How to Get Accepted into the Ivy League in High School

Introduction: The Ivy League

Getting accepted into an Ivy League university is a dream for millions of high school students around the world. But college admissions can be a difficult and confusing process, so here are three of the best tips to help you get in.

What is an Ivy League University?

Coined in 1937 by sportswriter Caswell Adams, the term “Ivy League” covers eight of the best universities in the U.S. Originally describing the universities as adorned with ivy, the name now draws over 400,000 applicants a year and carries some of the lowest acceptance rates ever seen.

But just how competitive are these schools? Below is a table of admissions statistics for the class of 2027.

University	Applications Received	Applicants Admitted	Acceptance Rate
Brown	51,302	2,609	5.08%
Columbia	57,129	2,246	3.93%
Cornell	68,039	4,994	7.34%
Dartmouth	28,841	1,751	6.07%
Harvard	56,937	1,942	3.41%
Penn	59,463	3,489	5.87%
Princeton	39,644	1,782	4.50%
Yale	52,250	2,275	4.35%

So the universities are very hard to get into. What’s the point of even applying?

Good question. Several things make Ivy League universities so appealing:

1. Prestige and name recognition: Ivy League institutions are renowned for academic excellence and world-class programs. The label carries weight, signaling achievement to potential employers and colleagues.
2. Ambitious faculty and peers: they attract top-tier faculty who are leading authorities in their fields. At the University of Pennsylvania, for instance, Dr. Martin Seligman, an expert in positive psychology, teaches in the Penn LPS Online Certificate in Applied Positive Psychology program. Engaging with accomplished faculty and motivated peers enhances your learning and builds skills you might not gain elsewhere.
3. Lifelong networks: the connections you build become a valuable network later. They span many fields and can open doors to jobs and collaborations. A significant portion of Fortune 500 directors and CEOs attended elite undergraduate institutions, as have many entrepreneurs and other successful people.
4. Exceptional resources: from advanced facilities and large libraries to substantial research funding and unique extracurricular programs, the resources are extensive.
5. Career boost: research indicates that attending an Ivy League university may boost mid-career earnings by nearly 29.7%¹. The prestige of an Ivy League degree can meaningfully shape your career.
6. Small class sizes and personal attention: smaller classes allow meaningful interactions with professors, fostering mentorship and individualized learning.
7. Undergraduate research opportunities: these universities encourage undergraduate research, giving access to groundbreaking projects and collaborations that can shape your academic and professional path.
8. Variety of courses: whether you’re interested in the liberal arts, sciences, business, or engineering, you’ll find a rich array of courses.

As Harvard undergraduate Rishab Jain said in a video explaining why he chose Harvard over MIT and Stanford (which aren’t Ivy League):

“Harvard has… more opportunities for me to do amazing research and come up with new innovations.”

Now that you know why the Ivies are such a big deal, let’s talk about how to actually get accepted into one.

Tips to Get into the Ivy Leagues

Tip 1: Grades

Grades are crucial and one of the most heavily weighted factors in admissions. They aren’t everything, but they’re a great place to start.

You’ll want strong grades (aim for all A’s) in the most rigorous classes your high school offers. That said, not all classes are equal. AP classes (and some honors classes) are weighted, usually on the same scale, but be thoughtful and precise about which ones you take.

My two biggest tips for choosing classes: pick classes that relate to your intended major, and pick classes you genuinely like that also carry high weight (AP or special honors).

For the first tip: if you know you want to go into STEM, don’t pile on AP Lang, APUSH, AP World, and AP Psych in junior year with only a single AP Calc BC on the side. A more balanced schedule that still has challenging humanities (which colleges want to see) but aligns with your major might be AP Calc BC, AP Physics, AP Stats, AP Lang, and AP Psych. That balances typically easier classes (like AP Psych) with harder ones (like AP Physics) while keeping a STEM focus.

For the second tip, be conscious of how much you can handle and how much you actually want to take a class. Just because everyone else is taking a class doesn’t mean you should.

For example, if everyone in your grade is suddenly set on AP Chemistry, take it only if you genuinely have a passion for it and are willing to put in the work, since it’s a very difficult class. It may be more worthwhile to take an easier STEM AP like AP CSP instead. Weigh your options.

How to actually earn good grades once you’ve signed up for a demanding course load goes beyond this article, but there’s a detailed guide on that here.

Tip 2: Extracurriculars

College admissions are a holistic process, and as often as people use that word, many don’t really know what it means. Essentially, colleges look at every facet of a student they can gather from the application, including their life and their work ethic.

Taking everything they can into account, colleges decide whom to accept based on many factors, and one of the most important is a student’s extracurriculars.

Extracurriculars are anything you do outside of school. Many students assume they have to be academic, but that’s not true. Something as simple as caring for your little brother every day after school can count, since the term covers anything you don’t have to do for school that benefits you or the people around you.

So how do you find a good extracurricular that stands out? A few things make one strong:

• Impact: this comes first because it matters most. There’s a stark contrast between planting trees for an hour a week and running a non-profit that helps plant millions of trees a year. The latter is more impressive, but it also takes much more work and time, which is what you should aim for.
• Relevance: not just to your major (which should be a top priority to figure out), but to the world. Make sure your extracurriculars align with what you want to do during and after university, and that they address a real-world problem rather than something done just for fun. If you’re interested in neuroscience, real lab research toward curing cancer looks more impressive than working at McDonald’s (no offense to the food).

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• Difficulty: this is the final box to tick. If you meet the criteria above, you probably already have something difficult, but for things like summer camps and research programs, research the acceptance rate or ask past attendees whether it was rigorous. The more challenging or rare the experience, the more rewarding it tends to be, and the more it impresses admissions officers.

Overall, extracurriculars are very important for admission to the Ivies and other T20 universities, and should be a priority outside of school.

Tip 3: Essays

This one is for late juniors and early seniors. College essays tie together everything you’ve done over the past four years and present it to admissions officers. They’re your chance to make an impression and show who you are, so they matter.

One of the biggest things to know is that essays often have strict word limits, sometimes 100-200 words, that really limit what you can reveal. So choose carefully. Don’t just repeat things already shown in your accomplishments.

Some things about you are already implied by the rest of your application, and you don’t need to overstate them. For example, if you have many leadership and volunteer positions, you don’t need an essay about a time you had to step up and lead. Admissions officers already know you’re a strong leader. They’ll be asking what else you’re good at.

Many people get a touch of imposter syndrome when writing their applications and feel they need to inflate themselves to seem like a demigod. But that kind of exaggeration (or outright lying) often backfires, since admissions officers are very good at spotting it.

So the most important essay tip is this: write about something genuine and original that makes you who you are, something nobody else does quite the way you do, no matter how small. If the Ivies see a student who is a little less academically polished but has a real personality, is driven, and brings new insights, you stand out more than the typical ultra-smart but interchangeable applicant.

Conclusion: Your Next Step

So there you have it. With a bit more backing you up, go get ’em. All that’s left is to learn from as many people as you can so you’re well-prepared for both college and life.

To take the first step, check out the admissions file of this Harvard undergraduate to see exactly how he got in: