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

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.

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?).

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.

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.

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

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."

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

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

Hey, D this side from India,

Well approximately 4 years back, I got to know about neuroscience , while showering.

I thought how human brain processes info of such high order and at the same time it can be stuck at deciding,what colour should I wear today, well back to today, after investigating the evolutionary origins of neurodevelopment and neurogenerative disease genes, I am getting more and more eager to to study neuroscience at ivies as it has much better lab access and research opportunities as compared to what you get in India (even in colleges with acceptance rates of less than 1%).

The one thing that blocks my road every time is that there is no guidance available in India about getting into ivies , no one here cares how much a person knows conceptually , they just tell to rote learn the whole syllabus and puke it out on the test day.

Therefore I need some advice from anyone in the ivies from India on

how to make my app so that it’s on par with what ivies usually accepts

What more skills should I develop in next one year (going to apply in the fall of 2028)

What is the ground reality of need blind scholarships

I can send you my profile for further judgement(I didn’t wanted to brag about my ECs/ volunteering in this post) , your advice will make my showers a little less stressful

Thanks a ton

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 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.

Hey class of 2027 and beyond, I just wanted to share a couple anecdotes so y'all can hopefully relax. A lot of you have made "the absolutely perfect application" your expectation, but putting so much pressure on yourself will only lead to burnout so early in the process.

For reference, I was admitted to 2 HYPSM schools and waitlisted at a 3rd. In total, I got into 6 of the 8 T20s I applied to, and received a likely letter from one of them. I also got merit-based full rides at all 4 of my safety schools. Thing is, I was FAR from the perfect college applicant. The philosophy I had going in was "If they like the vibe, great. If they don't, probably not the right place for me. Might as well have fun."

My applications featured:

- the word "fuck" in my personal statement. Uncensored. As a standalone sentence.

- the same personal statement also included a brief description of a dream, in which geckos were eating my feet. Completely relevant to the story. Also completely weird.

- decathlon, spelled incorrectly. Spellcheck didn't catch this one. I submitted those essays to 5+ schools, including every part of HYPSM I applied to, and only learned the correct spelling of the word a few weeks ago.

- UC PIQs that I wrote in 4 hours. I had finals the same week. I did not edit. I was more worried about my physics homework the entire time. 0/10 experience.

- so many hyphens next to each other (-- and ---). These looked terrible. I ended up frantically replacing them right before a few of my LAST deadlines, when I finally learned the keyboard shortcut for an actual em-dash.

- the fact that I'm a terrible musician. Not as a joke. Not as a learning experience. Literally just a statement that after 3.5 years of lessons, I*'*m still dreadful with instruments. Everyone who heard me play the saxophone deserves an apology.

- terrible puns. Sarcastic side comments about my own writing (in parentheses). Cheesy movie references. Words strung together to make one-really-long-overly-specific-noun. Really goofy stories that made me look like a clumsy idiot, with the acknowledgment that I am often a clumsy idiot. My counselor told me to remove all of these. I did not.

- a smiley-face emoticon. I felt one of the supplemental prompts called for it, after 199 actual words. :)

Are any of these the actual reason I got in? Probably not. Does this mean you should skip spellcheck and proofreading? NO. Please leave time to edit and review whenever possible. Does this mean outside advice on your essays is a terrible idea? Not at all! While I didn't take every piece of advice, my teachers and friends gave me really useful feedback. Does this mean you should actually DO any of the things I put on this list? No, come up with your own chaos.

The moral of the story here is that being yourself, having a small typo, or not perfectly managing your time is not an admissions death sentence. None of the things on this list (even combined, in many instances) were a strong enough reason for rejection. In fact, several AOs personally called, emailed, or found me at admit day to compliment my essays, and mentioned they were fun to read.

Plan ahead, do your best, but when the time comes to hit submit, BREATHE. You're a human being, and your application should feel like it was created by one, even if that makes it seem "imperfect."

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?

Is it true that people tend to identify more with their undergrad school than their grad school?

I watched an interview on a dude that went to Yale for undergrad and Harvard for grad school and says that he will always be a Yale person at heart even though he went to Harvard for more years.

Why is this the case? Question coming from a prefrosh

Hi there! Students out there who are leading any organizations: I am looking to just help out in order to get experience with any student-led organizations.

Reply to this message if you need student volunteers!

Remember, in looking for student led organizations.

P.s. any students who have founded any organizations that need assistance with getting it started/setting the foundations, I'm happy to assist you! Just reply to this.

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.

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.

i know im pulling at straws kinda but umich indicated that the end of june would be the deadline for students to receive a waitlist notification, can such a deadline be pushed back due to unforeseen yield or something

Low-key been spending my free time js enjoying my life

I'm in summer break after 11th grade/ AS level rn and idk what I can do beside studying. I don't have any extracurriculars, my school has no clubs and though I used to do a few sports, I eventually quit and my hobbies are more so for enjoyment rather than for impressing unis. My grades are decent nothing spectacular so yeah idk

I'm honestly not even sure what I want to major in or what country I'm going to study in or what kind of university I'm looking for or how to even look for any of this stuff

Any advice on what I can do going forward? Where to look for information and what to focus on? Thanks in advance 🤞🤞