
How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too. - atestu
http://crushable.com/other-stuff/how-i-snuck-into-the-ivy-league-and-you-can-too/
======
iskander
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.

~~~
kmfrk
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
_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._

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.

------
antidaily
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.

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

------
rubyrescue
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._

~~~
dpritchett
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?

~~~
rubyrescue
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.

~~~
Nrsolis
That whole prestige thing is BUNK.

For the record, I'm a graduate of the Harvard Extension program (undergrad)
and I'm also a member of the Harvard Club of NY.

If you're in your 20's and have no other accomplishments to speak of then the
signaling effect of having an Ivy League degree is probably going to do
something for you.

But if you're in your 30s or 40s, you're going to be judged on what you've
done outside of an academic environment by almost every single person you
meet.

In fact, trying to game the prestige game in your 30s or 40s by touting your
Ivy League degree is likely to have a NEGATIVE effect on your prospects. Just
ask anyone from Harvard about the "dropping the H-bomb."

Personally, I think the whole prestige thing is just so much hot air. I've met
plenty of dolts with Harvard degrees and plenty of supremely intelligent
people who have only a year or two of college.

Keep this in mind: I have tons of friends who did an undergrad and a graduate
degree at Harvard; not a single one has ever held that over my head or
compared my degree with theirs.

~~~
rubyrescue
Totally agree w/the name dropping your school being a bad thing. However, just
being a member of the club of people from those schools just keeps paying
dividends as your career moves on.

My friend quoted above went to Penn (Ivy League), I went to Auburn University
(State School in Alabama). Both of us moved from the US to Argentina. I'm 36,
he's about the same age.

 _Penn alumni in Buenos Aires? DOZENS, NEY HUNDREDS._ They're CEO's of major
startups here, Argentines who had good grades, wealthy families, and went the
US for school and came back.

Auburn Alumni in Buenos Aires? i'm sure there are a few. Most will be with me
at the sports bar on saturday watching Auburn-LSU. None are Argentines who
went to school in the states and came back to run startups... He has a huge
networking advantage here I don't.

I tried to get Auburn to even start an alumni club here and they ignored my
mails, for instance, whereas the Penn, Harvard, etc. clubs are an ongoing
valuable source of connections and relationships for their members.

I have plenty of connections at this point but it's a natural advantage I
often find myself having to work harder to make up for.

~~~
Nrsolis
Keep this in mind: networking opportunities come in many forms. Alumni clubs
are just one avenue available to someone who is trying to connect with others.

BTW, Auburn is a very good school. Excellent academics and a good reputation
almost everywhere in the world.

Of course, one of the afflictions of state schools is an overemphasis on
sports. My feeling is that there is an attraction affect happening with
certain schools that depends on their "brand." It may be the case that people
who want to enter the corridors of power seek Ivy League degrees while others
want to tap into more localized fraternities focused on something other than
wealth/power/prestige.

------
chrisaycock
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.

------
kyro
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
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
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.

------
thirdstation
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.

------
pandafood
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.

~~~
sgk284
But you get to put Columbia on your resume either way. That's all most
companies care about.

~~~
pandafood
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.

~~~
jrockway
Law firms and medical schools, maybe, but not investment banks. If you're a
programmer, anyway.

------
terryjsmith
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.

~~~
InfinityX0
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.

~~~
terryjsmith
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 :)

~~~
kmfrk
Think what you will, but I think that many tech visitors will make the same
mistake - I almost didn't bother reading the link because of it.

The site is a bit of a font party, so I'd love to see how it would look with
more Georgia and a bigger base font.

I love the concept of a pink colour scheme, but the colour of pink to the
right seems to burn my eyes a little.

I'd also get rounded corners on all your pink boxes.

I think the site design would also benefit greatly from having only a _single_
sidebar. Multiple sidebars is a trend I hate, because few, if anyone, are able
to pull it off. Speaking of sidebar, it doesn't look as good with boxes with
different widths compared to having a sidebar with similarly sized boxes.

Is the blog an Awl-Jezebel-esque concept, or what is the overall idea? It
looks interesting.

------
linhir
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?

~~~
Nrsolis
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.

~~~
linhir
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.

~~~
Nrsolis
So why bother with the education part at all then? Why not just run the
admissions process and announce the winners of the beauty contest?

BTW, which "first" 60 years are you talking about? Harvard's admission process
wasn't /really/ competitive until the 50's.

[http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlar...](http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge?currentPage=all)

~~~
linhir
Well, the real answer is that you learn roughly the same quality of things no
matter what college you go to, not that you don't learn anything anywhere,
just that Harvard College's distinguishing factor is not its education vs.
UMass-Amhert, it is the admission process itself.

Neither of our statements re:admission is exactly correct, but what I meant is
that admissions wasn't anywhere near being fair until at least the early 1960s
(and that's being generous to Harvard), so the 60 years I was referring to was
from 1900-1960. Buuuut, that's not quite right because when Eliot was
President things were a little more competitive, but whatever.

~~~
Nrsolis
SO...why on earth do you think that it's lying to say you have a degree from
Columbia U if it's "only" from the General Studies program.

Did you know that Columbia will hand you a masters degree in Electrical
Engineering or Chemical Engineering even if you've never set foot in New York?

<http://www.cvn.columbia.edu/>

Are those guys (those who earned their degree over the Internet) fakers too?

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

~~~
csallen
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
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.

------
hyperbovine
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.

------
wallflower
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>

------
cpr
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...

------
imr
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.

------
geezer
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.

------
Alex3917
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
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.

~~~
Alex3917
"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.

------
wittgenstein
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.

------
Goladus
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).

------
jim_dot
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?

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

~~~
jonhendry
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.

~~~
brianbreslin
hmmm that makes sense, why would she want to do work for free? she is paid to
teach paying students and help them improve. my parents are both college
professors, and they get paid for online courses based on the # of enrolled
students i think.

------
rick_2047
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>

~~~
bitwize
_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._

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.

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

~~~
bitwize
These days, that's mainly because we import so many East Asians, Indians, and
Europeans into our postgrad programs.

~~~
pandafood
We import them from American universities though. Our high schools are way
more broken than our colleges.

~~~
iskander
That disconnect has always confused me. How does country manage to maintain
the best universities and among the worst high schools in the first world?

