How to Get Into an Ivy League College - First Chapter
Strategic Overview
In order to understand college admissions strategy, you must understand the treatment and selection effects, the theory of infinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemmas, the diamond-water paradox, and the principle of diminishing returns. Our approach to college strategy involves more abstract theory than those used by other firms. That’s what gives us the advantage. Understanding this theory is the key to being able to create a world class college application.
The Treatment Effect and the Selection Effect
In education, you have a “treatment” approach and a “selection” approach. A treatment approach means trying to make people smarter. A selection approach means trying to figure out which kid is already naturally the smartest.
Selection based education is mostly useless. It provides nothing to the student. It doesn’t make him any smarter; it just tells other people how smart he already is.
Elite colleges rely almost entirely on the selection approach. In other words, they don’t have particularly good training or education. Their classes aren’t any better than those at community colleges. In fact, having personally attended both Ivy League classes and community college ones, I’d have to admit they are often a bit worse.
Instead, elite colleges choose the kids who are already mentally and academically superior.
Because of this, you need to convince colleges that you are a rare and magical diamond. Not that you just work hard. Not that you do the same extracurriculars as everyone else in a greater quantity. Not that you care more about grades. Not that you get more of your homework done.
You must convince colleges that there is something special and innate in you. And in order to do that, you will have to convince your school of the same thing, causing them to tell the college that there is something rare and amazing within you. So, to summarize:
Principle 1: Convince Colleges that you are Innately Rare and Special
Prisoner’s Dilemmas and Infinitely Repeated Games
If you study economics, you will study the prisoner’s dilemma. Here’s the situation:
Fred and Paul are involved in a robbery and get caught. If both maintain their silence, both get a month in jail. If both rat each other out, then both get 10 years in jail. If one person talks and the other is silent, the talker gets no jail time, but the silent person gets 20 years in jail.
The ideal situation: both keep silent. But that’s not what game theory predicts.
Fred knows that no matter what, he should rat out Paul. If Paul talks, it’s better to talk too. Then Fred will only get 10 years in jail instead of 20. If the Paul is silent, it’s still better to talk because then Fred will get no jail time at all. Paul takes the exact same facts into consideration. The result: both talk, and both get 10 years in jail.
However, game theory gets more interesting if there is an infinitely repeated game. That means, two parties are locked in a repeating process. In our case, suppose Fred and Paul work together forever. Then, they could use strategies to make the other person keep silent. This would allow both prisoners to get lower punishments.
They may use a “tit-for-tat” strategy. Fred can tell Paul that whatever Paul does to him in round 1, Fred will do to Paul in round 2. Whatever Paul does to Fred, Fred does the same to Paul.
They may use a “trigger” strategy. Fred tells Paul: “I’ll keep collaborating with you, as long as you keep collaborating with me. But if you tattle even once, I will never collaborate with you ever again.”
So, how does all this relate to your college admissions?
Your school is locked into an infinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma with your desired college. Your school would benefit the most by having a student go to Harvard. It helps your school’s reputation. They have a huge incentive to lie and say that some student is the greatest, smartest, most brilliant genius in history.
However, if your school lies to a college, or even stretches the truth, the college will retaliate. The college will stop trusting the school, stop accepting students from the school entirely, etc. If the college is nice, it might freeze your school out for a year or two. If not, it might freeze your school out permanently.
Colleges also have plenty to gain from working with your school. Your school has real, on the ground information about which students are truly extraordinary, and which just hired a journalism major to write them an essay. Colleges would strongly prefer to work with your school, rather than to break off the relationship.
So, with a general “trigger strategy” in play, the following truce has developed: colleges trust your school, and your school doesn’t lie to colleges. A college believes pretty much anything your school says about you. After all, if your school lies, the consequences are disastrous for your school.
That means that if you convince your school that something is true, and it tells that to the college, the college will believe your school.
If your school thinks you are a rare, genetic genius, then it will tell that to the college. If your school thinks that you are one of your generation’s visionaries, it will tell that to the college. And the college will, absolutely, 100% believe it.
On the other hand, if you tell the college that you are one of the major visionaries of your generation, they will just laugh at you.
Most amateur college strategists believe that college strategy is mostly about what you tell the college. They are wrong. Real college strategy is about what you tell your school. Real college strategy is about convincing your school that you are a rare and magical diamond.
Principle 2: Do college strategy to your school, not to the college.
The Diamond Water Paradox: The Principle of Diminishing Returns
Diamonds are expensive. Water is cheap. Water is necessary for life. Diamonds are necessary for nothing.
One reason that diamonds cost more is because they are rarer than water. Even though water is essential, it’s common. It falls from the sky. Diamonds do not.
The same principle applies to college admissions. A college has accepted 999 people who are good at math and science, have high SAT scores, and high grades. Now there is one spot left. What will make a more interesting intellectual atmosphere: one more math nerd, or one kid who makes origami chess boards?
Of course, the college still needs people who are actually awesome at academics. If all 1000 students were making origami chess boards, but not good at math, you wouldn’t have a college; you’d have a kindergarten.
The most effective strategy involves two parts. First, have excellent grades and SAT scores. We’ll talk about how to make that happen in the Academics chapter. Second, have one or two things that make you radically stand out. To do that, you need to understand the concept of diminishing returns.
Diminishing Returns
Imagine the following situation: you are allowed to eat one ice cream sundae a year. One year, you are allowed to have a second one at the 6 month mark. How do you feel? Probably pretty excited (assuming you like ice cream sundaes).
Now let’s say that you must eat one ice cream sundae every minute. Then, you are forced to eat an additional ice cream sundae in one minute. How do you feel? Probably nauseous.
The principle of diminishing returns basically says this: as you get more of a thing, each additional thing has less and less value. The 900th sundae is not as exciting as the first or second one.
Elite colleges see tens of thousands of nearly identical applications. They all look like this:
High grades, sat scores, and AP scores
Played piano or violin
Internship at NIH or other large government research lab
Community service at local nursing home or school, sometimes abroad.
All that stuff is good, but it’s not rare. There is so much of it that college admissions officers are relieved to see pretty much anything else.
To stand out, you have to do something completely different (although you still need high grades and SAT scores, obviously.)
Principle 3: Be like a diamond, not like water. Be rare, not just essential.
Final Note: The Two Step Admissions
Here’s how the college admissions process works: first, a computer looks at your grades and SAT scores to make sure they are high enough. Second, if they are high enough, then a human reviews your essays, recommendations, and extracurriculars.
Note that a human will not bother with your grades and SAT scores. Uninformed students often tell each other that colleges care whether you take the SAT one time or three times. This is false. No one cares about minor details of your SAT scores.
As long as your SAT is high enough, you’re fine. A 1600 SAT score is the same as a 1550 SAT score for college admissions. The only exception is for a recruited athlete, which I’ll discuss later in this book.
Once your grades and SAT scores are high enough, don’t obsess about minutia. Focus on big areas like essays, extracurriculars, and recommendations.