She was the Valedictorian of her high school. Perfect GPA in over twenty advanced classes, taking Calculus BC by 10th grade and college math courses by 11th grade. All perfect or near-perfect test scores, tennis captain, multiple leadership positions, a scholarship to a prestigious math program, and state math champion. To boot, as a female applying for math/engineering, she was an underrepresented applicant and hailed from a U.S. state that might be seen as contributing to campus diversity.

Yet, this student was rejected from each and every Ivy League school to which she applied, Stanford, and other highly competitive colleges. So what went wrong?

In this episode, we do a deep dive into one of the most critical “soft factor” components top schools use to differentiate candidates: the essays. In particular, we analyze this student’s Harvard supplement, revealing the mistakes she made—from writing about cliche topics many students discuss to including content that would have been more effective if placed in other components of the application.

By revealing these costly—although highly common—application errors, we hope to shed light on why this student failed to gain admission and how you can avoid making the same mistakes.

“The Game” is hosted by Sam Hassell and brought to you by Great Minds Advising.

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