Today, the college admissions process is nothing like it was a decade ago.

On average, high school students around the country are... (1) applying to twice as many colleges... (2) facing stiffer competition, especially from overseas applicants... (3) dealing with record-breakingly low acceptance rates at top colleges... and (4) feeling more stressed out, as they try to fit into a so-called “perfect” mold.

As a result, there's a TON of misinformation floating around:

"You need to have perfect test scores at any cost..."

"You need to have a flawless GPA..."

"You need to have calculated activities that stuff your resume..."

"So-and-so did XYZ and she got into Yale, so you need to do that too..."

Jeez... that's enough to stress anyone out!

However, the college application process does NOT need to be stressful. And students should NOT try to fit into someone else's idea of a "perfect" mold.

Not only is it inauthentic, but it's also ineffective. Top colleges are already receiving so many applications from candidates who look nearly identical on paper. Even if they have a laundry list of strong credentials, they still look like the same "cookie-cutter" candidates as everyone else.

That's why admissions officers try to answer the one big question, which is “why should I accept THIS student over everyone else who looks just as qualified on paper?”

Today, it's becoming increasingly important for admissions officers to distinguish between an authentic applicant and one who was simply "manufactured" to look flawless. The college consulting industry is booming, and many families pay up to $20K-$50K just to give their children the chance they deserve.

However, if you're not careful, hiring the wrong consultant to "manufacture" your image will backfire in a big way. That's because the college admissions landscape has been evolving rapidly as admissions offices at top universities seek to distinguish fact from fiction.

For example, did you know that Harvard now scores students on a numeric scale from 1 to 6 for qualities like "personality," "humor," and "grit?" Or that Stanford has explicitly stated that they evaluate all of your achievements in context with your background, past experiences, and education pathway?

In other words, virtually every top university has shifted to a more holistic evaluation system to understand candidates at a deeper level. Rather than basing their decisions solely on individual metrics such as a student's GPA or test scores (which can often be "manufactured" to look better), top colleges are looking at the overall “story” that your application tells.

Therefore, the best way to succeed in today's hyper-competitive college admissions environment is to develop a Hub & Spoke Application that tells your unique story in a compelling and memorable way.

Imagine you walk into a shop and you see the following items on display: cupcakes, hammers, TVs, gardening tools, pet food, and organic health snacks..

...you would walk away pretty confused, right?

Sure, you might happen to be craving cupcakes that day... or you might happen to need a replacement shovel... but chances are you'd leave that shop and try your luck at the bakery down the road or the Home Depot instead.

Unlike the local bakery with 4.5 stars on Yelp or the Home Depot with a huge selection of shovels, the "hodge podge" store simply does not have any central theme, brand, or story behind it. It's not memorable, and you'd probably doubt the quality of the cupcakes being sold alongside pet food and hammers.

Unfortunately, this is how most students structure their college applications. It's a "hodge podge" of individual inputs: GPA, test scores, recommendations, essays, etc. While each of those are important individual inputs into the equation, they don’t tell the big picture by themselves.

Successful admission to the top schools require more than a list of credentials. You need to tell your unique story in order to truly stand out. In other words, in a Hub & Spoke application, each piece of your application will work in harmony to tell a cohesive and memorable story about you, the applicant.

The Ivy Admissions Review is an invite-only application review package that we don't offer publicly. In a nutshell, we help you craft the perfect Hub & Spoke application.

Note that it does NOT mean we "manufacture" an image for you. On the contrary, we bring out the full potential that students already possess.

Our goal is to help students showcase their best strengths and highlight what makes them truly unique. We help you tell YOUR story... not ours. And that's the ONLY way to make a lasting impression on college admissions officers.

The Ivy Admissions Review package includes the following services:

✔ - Personalized Hub & Spoke Strategy ($1,497 Value)

Every case we take on, we start with the student's holistic story. Instead of treating each piece of the application in isolation, we help students tell their own unique story in a cohesive and persuasive way. We go the extra mile to think about how each piece fits into the big picture.

✔ - 360° Mock Application Review ($4,997 Value)

The Mock Application Review is the centerpiece of this package. We go through your entire application line-by-line and find all the red flags, fine-tune your overall Hub & Spoke strategy, and make sure all the "spokes" are cohesive and synergistic. Plus, we cross-calibrate your materials across all of the other applications we've seen, the same way admissions officers do.

✔ - Common App Essay + Supplemental Essays for 3 Colleges ($3,497 Value)

Unlike many other companies, we NEVER outsource essay editing and feedback to cheap "student editors." Instead, each of your essays will be reviewed and revised by three different Ivy League admissions experts, including the two founders of Admission Science. These THREE rounds of high-quality revisions ensure your essays will be as polished as possible.

✔ - Detailed Report & Strategic Feedback ($497 Value)

Rather than just returning a pile of edits to you, we compile a comprehensive, actionable report that you can reference. In addition to application-specific feedback, you'll also receive key strategic feedback, helping you discover any gaps in your holistic story, any red flags that college interviewers might ask you about, or anything else you might not even know you're missing.

✔ - Direct Access to Jordan and David for Your Questions ($2,997 Value)

At Admission Science, we have years of experience, have gone through hundreds of cases, and have evaluated the data from thousands of others. If you have any questions that arise during this process, you'll get direct email access to Jordan and David, the cofounders of Admission Science who are both Harvard graduates and were both accepted into all of the Ivy League schools, plus Stanford.

✔ - Unlimited Revisions of Your Essays

When we return your essay to you after it goes through three expert system, you’ll find that—9 times out of 10 times—it will already feel perfect to you. But what if our edits inspired you to add even more details, or further tweak the structure of your essay? No problem. We understand that you’re under a lot of pressure to get your essays right, so we will work with you until YOU feel like there’s nothing else that can be done.

✔ - Access to the Admissions Accelerator™

The Admissions Accelerator is our flagship self-study course that breaks down the entire college admissions process from start to finish. For seniors, this will be an invaluable reference tool, especially the module for acing the Alumni Interviews. For underclassmen, this course will be your #1 tool for planning ahead and making sure you have all the right pieces in place before your application season.

✔ - Premium Revisions for up to 3 Summer Essays

As a special bonus for any underclassmen reserving your spot today, you’ll also get premium essay revisions for up to three summer essays. This will be especially relevant for students aiming for competitive summer programs. Your summer essays will benefit from the same three expert system that your college essays receive. Again, this bonus is only available in this offer.

"Admission Science was instrumental... I do not think my application would have been nearly the same caliber if I had not discovered Admission Science. I am grateful that they were behind me throughout the college admissions process and I highly recommend Admission Science to high school students who want to ensure their application is the best it can be." 

Before: Odds Stacked Against Him

Jake came to us facing several key challenges.

Challenge #1: Odds Stacked Against Him

First, he was aiming for Stanford, an extremely competitive school with record-low acceptance rates that have continued to trend downwards over the last decade. In Jake's year, Stanford's overall acceptance rate was 4.2%, a historical low for the school. In other words, he needed to have every edge possible in order to stand out from the sea of applicants.

Challenge #2: Overcrowded Major

To make things more complicated, Jake was primarily interested in Biology. This is a very popular subject, with plenty of other applicants sharing this interest. Therefore, he needed to be especially careful to avoid being "just another generic Biology major."

Challenge #3: Inexperience Led to Mistakes in Essays

At first, Jake's essays had many small mistakes and inconsistencies. While each mistake may have been relatively minor, they added up to noticeable flaws that would have distracted readers. The primary challenge here was inexperience—as a student going through this process for the very first time, it's nearly impossible to catch every detail that we would be able to.

Admissions officers read hundreds of essays every day, and it's crucial to make an outstanding first impression. Remember, what makes sense to you as the writer might not make sense to a reader who knows nothing about you.

Challenge #4: Couldn't Decide Between Recommenders

Recommendation letters are an integral part of today's holistic application process. The right (or wrong) recommendation letters can really sway the decision, so it's important to choose teachers who know you well and would really go to bat for you. Jake couldn't decide between several teachers for his last recommendation letter.

Challenge #5: No Central Thread

Finally, perhaps his biggest challenge was that Jake had no central thread tying his entire application together. He wrote "undecided" in the Future Plans section of the application, and his achievements, activities, and essays were thrown together without a holistic story.

After: Unique and Memorable Story

To give Jake the best chance of getting into his dream school of Stanford, we helped him make five key changes in his application.

Key Change #1: Unique and Memorable Story

First, we helped Jake refine a strategic central passion that would serve as a unifying force for the rest of his application. While he was already interested in Biology, we helped him evolve it further based on his past activities and experiences, as well as his future plans. Instead of a "hodge podge" application with loosely-connected pieces, Jake's new application told the story of how he's determined to become a Scientific Researcher, which he wrote in the Future Plans section of his application. Later, when we got to the essays, we were able to help him tell a compelling personal story about why scientific research mattered to him because of his unique experiences growing up.

Key Change #2: Revamped Resume & Activities

After finalizing Jake's central passion, we helped him revamp his resume and the activities section of his application. We helped him restructure his materials to feature his research endeavors front and center. That includes rewording the main points for each activity to convey its full weight and value.

Key Change #3: Powerful, Relatable Essays

Through our premium essay revision service, which is included in the Ivy Admissions Review, we were able to help Jake polish his essays in three main ways. First, we helped him improve its accessibility by identifying "logic gaps" that would lose the reader. Then, we helped him add color and specific details to really bring his pieces to life. And finally, we helped him restructure some of his pieces to fit in with the rest of his application, especially given his chosen central passion of Scientific Research.

In addition to those content changes, we helped improve the pieces stylistically through suggesting more interesting hooks, scrapping unnecessary bloat, and sharpening the vocabulary to be more natural and relatable.