This Florida student was accepted at all eight Ivy League schools. (He chose Yale)

By Mike Li

Director of US Admissions

Congratulations to Mr. MacFarland for gaining acceptance to all the Ivy League universities and having his pick of the litter!

There are many intangibles that surely made Mr. MacFarland irresistible to the very best universities. Of course his scores were nearly perfect, but the key trait that the top schools undoubtedly detected was his personal motivation. His interest in learning two other Romantic languages (French and Spanish) and Arabic are not skills that have clear, intrinsic value to a student’s academic potential. However, the intense commitment required to invest in a curiosity, which is not at all unique (hundreds of millions of people speak these languages), demonstrates that Mr. MacFarland has a well-grounded sense of what he wants to learn, and takes the initiative to learn unprompted.

There is a famous case of a student who scored 1500 on his first SAT attempt, 1560 on his second, and finally a perfect 1600 on his third attempt. Harvard rejected this student on this basis: their rationale was that the student had the wrong priorities – he was too focused on getting a perfect score on a multiple choice test. Mr. MacFarland is proof that you need not focus on what you think Ivy League schools want from you in order to gain admission. Instead, you should focus on what you want from the world.

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