How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

http://crushable.com/other-stuff/how-i-snuck-into-the-ivy-league-and-you-can-too/

by atestu • 16 years ago

91 83 16 years ago

I'd argue the author didn't really sneak in.

I think graduating high school seniors are held to a different standard than working adults - which the author technically was.

But, the strategy is good. I did almost the same thing. I took graduate CS classes and was later accepted into SEAS at Columbia. I ended up going to another school that worked with my commute better but, if you are set on going to a specific school, establishing a relationship there will help you - but only if you get good grades :-) You still have to prove you are serious about the education.

Alex39172• 16 years ago

I think a much better strategy would be to just become among the best in the world at something in high school. This is a lot easier than you'd think, as it really only takes 4 hours a day to become better than 99.9% of HS students at virtually anything. Failing that the author's strategy is probably the best backup, assuming you're committed to getting a college degree from an elite college.

radq• 16 years ago

I am probably nitpicking, but there is a major difference between being the best in the world at something and being better that 99.9% of HS students.

It is not easy to become the best in the world in any field you choose, and the choice of field would also be quite important from an admissions perspective.

Alex39172• 16 years ago

"There is a major difference between being the best in the world at something and being better that 99.9% of HS students."

Depends how you look at it. If you're one of the top 25 HS students in your field then you're probably only 15% as good as a professional, but you've probably put in at least 30% of the hours and gone through 60% of the pain needed to get there. In any event for most fields you probably only have to be one of the best HS students, unless you're picking something like ski jumping.

achompas• 16 years ago

You also run the risk of becoming very good at something you might not like very much. That's just wasted time.

antidaily• 16 years ago

Or you could get a job as a janitor... and then solve a difficult graduate-level problem from algebraic graph theory that a prof leaves on the chalkboard.

pak2• 16 years ago

Will Hunting never actually matriculated. You could say he was being exploited, actually, because of his legal situation.

rick_2047• 16 years ago

If only Indian colleges worked that way. They have only one way to get it (I mean the finest one's IITs/NITs/BITS/IIIT/Best state colleges), give there entrance exam after 12th class. Crack it, your in, don't crack it, your out.

Also I like how the American colleges allow you to take several classes which are not related to my branch. I could tailor my degree to my requirements.

<irrelevant unfulfilled desire> If I had the chance I would have taken basic and advanced electronics (from semiconductor theory to VLSI anything in between), all the computer achitecture classes (from digital systems to advanced parallel computing systems) with embedded systems & DSP, lots of math and 4 specific computer science classes (algorithms, operating systems, AI and data structures).

That would have really fulfilled all my desires.

</irrelevant unfulfilled desire>

bitwize3• 16 years ago

This is pretty much the way it is in any country with a non-dysfunctional school system. Germany, Japan, etc.

In the U.S. we have been hypnotized by the notion of everybody is special" and "anybody can make it". (Also, "everybody has to go to college if they want a good job".) This sort of milquetoast egalitarianism has had the expected result: diminished educational standards, even the Ivies. If you flunk the university admissions exam in Germany, you can still go to trade school and end up with an education at least as good as a U.S. undergraduate degree.

iskander4• 16 years ago

For a country with a dysfunctional university system, the US certainly seems to create a disproportionate share of the good research.

kingkilr• 16 years ago

You're conflating two completely unrelated failings. For example you ignore the fact that in the US the SAT/ACT carry large weight with most schools, and you know what? It's a terrible predictor of college success. Contrary to the this post, most attendees of prestigious schools have all the traditional qualifications. The failures of the American education system are far and wide, but giving too many people an equal shot at a good education are far from one of them.

chrisaycock• 16 years ago

How I got accepted to grad school: I sent a typed letter as "priority mail" (where the recipient has to sign for it) to the prof I wanted to work with.

It was my junior year and I told him I could meet him in-person during spring break. He agreed and I traveled out there as promised. The screwed-up part was that he ended-up leaving town that week and I didn't get a chance to meet him! So I talked to everyone in the department I could get access to.

Eventually the department head at the time liked what I had to say, so he told me he'd see me back the next year.

wallflower• 16 years ago

Strategies for getting an Ivy League degree (not undergrad though):

"How to game the U.S. higher-education system"

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2009/1/24/11657/1141

pandafood3• 16 years ago

This sort of sneaking in is pretty pointless though. The only really good reason to go to one of these schools is that everyone knows how hard is is to get in. If you go to a different part of the school that isn't as hard to get into (this is what GS is at Columbia) then you throw away that advantage and you're left paying three times what you should be for an education that, as was alluded to elsewhere in the comments, you could have gotten for 1.50 in late charges at the public library.

ojbyrne• 16 years ago

10 years down the road, when you're up for that VP position that requires a degree from a "good school," nobody is going to notice.

sgk284• 16 years ago

But you get to put Columbia on your resume either way. That's all most companies care about.

pandafood3• 16 years ago

That's true for most employers, but the extra value of the Ivy League degree isn't that it's slightly more impressive to employers that would have employed you anyways, it's that it's pretty much essential to impress the standard gatekeepers to American high society: investment banks, law firms, and - to a lesser extent - medical schools, all of whom definitely make the distinction.

ryanc• 16 years ago

Harvard has a similar option called Harvard Extension, its also where Hillary Duff attended.

Nrsolis8• 16 years ago

I finished my bachelors at Harvard Extension. As far as I'm concerned, it's been a worthwhile investment. As a guy in his late 30's, I didn't want to deal with the traditional college experience. I also didn't want some sham degree from a for-profit degree mill. HES was a perfect option for me.

What isn't often mentioned is that the courses at HES are often live streamed from actual Harvard College courses. Same course, same grading. I've directly questioned my profs about this and they say that they don't differentiate between students in either population even if Harvard sometimes lets people believe they do.

The CS courses are the bomb, BTW. The CS faculty at Harvard are very supportive of nontraditional students.

andrewjshults• 16 years ago

I think more importantly it ignores the networking effect that being in the general undergraduate program has. While I'm sure that people who attend the GS type programs at the various top universities are bright, you don't generally get to make the same connections as regular undergrads do (at Penn most GSE classes were later at night and I believe it was much harder for GSE students to take the regular undergrad classes).

I would say that while I loved everything I did while I was in school, it was the outside the classroom opportunities (student government/organizations) which were generally restricted to just undergrads that really taught me the most useful skills and connected me to a much broader network of people that I've found very helpful in my professional life. While I wouldn't say that it's a bad idea to "sneak in" I don't think it's the same experience/value as the regular undergrad program.

milkshakes2• 16 years ago

Or you could just start "dropping in" on classes.. That's the first thing that came to mind when I read the title.

csallen• 16 years ago

Really. I went to MIT for undergrad, and my experience there was nobody questions who you are in classes with 40+ people. (The one exception was an AI class I took senior year with Patrick Winston. There were almost 100 students, but he quite impressively memorized the names and faces of every student before the first day of class.)

eli• 16 years ago

I suspect most professors would be happy to have an extra student who really wants to be there, even if that student isn't actually a student.

yaseming• 16 years ago

<3 PHW

pak2• 16 years ago

However, you don't get any credit, or a degree. So it doesn't really matter whether the classes you drop in on are Ivy League or not, just that you are learning enough to make it worth your time. You won't be able to validate your knowledge of the course material later with anything but a personal demonstration.

milkshakes2• 16 years ago

Fair point. Most of the classes I drop in on are large, lecture based classes, where I'm going more for the lecturer than for the validation.

In some cases (CS courses), it's really the peers/TAs that matter more than the lecturers. Of course, gaining trust and access with them is trickier than just showing up to a lecture, but it's definitely not impossible :)

rdl• 16 years ago

I did this for 3 semesters after running out of money (at MIT, undergrad) and thus being unable to afford tuition. It was a little easier since I was in the system -- I could register, take classes, and then they would deregister me retroactively each semester. I got to take classes, sit exams, etc., just didn't end up with credit.

I actually learned more in classes where I knew I wouldn't successfully remain registered than before, since the only reason was to learn.

If the school itself hadn't screwed me over so much on financial aid/loans (0, since my parents wouldn't pay any of the "expected parental contribution"), I would feel bad for imposing marginal costs.

gamble• 16 years ago

Or just listen to or watch the classes online. Plenty of great schools have audio or video podcasts of lectures available.

terryjsmith2• 16 years ago

Let me just say that as the PHP developer at B5Media, which owns Crushable and other blogs, this is the last place I expected to see one of our articles. Please let me know if you have thoughts or feedback on the design or site itself.

InfinityX02• 16 years ago

Like the design, but I absolutely hate the brand name. You will forever be a Mashable-ripoff because of it. Nothing you can do now but ick, that was not a good decision.

terryjsmith2• 16 years ago

I'm not sure I follow. Just because they end in the same 4 letters doesn't mean they have anything to do with one another. They are completely separate target audiences and demographics (technology aficionados/18 - 30 males compared to women's fashion and entertainment news/18 - 24 women). We've much more copied some other sites in our space like Gawker, Lemondrop, etc.

Glad you like the design though :)

blaines• 16 years ago

I didn't really get the name at first, but really it's the content that counts. 4/5 stars!

justin• 16 years ago

I actually like the name. Not sure why, probably because I like crushing things.

geezer• 16 years ago

This goes to show that what you buy at an elite college is the degree, not education. At most of these colleges, you can take as many classes as you want, but you won't get the degree unless you fulfill their admission criteria.

imr• 16 years ago

Columbia has lots of ways to enroll. I did the 3+2 engineering program, and I was far from Ivy League material when I left high school.

iskander4• 16 years ago

There's a more general lesson here: personal interactions are the quickest way to bend the rules. You may have a stellar application/resume, but so do many other candidates. If you want to get an unconventional outcome, do it in person.

Related: I was a terrible student as an undergrad and when I later applied to grad schools I got rejected by every university with half a shred of self-respect. So, I enrolled as a non-degree student, took mostly Ph.D.-level courses and befriended my professors. That's how I "snuck" into grad school.

bobf2• 16 years ago

This was also very similar to my biggest takeaway from Startup School, actually. Any of the advice about how to gain customers, traffic, etc. when starting out was centered on real-world actions people took -- like evangelizing via meetups, as one example.

kmfrk2• 16 years ago

I'd rather say that the lesson is that getting in comes down to people, not rules. A bureaucracy requires bureaucrats.

There are many people who'll stand in your way of getting into a university moreso than arbitrary rules. I don't know if you have a good term for people who occupy their administrative desks like thrones (here, we call them "desk popes" translated directly.)

I recall applying to a highly-esteemed British university once, and I was aghast at what a sordid mess it was to apply as an international student (no info wheresoever, and Open Days was announced mere weeks beforehand), not to mention the admission gatekeepers themselves.

It's worth noticing how she got in:

>I spoke to a counselor at General Studies, who was similarly encouraging. I showed him my transcripts and the As I’d gotten at Columbia so far. He said: “Great! Yeah, you’d be a terrific candidate for GS!” He encouraged me to keep taking classes at Columbia and apply to GS for the following semester. I told him I didn’t want to keep spending money at Columbia if I wasn’t eventually going to get a degree. He told me I wouldn’t have any trouble getting in. And the credits would go towards my degree.

>Except it didn’t work out that way. Three months later, I applied to matriculate at Columbia through the General Studies program. My application was rejected. Let’s just say I was a little pissed. I could have applied somewhere else. Or returned to SUNY Geneseo. But taking two semesters of classes at Columbia is EXPENSIVE.

Did she get in, because the rules allowed it, or because a guy there screwed up, and she called him on it? She got in because and in spite of him.

nl• 16 years ago

I was in the UK once, and met a girl who'd just moved to Bath from Australia with her boyfriend to do her PhD. She got there and found out the position had been cancelled and they had forgotten to tell her.

jim_dot2• 16 years ago

Could somebody help me out here - I was under the impression (and perhaps this is just the case for Canadian schools?) that you need a student number to register for courses. If you're not admitted to the school, how can you get a student number to register for courses?

brianbreslin2• 16 years ago

Most us schools offer student id numbers to non degree seeking students. They are charging/filtering mostly for the prestige of their degree.

jim_dot2• 16 years ago

interesting...

jonhendry• 16 years ago

They generally don't let people audit courses (ie, non-credit) for free. Maybe if you're an employee of the institution, or have a connection, but if you go through the registration process you'll have to pay.

I audited a course at Harvard Extension, and the professor said she wouldn't grade the work of auditing students. You could do the assignments, and attend the lectures, but you'd get no feedback.

rubyrescue3• 16 years ago

Quoting from a friend who went to a similar school:

Wow, that is total misinformation. Yes, all the Ivy League schools have General Studies programs but they are looked at as an adult/evening education program. For example, Penn's General Studies program doesn't even require standardized test scores:

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/lps/undergraduate/ba/

I'm sure a person can put on their resume that they have a Bachelor's from Columbia or something but then if someone who went to Columbia (or any Ivy League school) asks them about their experience, it will inevitably come out that they were in the General Studies program and then the person is in a really awkward position because they know that the other person knows that it was General Studies and it seemed like they were trying to pass as a regular graduate, which then starts to feel like resume fraud.

dpritchett2• 16 years ago

I fail to see the distinction. The Penn LPS FAQ (http://www.sas.upenn.edu/lps/faq/general) suggests that their night school students get the same degree and in some cases study with the same professors as the day students. Is there a reason to suspect the quality of the education would be dramatically different?

rubyrescue3• 16 years ago

He wasn't making a comment on the quality of the education; just the fact that it's dishonest to say that the General Studies degree is equivalent in terms of prestige, which the article implies.

hristov• 16 years ago

The distinction is much stronger in Columbia. There you are part of an entirely different school (School of Graduate Studies), which shows up on your diploma and transcripts and which you are supposed to put on your resume. While you may take the same classes and get a degree that sounds the same as the ordinary undergrad schools (Columbia College and Barnard College) you have technically got that degree from a different school.

And they say that transferring out of that school into Columbia college is not easy at all.

pyth0nista• 16 years ago

Is anyone else appalled by that sentiment?

If the whole point of going to an Ivy League school is to obtain an education that supposedly exceeds all others in terms of quality (and cost), who cares how you got admitted, as long as you leave with a degree? These students, at least in the case of Columbia's School of General Studies[1], take the same courses along side regular students and graduate with the same BAs/BSs, albeit granted by a different resident college. These are people clearly capable of handling the coursework of an "elite" institution who would otherwise be kept out by overly restrictive admission requirements, requirements which clearly have more to do with perpetuating the institution's prestige than anything else.

What's next, looking down at transfer students for not taking all of their courses at the school they graduated from? And what about legacy admissions? If we're so concerned about distinguishing between those who were vetted by a selective, supposedly aptitude-based admissions process and those who weren't, shouldn't we assume those graduates who attended the same elite schools their parents did benefited from some form of legacy admission and hold that against them as well?

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University_School_of_G...

Nrsolis8• 16 years ago

Forget what that "other" person said.

If you have a degree, you have a degree. I get the same letters pleading for alumni donations that Eliot Spitzer gets.

It's unfortunate that there are some that cling to a model of social hierarchy that is predicated on beauty contests rather than actual objectively measurable achievement.

I'm argue that someone who earned a degree from Harvard or Yale or Columbia that did the work and earned the grades deserves no less respect than someone who did all that AND passed an admissions process. That process is the only thing that TRULY separates the non-traditional from the tradition student.

wittgenstein• 16 years ago

The title of this article is highly misleading. Does the author really think she accomplished something significant by gaining admission to the General Education program of an Ivy League university by knowing someone? The truth of the matter is that those programs are just not at the same level as the normal programs, and that you don't get an equivalent degree.

cpr• 16 years ago

Another way to sneak into the Ivy League: apply about 35 years ago, like I did, from an out-of-the-way place (San Diego), and you're in. They liked geographic diversity, and there wasn't much competition. ;-)

Oh, I guess Trip Hawkins (of EA founding fame) was from San Diego, too, at the same time, but, still...

kyro• 16 years ago

A physician on the admissions board for a top 40 medical school told me the secret to their process. They separate each applicant into their respective ethnic background, take the top 5% of each pile, and then take a closer look at the individual applications. His words, verbatim, were "So if you're a black guy with a 3.2 gpa, you're good. But an Asian dude with a 3.9? You see that all the time; so good luck." The arbitrary nature of the admissions process of schools in America is pretty ridiculous. I like the way the UK does it -- fairly structured, and your candidacy is more typically rooted in your actual achievements and performance. That and they limit you to the number of schools you apply to, so you don't get kids firing their flak cannons by applying to every school in the nation, taking up spots in 'back up' schools that could be better taken by those who actually want to go there. I could go on and on.

idm• 16 years ago

This is different at every school, and I've never heard of the system you described.

The two grad schools I've gotten a 'behind-the-scenes' look at work like this:

- a team of 3 will review applications

- the applications are split into 3 piles, one pile each

- they rank their pile in order

- the group reconvenes, and they make an argument for their favorites

The one prejudice I've heard of involves the reputation of your undergraduate school. If you weren't from a top-tier place, it would be tough to get onto the top of certain professors' piles.

That part sucks, but I can't corroborate your account of race-based admissions at all. I should also mention that I'm specifically talking about admissions to a graduate research program.

strebler• 16 years ago

Of course, he's out of California and you're in Canada where the admissions process is different (closer to the UK system). This is the sort of thing he's talking about:

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/10/12/24103/

"African-American applicants with SAT scores of 1150 had the same chances of being accepted as white applicants with 1460s and Asian applicants with perfect 1600s"

I'm not sure if that necessarily translates into graduate studies, but I'd guess that it does.

carbocation• 16 years ago

It's not so much arbitrary as it is structured with racial preference in mind. Why that is so, and the degree to which that is good or bad, is probably for a different discussion.

linhir3• 16 years ago

If your resume says that you went to Columbia College (the undergraduate college of Columbia University) when you actually went to the School of General studies then you are lying, pure and simple. Now maybe you can get away with it and maybe many employers do not know the difference, but many do and the two do not look the same. College education at the elite level falls in line with the signaling model of education. If you get into Columbia College as an undergraduate it doesn't matter to many employers what you actually learned, its merely a signal for other things--like that you can learn reasonably easily, that you value education, that you're a relatively smart person, etc. If you go to a general studies program that signal, at least to those who know, is greatly diminished. I can earn an online BA from the Continuing Education School of Harvard University, does that seem the same to you as attending Harvard College?

bobf2• 16 years ago

Doesn't it just depend on what is printed on your degree? You put whatever that says on your resume, simple enough.

Nrsolis8• 16 years ago

First of all, you don't know what you're talking about. Signaling is bullshit. You might as well try and turn one of those acceptance letters into a job offer. See how that works out for you.

The reason elite colleges are elite is because they are filled with people deemed "the elite." Got that?

A big part of the experience at ANY undergraduate school is WHO you happen to be learning WITH not just who you are learning FROM. Harvard made a very deliberate decision to cultivate a class composed of the BEST students from across the nation. It's easy do educate students that are ALREADY motivated, good students. BTW, Harvard also took great pains to make sure that there weren't too many Jews or Asians in the freshman class. (So I guess that signalling thing works in some unanticipated ways too.)

Just keep in mind that signals come in many forms.

linhir3• 16 years ago

I don't really see how signally is bullshit from the examples you've given. Harvard College does make a a decision to cultivate a class composed of the best students, that's sort of the entire point. Acceptance to Harvard College ends up being a signal for those things it selects for, not necessarily those things one actually learns. The gateway is admissions, not what Harvard actually imparts.

Since the admissions standards of Harvard Extension school are lower, it doesn't matter that the students can do the same work. It matters that the students weren't selected in the same way. Selection itself matters to the signal that the education is sending.

As for Harvard (etc) not selecting for Jews and Asians, very explicitly throughout the first 60 years or so (Anyone particularly interested in the topic should read Karabel's The Chosen), that's also, exactly as you point out, a signal sent if you went to Harvard in those years. That doesn't make the policy right or wrong, it just means that if you graduate from Harvard in 1930 you're likely a WASP, and, indeed, that item on you resume is signally to all sort of employers that a good Harvard WASP interviewed you and deemed that your character is fit, that saves a step when they want to hire you at their White-Shoe law firm circa 1935.

hyperbovine• 16 years ago

Once, at UC Berkeley, I attended an informational seminar on applying, where one of the admissions ladies got up and proceeded to tell a story about somebody who appealed her rejection five times, each time to a progressively higher authority on campus. IIRC she appealed all the way to the chancellor. When she got rejected, she would just fire off another letter of appeal. Finally they got tired of dealing with her and admitted her. She (the admission lady) closed by saying something like, "If you complain enough, you will eventually get your way here."

To this day that speech baffles me; I have no earthly idea why any self-interested admissions officer would tell that to a room full of prospective students and their parents.

OTOH the advice did turn out to be good; the squeaky wheels definitely get the grease at a large public university.

Goladus• 16 years ago

Honestly the question isn't really is a Columbia GS degree valuable or prestiguous, but whether going to Columbia school of GS is really a better option than SUNY Geneseo.

Geneseo is a teaching-oriented undergraduate college and one of the best schools in the SUNY system. If you're the sort of person who is going to bust their ass to get into Columbia as an undergrad, you probably could have just busted your ass at Geneseo and then gone to the grad school of your choice, which is arguably more important (unless you are a programmer).

How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

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