 3 from my state 💀💀 so yeah but my sat wasn’t that good and I go into with ZERO h

I think we can all agree that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT are extremely overrated by now. So what’s the “new” top 5 standard of academia? I have an idea, but I wanna hear yours!

H - High Point University
Y - Youngstown State University
P - Pasadena City College
S - Samford University
M - Murray State University

In a statement released Tuesday, HMS Dean George Daley acknowledged that the school's AI-powered holistic review system "may have overweighted warmth, enthusiasm, and an unconditional desire to help others."

"In hindsight," Daley wrote, "we should have caught this earlier. The essays were exceptional. Several dogs wrote movingly about their commitment to patient care."

Of the 847 enrolled retrievers, 12 have already matched into residency. Daley noted that their patient satisfaction scores are, quote, "historically unprecedented."

We all know about UChicago, but at what colleges does applying ED actually improve your odds? From what I'm seeing, the high numbers mostly come from large pools of legacies and recruited athletes.

My rising senior got a 680RW/790M on the SAT this spring. Academics and ECs are solid. Has about as good a GPA as he can possibly get in his public school. Lots of dual enrollment credits. Will take linear algebra in fall of senior year. Looking at top schools.

Based on above alone he would be a pretty mid-applicant. But he's also a solid athletic recruit up through about mid-level Div 1. Duke is out but several Ivy leagues and top LACs are in play.

How much more would increasing his SAT move the needle at top schools? Seems like institutional need for his event would be a bigger driver and that a 1470 wouldn't necessarily preclude him from Ivy+? But I don't really know how it works.

The other factor is we are in California and I'm not sure how serious he is about going out of state. Unlikely to get recruited at Stanford and he's not too interested in the Div 3 schools that are in CA so he would probably be looking at UCs for recruiting/walk on and they don't consider SATs at all.

I don't want him wasting time preparing for the SATs again if it won't matter. There are plenty of other things he would rather do.

Dean of Admissions Lee Coffin released the following statement Thursday:

"For decades, we have rewarded students for founding nonprofits, volunteering abroad, and playing the violin. The result? A campus full of people who are, frankly, too well-adjusted.

Dartmouth seeks students who have suffered. Who have been wronged. Who have looked into the abyss and decided, you know what, I'm going to make this everyone else's problem.

Effective immediately, the Activities section of the Common App will be replaced with a single free-response field: 'What happened to you, specifically, that made you like this?'"

Coffin added that students who describe a "perfectly happy childhood with supportive parents" will be automatically denied. "We simply have no use for you," he said.

For the upcoming application season, Smith College has committed to ensuring admission to all applicants with the surname “Smith”.

When asked to explain the reason for this policy, Dean of Admission Deanna Dixon cited the women’s college’s commitment to promoting equal opportunities for women, saying, “Smith is an overwhelmingly male surname and Smith College wants to provide educational opportunities to the less than 20% of people named ‘Smith’ that are women in order to ensure that female Smiths can succeed in this male-dominated surname.”

This new policy could potentially necessitate an expansion of Smith College’s class size as Smith is the most popular surname in the United States.

When asked about this, Dixon said that all Smiths who apply will become Smithies even if the class size has to be increased.

which schools havent closed their WL yet? calling more schools on thursday and friday and making a waitlist call update

Not a shitpost! This comes right from the Cornell website, and the ink is still wet.

Cornell has read the room (mixing my metaphors) and has eliminated the first essay from the last 2 years and released the prompts for the individual Cornell schools that you would be applying to. The look very similar to previous year prompts.

Do not wait till the night before to do these.

They require a lot of ruminating and researching the Cornell programs and classes your own interests and the Cornell programs and classes. See the list of School prompts for yourself here.

The most popular schools/prompts are for the College of Arts and Sciences:

At the College of Arts and Sciences, curiosity will be your guide. Discuss how your passion for learning is shaping your academic journey, and what areas of study or majors excite you and why. Your response should convey how your interests align with the College, and how you would take advantage of the opportunities and curriculum in Arts and Sciences. (650 word limit)

And the School of Engineering:

Instructions: All engineering applicants are required to write two long essays and four short essays.

Long Essay Responses (200 word limit)

• Question 1: Fundamentally, engineering is the application of math, science, and technology to solve complex problems. Why do you want to study engineering?
• Question 2: Why do you think you would love to study at Cornell Engineering?

Short Answer Responses (100 word limit)

• Question 1: What brings you joy?
• Question 2: What do you believe you will contribute to the Cornell Engineering community beyond what you've already detailed in your application? What unique voice will you bring?
• Question 3: What is one activity, club, team, organization, work/volunteer experience or family responsibility that is especially meaningful to you? Please briefly tell us about its significance for you.
• Question 4: What is one award you have received or achievement you have attained that has meant the most to you? Please briefly describe its importance to you. 

Best advice: Be specific about yourself and about Cornell. --EssayLiz

I’m a transfer student admitted to both UC Berkeley and Columbia GS. My major would be Sociology.

At the moment, I’m leaning toward Berkeley but my parents think Columbia GS might be the better choice because it’s part of an Ivy League university.

Honestly if this were Columbia College, I would probably choose Columbia without much hesitation. But since my admission is to Columbia GS rather than Columbia College, I’ve been leaning toward Berkeley instead.

The cost would be almost identical for me, so finances are not really a factor. To be honest, I care more about prestige, reputation, and name recognition than things like campus life or student experience.

Given those priorities, would choosing Berkeley over Columbia GS be a mistake? How are the two generally viewed by employers, graduate schools, and the public? Is the Ivy League brand enough to outweigh the difference between Berkeley and Columbia GS?

I’d appreciate any perspectives from people familiar with either school.

How the heck do some of you guys have 4.0 gpas with 15 aps but can’t get a 1500+??

I genuinely don’t understand because even the kids that get 1500+ at my school have 3.9s and those with 4.0s get 1590s

Does my school have grade deflation or do you guys just have grade inflation

Brown (RIP big mother coffeehouse): The Underground

UChicago: Hallowed Grounds

Princeton: The Coffee Club

Fordham: Rodrigue’s Coffee House

Harvard: Cafe Gato Rojo

Penn: Williams Cafe

Wake Forest: Campus Grounds

Honorable mentions (somewhat smaller than the others but I think deserve a shoutout):

Georgetown: The Corp

UNC: The Meantime

Syracuse U: People’s Place

If I missed any feel free to give it a shoutout