Inside a UPenn Acceptance: One Student’s Journey with The Ivy Institute
The Ivy Institute recently conducted a series of interviews with former students and families to document their journeys through the college admissions process—from the uncertainty and early planning stages to completing their applications and ultimately receiving their admissions decisions.
These conversations explore where each student began, the challenges they encountered, the decisions they made, and how their applications developed over time. They also provide an honest look at what it was like to work with The Ivy Institute throughout the process, including the essay revisions, strategic guidance, application questions, interview preparation, deadline pressure, and personal support that happened behind the scenes.
The following interview features a student who was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania after working closely with The Ivy Institute. To protect the student’s privacy, his name and certain identifying details have been changed. He is referred to throughout this interview as Alex. His responses have been lightly edited for readability.
Interview with The Ivy Institute Student, Alex
Interviewer: Before we get into your experience with The Ivy Institute, can you introduce yourself and tell us where you were accepted?
Alex: Yeah, of course. So, my name is Alex—or I guess Alex for the purpose of this interview—and I’m a high school senior. I was accepted to the University of Pennsylvania, which was honestly, like, the outcome I was hoping for most.
It still feels kind of weird saying that out loud because during the application process, especially toward the end, you almost train yourself not to expect anything. Like, obviously I wanted to get in. I really, really wanted to get in. But everyone tells you that schools like Penn are unpredictable, and you see students online who seem basically perfect getting rejected, so I tried not to picture it too much.
Then the decision came out, and I got in. I was just staring at the screen for a second because I don’t think my brain fully processed what I was reading. I had spent so much time imagining what a rejection or deferral would feel like that I almost didn’t know what to do when it was actually good news.
I was extremely happy. I still am. It was probably one of those moments where all the stress from the past few months just hit me at once, but in a good way. I immediately wanted to tell my family, and I also wanted to tell Michael because he had seen basically every stage of the process, including the parts where I was confused, stressed, overthinking, or sending questions about things that probably seemed extremely small.
Interviewer: What were you feeling when you first started the college application process?
Alex: Overwhelmed. Definitely overwhelmed.
I think before you actually start applying, you understand the process in a very simple way. You think, “Okay, I need good grades, activities, and essays.” That sounds manageable when you say it in one sentence.
But then you open the Common App and realize there are, like, a hundred smaller decisions inside each of those things. How do you describe an activity in 150 characters? What do you put in the organization name? Does this course count as dual enrollment? Should something go in Additional Information, or is that repeating your activities list? Is an essay too serious? Is it not serious enough? Are you talking about an accomplishment too much? Are you not explaining it enough?
And every school has different supplemental essays. Some are 200 words, some are longer, some sound simple but are actually difficult. A question like “Why us?” seems straightforward, but then you realize thousands of people are writing basically the same answer about amazing professors, diverse communities, and interdisciplinary education.
I had ideas, but I didn’t always know which ideas were worth developing. I would write something and think it sounded pretty good, then read it the next day and think, “Wait, this might make absolutely no sense to someone who doesn’t already know me.”
That was a big thing. In my own head, I knew the background behind every experience. But an admissions officer does not know any of that. They only know what you put on the page, and sometimes I was assuming they would understand connections that I had never actually explained.
Also, the process felt very personal. You are basically being asked to take your whole high school experience and turn it into a few pages. That’s strange. It’s not only stressful because you want to get into college. It’s stressful because you want the application to feel accurate. You don’t want to submit something and then think, “That wasn’t really me,” or, “I left out the thing that actually mattered.”
Interviewer: Why did you decide to work with The Ivy Institute?
Alex: I wanted help with the entire application, not just someone checking commas or telling me an essay was “good.”
I think there is this idea that admissions counseling is mostly essay editing. And essay editing was definitely an important part of it, but I needed help understanding how all the sections worked together.
Like, if I discuss tennis in the activities section, should I also discuss it in Additional Information? If I write about one part of myself in my personal statement, should my supplements show totally different sides of me? If a photo folder or extra material is available, how do I organize it so it actually adds something instead of just creating more work for whoever is reviewing it?
Michael and The Ivy Institute helped me look at the application as one complete thing. It wasn’t just, “This sentence is awkward.” It was also, “What does this essay contribute to the reader’s understanding of you?” Or, “You already communicate this somewhere else, so maybe this space should show something new.”
That was useful because I had a tendency to focus very intensely on whatever section I was working on at that moment. If I was editing an essay, that essay felt like the entire application. If I was working on my activities list, then suddenly the activities section felt like the most important thing in the world.
Having someone step back and look at all of it helped me avoid making decisions in isolation.
I also wanted someone I could ask the weird, very specific questions that come up. And I had a lot of those questions. I’m definitely someone who can overthink a checkbox for a very long time. So it helped knowing there was someone who could say, “This is how you should approach it,” instead of me reading ten conflicting opinions online and somehow becoming more confused than when I started.
Interviewer: What were some of the first application questions you needed help answering?
Alex: One of the earlier questions involved coursework I was taking through BYU Independent Study.
I was trying to complete a college application, I think it was for UNC Chapel Hill at that point, and the application asked about dual enrollment. Technically, I was completing BYU coursework, but I wasn’t sure whether that counted as dual enrollment in the way the application meant it.
It was one of those situations where the answer should probably be yes or no, but I could talk myself into both answers.
I was thinking, “Well, it is additional coursework, and it is through a university, so maybe yes.” But then I was also thinking, “I’m not enrolled through my high school in the normal dual-enrollment structure, so maybe saying yes is misleading.”
That seems like a small detail compared with the essays, but at the time it did not feel small. You don’t want to answer something incorrectly, especially when the school might later compare your application with transcripts or other records.
I think one of the benefits of having guidance was not needing to independently become an expert on every administrative definition used by every college. There are so many questions where the wording is slightly different from one application to another.
Instead of guessing, I could ask, explain the situation, and receive guidance based on the actual context.
Interviewer: Did you have any particular difficulty with the Common App activities section?
Alex: Yes. Tennis was probably the biggest example.
Tennis was an important part of my background, especially my experience outside of school, and I wanted colleges to understand it. But I was struggling with where all the information belonged.
Some of the details were already in the activities section, and then I had additional information about my outside-of-school tennis background in the Additional Information section.
A reviewer commented that because tennis was already in my activity list, I should probably merge the details and try to fit them in either the organization line or the activity description.
And I remember reading that and thinking, “Okay, but where?”
There is barely any space. You get a small number of characters, and even the name of the activity takes up part of it. I tried making the changes, but I genuinely thought there wasn’t enough room.
That was one of those comments that sounded simple from the outside. “Just merge the information.” But when you’re actually staring at the character limit, it’s not simple.
I was also worried about deleting something important. If I moved everything into the activity description, I might have to remove context that explained why tennis mattered. But if I left too much in Additional Information, it might look repetitive or like I was using that section to extend my résumé.
Michael helped me separate what was necessary from what was just nice to include. We looked at which details could go in the organization name, which details should be prioritized in the description, and whether there was still anything important enough to justify a brief explanation elsewhere.
That process taught me something about applications in general, which is that you can’t include every detail. That was hard for me because I thought more information would always make the application stronger.
But sometimes more information just makes the important information harder to see.
You have to decide what the admissions officer actually needs to understand. And, um, that sounds obvious now, but it was not obvious when I had multiple tennis details that all felt essential because they were all part of my experience.
Interviewer: What was the essay-writing process like?
Alex: A lot of writing, deleting, rewriting, restoring something I had deleted, and then deleting it again.
It was definitely not this clean process where I wrote a draft, received feedback, fixed it once, and then it was finished.
Usually I would draft something and feel pretty good about it. Then I would receive feedback and realize there were areas that needed to be clearer, more specific, or more personal.
I would revise it, but sometimes I wasn’t completely sure whether I had interpreted the feedback correctly. So I would send it back and say something like, “I did my best to incorporate this. Please let me know if I made the edits the way you envisioned.”
I think that was important because feedback can be interpreted in different ways. Someone might say, “Develop this idea more,” and you think that means adding three sentences of explanation. But maybe what they really mean is that the current example is too general and needs to be replaced with one concrete moment.
There were times when I would technically address the comment but not actually solve the underlying issue. Having another review helped catch that.
There was also the challenge of keeping my voice. I didn’t want the essays to become so polished that they sounded like they were written by a 45-year-old professional author who had never been nervous or awkward in his life.
I wanted them to be clear and strong, obviously, but I also wanted them to sound like me.
That balance took time. Some of my original writing had personality but was messy. Other versions were organized but maybe too controlled. The process was about finding a version that had both.
I also learned that sometimes the problem was not the writing itself. The problem was the idea.
You can spend hours improving sentences, but if the essay is built around a weak or overly broad idea, better wording will not completely fix it. Sometimes we had to step back and ask what the essay was actually showing.
That part could be frustrating because you might feel attached to a draft after spending a lot of time on it. But it was also where some of the biggest improvements happened.
Interviewer: Was there a specific essay revision that stood out to you?
Alex: Yes. There was one essay that needed to be trimmed and polished, and when I received the revised version, I was honestly shocked by how much stronger it was.
I remember basically saying, “Wow, thank you so much,” because it came out amazing.
The essay was shorter, but it somehow felt like it said more. That sounds contradictory, but the unnecessary parts were gone, so the important parts stood out more clearly.
Before the revision, I think I was trying to make sure the reader understood every step of my thinking. And when I do that, I can become repetitive without realizing it. I’ll explain something, then explain what the explanation means, and then maybe give another sentence just in case the first two sentences were not clear.
The edited version trusted the reader more.
It also kept the parts that sounded like me. That mattered a lot because I didn’t want to receive a beautifully written essay that I could never imagine myself saying.
The ideas and experiences were still mine. The revision just gave them a better structure and removed the parts that were distracting from the point.
I think that experience also made me more open to cutting things later. At first, removing sentences felt almost painful because I had spent time writing them. After seeing how much better the essay could become, I started understanding that deleting something does not mean the sentence was terrible. It might just mean it was not necessary in that particular essay.
Still, I wasn’t suddenly amazing at cutting my own writing. I would still look at five sentences and think all five were absolutely essential. So having someone else make those decisions with me was very helpful.
Interviewer: Did your essays begin to feel more connected as the process continued?
Alex: Yes, and that was probably one of the best parts of the process.
At the beginning, each essay felt like a separate assignment. I would open a prompt, try to write an answer, close the document, and then move to another school.
Eventually, the essays started feeling like different parts of the same person instead of unrelated responses.
I remember saying that I really liked the direction of all the essays and that everything was coming together nicely. At that point, the main ideas were there. The biggest challenge was getting some essays down to 200 words.
Two hundred words is not much. You can use 50 words just introducing the topic if you are not careful.
I would have a version I liked, but it might be 260 or 280 words. Then the trimming process would start, and suddenly every word became a negotiation.
I would think, “Okay, I can remove this sentence, but then the transition does not make sense.” Then I would change the transition, but the new transition might be longer than the original one. Or I would remove an example, but then the essay would feel too abstract.
It became almost like one of those puzzles where you move one piece and create a problem somewhere else.
Michael helped make those finishing decisions. Sometimes a sentence I thought was extremely important was basically repeating a point the essay had already made. Sometimes two sentences could become one. Sometimes the opening could start later.
The essays became more efficient, but they also became more connected because we were looking at the application as a whole.
If one essay already showed a certain side of me, another essay did not need to prove the same thing again. It could show something different—maybe a different interest, a relationship, a way I think, or a more personal side.
That helped the application feel fuller. Not fuller in the sense of having more information everywhere, but fuller because the reader was seeing more dimensions of me.
Interviewer: You also worked on a visual folder or portfolio. What did that process involve?
Alex: I had a folder with photos and other materials, and I did not initially realize how much the organization mattered.
In my mind, I knew what every file was. So a file name that seemed obvious to me might not have been obvious to someone opening the folder for the first time.
Michael gave me feedback about the file names, the ordering of the photos, and the overall organization.
After receiving the email about the file names, I created some new names myself, partly to make improvements and partly to give him ideas about what I was trying to communicate. Then I asked for help finalizing them and organizing the folder.
I also reordered the photos based on the instructions.
It was kind of funny because college applications already involve so many major questions, and then suddenly I was spending a lot of time thinking about whether one photo should appear before another photo.
But when you think about it, presentation affects how people understand information. If the strongest or most explanatory image is buried somewhere in the folder, the reviewer might not appreciate the sequence.
It is similar to an essay. The order matters.
I wanted the materials to feel intentional, not like I had just uploaded every photo I could find. I wanted someone to understand why each item was there and how the pieces connected.
I also asked whether further improvements would actually add value. I didn’t want to keep changing things only for the sake of changing them. At some point, you can organize a folder forever.
So part of the guidance was knowing which improvements were meaningful and which details were already good enough.
Interviewer: How did The Ivy Institute help you think beyond the essays themselves?
Alex: They helped with grades, recommendations, interviews, application logistics, and basically all the questions surrounding the written application.
One example involved my interim grades.
There was a question about whether my grades could change, especially my calculus grade, and whether there were upcoming tests that might affect what colleges would see.
I explained that I did not have any calculus tests coming up that would change the grade. I also explained that our interim grades were fixed snapshots of where we were on a particular Friday. They did not update every day based on our live grades.
That distinction mattered because someone looking at the report might assume the grade was still changing or that a stronger result might be available if we waited.
The process made me realize how much timing matters in admissions. When should you send updated information? Is the update significant enough? Will a grade change before the college reviews the application? Is the school looking at an official report, an interim report, or a later semester grade?
Those are not essay questions, but they can still affect how the application is understood.
I think having support beyond the essays was one of the most valuable things. You can write great essays and still feel uncertain about recommendations, course reporting, interviews, or supplementary materials.
Admissions is a collection of small systems, and you are expected to navigate all of them while also taking classes, participating in activities, and being a normal high school student.
Well, trying to be a normal high school student. I don’t know how normal anyone feels during application season.
Interviewer: You considered applying to Dartmouth. What questions did you have about its peer recommendation?
Alex: I wanted to know how important the peer recommendation actually was and how much it could influence the application.
Dartmouth’s peer recommendation is unusual because most colleges do not ask your friend to write about you. Teachers and counselors usually write recommendations, and those people see you in more formal environments.
A peer might see a totally different side of you.
I was trying to figure out who I should ask. Should it be the person who had known me the longest? The friend who had seen me handle difficult situations? Someone who could tell funny or personal stories? Someone who was a strong writer?
Ideally, you want all of those things in one person, but that is not always how it works.
I was also wondering how to guide them. You want your peer to have the tools to write an awesome recommendation, but you don’t want to control the letter so much that it no longer feels authentic.
I didn’t want to say, “Please describe me as compassionate, intellectually curious, and collaborative, and include these three exact examples.” That would feel fake.
But I also did not want to send a friend the form with no explanation and have them write, “Alex is really cool and we hang out a lot.”
Michael helped me think about selecting someone who knew me well enough to provide specific stories and who could show a side of me that the rest of the application might not reveal.
The goal was not to find the most impressive friend or the person with the fanciest writing. It was to find someone who could genuinely say, “This is what Alex is like when there is no teacher or admissions officer watching.”
I liked that idea because the whole process can become very formal. A peer recommendation has the potential to make the applicant feel more human.
Interviewer: How did you approach applications to schools other than Penn?
Alex: There were a lot of applications happening at the same time.
Penn was extremely important to me, but I was also working on Georgetown, Cornell, Princeton, Brown, Harvard, Dartmouth, UNC, and other applications.
Each school has its own personality and its own way of asking questions.
Georgetown, for example, had essays and a prompt involving a special skill or talent. I wasn’t immediately sure what direction to take with that. The phrase “special talent” can make you think the answer needs to be something dramatic, like being a concert pianist or speaking seven languages.
I was trying to identify something that was genuinely meaningful and interesting without forcing a talent just because the prompt used that word.
I also wanted guidance preparing for Georgetown’s interview. I asked Michael to begin looking at the essays, help me brainstorm the first response, and explain how I should prepare for the eventual interview.
Later, I had supplemental essays for Cornell, Princeton, Brown, and Harvard that I wanted reviewed.
That period became a lot to manage because the essays were not interchangeable. You cannot just write one generic response and replace the school name, or at least you definitely should not.
Cornell might be asking about an academic program in a very specific way. Brown might want to understand how you would use its open curriculum. Princeton may ask about service, community, or intellectual interests. Harvard has its own set of shorter prompts.
You have to understand what each school is really trying to learn, while still making sure the application sounds like the same person.
That was challenging because there is a temptation to change yourself for each school. You start thinking, “Maybe this school wants the academic version of me, and this other school wants the creative version of me.”
But I think the better approach was showing different real sides of the same person, not inventing a different applicant for every institution.
Interviewer: Did deadlines become stressful toward the end?
Alex: Yes. Very.
December was probably the most intense period because there were multiple applications, school deadlines, essay reviews, and pressure to finish everything.
I remember asking whether I could receive as many of my Cornell, Princeton, Brown, and Harvard essays back as possible by Sunday because my school was pressuring me to be ready to submit by the end of the next week.
When I wrote that email, I think I knew it was a lot to request, but I was also feeling like everything suddenly had to happen immediately.
That is what application season becomes. You might have known about a deadline for months, but the real pressure does not fully hit until you are close enough to see all the unfinished details.
And it is not only college applications. You still have homework, tests, activities, family responsibilities, and sometimes school counselors asking whether you are ready to submit.
There were moments when I felt very organized, and there were also moments when I was just trying to figure out which document was the newest version.
The deadlines can also make your thinking less rational. You start treating every sentence like it could determine your entire future.
You might spend 40 minutes deciding between “and” and “while,” which probably is not a good use of 40 minutes, but at the time it feels extremely serious.
There were also situations where plans changed. On December 18, I told Michael not to worry about a particular request anymore. Things move quickly, especially around decision releases and submission timelines.
I appreciated that the support could adjust with the process instead of treating every earlier request like it was permanently fixed.
Interviewer: How did you prepare for college interviews?
Alex: I wanted to wait until my application was in a stronger place before completing the interview.
My reasoning was that I wanted a complete understanding of my own application first.
That might sound strange because obviously I knew my own life, but an application is not your entire life. It is a selected version of your experiences, interests, and goals.
I wanted to know exactly what I had emphasized before talking with an interviewer. If the application focused on certain academic interests or activities, I wanted to be ready to discuss them in a way that was consistent but not rehearsed.
I did not want an interviewer to ask, “Tell me more about this,” and have me suddenly realize I had not thought through why I included it.
I was hoping to interview in mid-to-late November, so I was trying to work backward. I thought I should probably submit the first step by around November 10 and begin preparing around then.
I tend to prepare by creating a plan, but then I can overprepare and start sounding robotic. So the goal was to understand the application and have examples ready without memorizing entire answers.
An interview should feel like a conversation. But when you care about the outcome, it is difficult to completely forget that the person is evaluating you.
The Ivy Institute helped me think about common questions, how my answers connected to the rest of my application, and what I wanted an interviewer to remember about me.
It was also helpful to discuss what not to do—like giving a five-minute answer to a question that should take 30 seconds, which is something I could probably do if nobody stopped me.
Interviewer: What was communication with The Ivy Institute like?
Alex: I felt like I could reach out when I had questions, and I definitely did.
Some questions were major, like essay direction or interview preparation. Other questions were very specific, like file names, activity descriptions, course classifications, or whether something belonged in Additional Information.
I never felt like I had to save all my questions for one formal meeting.
There were times when scheduling became complicated. During one school break, I told Michael I was extremely flexible and could meet basically any day or time. I think I said I could literally meet whenever was convenient, including that same day.
At that point, I was probably overly enthusiastic about making sure the meeting happened. I even said he could text me if that was easier.
There was also one meeting I missed because I lost track of time while doing work at school. I felt terrible about that.
I emailed to apologize and explained that I was still working at school during the meeting time. I said it would not happen again.
That was my mistake, and I think it is important to acknowledge that working with a counselor is still a two-way process. The counselor can provide guidance and be available, but the student also needs to keep track of meetings, complete revisions, respond to feedback, and communicate when something changes.
I was not perfect at that. There were probably times when I could have been more organized or responded sooner. But I always felt that Michael was invested in helping me move forward rather than making me feel embarrassed about asking for help.
Interviewer: Did Michael simply make changes for you, or were you involved in the decisions?
Alex: I was definitely involved.
It was not like I sent an application away and then received a finished product that someone else had created.
I wrote the drafts. I made revisions. I reorganized the photo folder. I responded to comments. I explained what I was trying to communicate and asked whether my edits were moving in the right direction.
Sometimes Michael would trim, polish, or make finishing changes, but the content still came from my experiences and ideas.
I think that distinction matters because you have to own the application.
Even from a practical perspective, you might later be interviewed about something you wrote. If the essay does not represent your actual thoughts, you are going to struggle talking about it naturally.
But beyond that, the entire point is for the college to understand you. The application should not become a performance created by someone else.
The feedback helped me communicate more effectively. It helped me decide which stories were strongest, where I needed more detail, and where I was using too many words.
I also learned through the process. By the later essays, I had a better understanding of what a focused response looked like and how to avoid spending half the word count introducing the topic.
I still needed help, obviously. I did not become a perfect admissions writer after three essays. But I became more aware of what I was doing.
There were also times when I disagreed with an edit at first or felt attached to a certain line. Then we could discuss it.
Sometimes I kept a version closer to my original. Other times, after thinking about it, I understood why the change made the essay stronger.
That collaboration made the final work feel more honest because I was not simply accepting changes without understanding them.
Interviewer: What was the hardest part of the process for you personally?
Alex: Managing the small details while still remembering the bigger picture.
I could become extremely focused on one comment. The tennis example is probably the best one.
A reviewer wrote that I should merge information into the activity description, and suddenly that one issue felt like the central crisis of my entire application.
I was staring at character limits, moving words around, and trying to decide whether a phrase belonged in the organization field or description.
Meanwhile, the bigger questions were things like: Does the application clearly communicate who I am? Are the essays showing meaningful parts of my personality? Do the activities reflect how I spent my time and what mattered to me?
It is difficult to think about both levels at once.
Another hard part was knowing when something was finished.
There is always another change you could make. You could replace one word, adjust one transition, or change the order of two sentences.
Sometimes those changes genuinely improve the essay. Other times, you are editing because submitting it means giving up control.
Once you submit, you cannot keep improving it. So I think part of me wanted to continue editing because editing felt safer than being done.
Having Michael review the work helped me distinguish between an essay that still had a real problem and an essay that I was only continuing to touch because I was nervous.
The emotional part was also difficult.
You spend months working on applications, but there is no guarantee. You can do everything carefully and still not know what will happen.
That uncertainty is probably the hardest part of applying to highly selective schools. You want to believe effort will produce a predictable result, but admissions does not work exactly like that.
The best you can do is submit something you feel represents you well and then accept that the decision is outside your control.
I was not always great at the accepting-it-is-outside-your-control part.
Interviewer: How did you feel when you opened your UPenn decision?
Alex: I was just unbelievably happy.
I remember seeing that I got in, and for a second I did not fully react. I think my brain was checking whether I had read it correctly.
Then it became real, and I was like, “Oh my God, I actually got in.”
After months of writing essays, revising activity descriptions, checking deadlines, worrying about grades, preparing for interviews, and asking questions about tiny sections of the application, there was finally an answer.
And it was the answer I had hoped for.
I immediately thought about everyone who had helped me.
I wanted to tell Michael because he had been part of the process from the detailed application questions all the way through the final stages.
I wrote to him that I could not be happier and that I could not thank him enough for all the help and support he provided throughout the journey.
I also told him he was truly one of a kind. I meant that.
It is hard to describe the value of having someone support you through the parts that nobody sees.
People see the acceptance announcement. They do not necessarily see the email where you are confused about a tennis activity description or the meeting where you are trying to decide whether an essay sounds like you.
They do not see you cutting 70 words from an essay at midnight and then wondering if you accidentally removed the entire point.
So when I saw the acceptance, I thought about all of those moments too.
It was not just, “I got into Penn.” It was also, “All of that work led somewhere.”
Interviewer: Did The Ivy Institute’s support stop after you were accepted?
Alex: No, and that became important almost immediately because I still had questions about my BYU Independent Study courses.
Getting accepted does not mean every responsibility disappears.
I was wondering what would happen if I did not finish the courses. If I anticipated that I might not complete them, should I withdraw or drop them? Would Penn ask for the transcripts regardless? Would I have to explain why I did not finish or why I withdrew?
Those questions felt serious because you hear stories about colleges expecting students to maintain the academic plan they reported.
I did not want to make a decision that could create a problem with my acceptance.
That was another point where I appreciated having someone I could ask.
The relationship did not end the moment the acceptance arrived. I still needed guidance about how to handle obligations after admission.
I think students sometimes imagine that once they get accepted, they can completely relax. And emotionally, yes, there is a huge sense of relief.
But you still have to finish senior year, maintain your grades, complete required coursework, send final documents, and communicate with the college if something changes.
Having continued support helped me approach those decisions carefully instead of assuming they did not matter anymore.
Interviewer: Looking back, what did The Ivy Institute contribute most to your application?
Alex: I think the biggest contribution was helping me turn a lot of separate pieces into one coherent application.
Before that, I had essays, tennis, coursework, photos, grades, recommendations, and interview plans. Each piece existed, but they did not automatically tell one clear story.
The guidance helped me understand what each section was doing.
The activities list needed to communicate what I did and the scope of my involvement. The essays needed to show how I thought, what mattered to me, and parts of my personality that numbers could not show.
The Additional Information section needed to clarify things, not become another activities list. The supplementary materials needed to be organized and purposeful. The interview needed to reinforce the person shown in the application while still feeling like a natural conversation.
Michael also helped me become clearer.
I sometimes knew exactly what I meant but did not communicate it efficiently. I would include too much background or assume the reader understood something that I had not explained.
The process helped me say what I actually wanted to say.
I still felt that the final application was mine, but it was a much stronger version of mine.
That is probably the best way I can explain it. It was not about becoming a different applicant. It was about making sure the reader could actually see the person and experiences that were already there.
Interviewer: What would you say to a younger student who is considering working with a college admissions counselor?
Alex: Start earlier than you think you need to.
Everyone says that, and when you are younger, you think, “Yeah, yeah, I have time.”
Then suddenly it is September or October of senior year, and you are trying to write multiple essays while completing schoolwork, managing activities, asking for recommendations, and figuring out application portals.
Starting earlier gives you room to think.
It also gives you time to write a bad first draft, which I mean in a good way. Sometimes you need to write the wrong version before you understand what the right version should be.
If you start too late, every draft feels like it needs to be immediately usable, and that creates more pressure.
I would also say that students should not assume working with a counselor means the counselor will do everything for them.
You have to stay involved. You need to provide the stories, complete the revisions, attend meetings, ask questions, and be honest when something is not working.
Also, ask the small questions.
I asked about course classifications, tennis descriptions, file names, interim grades, recommendations, interviews, and what would happen if I did not finish a course after being accepted.
Some of those questions probably looked tiny compared with the main essay, but they mattered to me and affected decisions I had to make.
It is better to ask than to spend three hours reading anonymous forum posts from people who are all completely confident and somehow giving opposite answers.
I would also tell younger students not to become obsessed with trying to sound impressive.
That is something I think almost everyone does at some point. You start replacing normal words with strange words you would never say because you think admissions officers want applicants to sound sophisticated.
But the essays that felt strongest were usually the ones that sounded honest and specific.
A real detail about how you think or what you experienced is more interesting than a paragraph full of impressive-sounding language that could belong to anyone.
Interviewer: What advice would you give students specifically about working with The Ivy Institute?
Alex: Be open about what you are confused about and be willing to do the work between meetings.
The Ivy Institute can provide a lot of guidance, but they can help you more when they understand your actual experiences and what you are trying to communicate.
Do not only send the polished version of yourself.
Tell them when you do not understand a comment. Tell them when you are stuck between two ideas. Tell them if an essay is technically fine but does not feel like you.
I think some students might feel like they need to impress their counselor too, but that is not really useful. The counselor needs to see the messy thinking so they can help you organize it.
Also, complete the revisions.
Feedback only helps if you actually go back into the document and work through it. There were times when I made edits and then asked whether I had implemented them correctly. That back-and-forth was part of the process.
And do not expect the first version to be perfect.
You might have an essay where the core story is good but the structure is confusing. You might have a 280-word essay that needs to become 200 words. You might have an activities description with too much information and no clear priority.
Those are normal problems.
Working with Michael and The Ivy Institute helped make those problems feel manageable because I did not have to solve every one alone.
I still had to write, revise, organize, and make decisions, but I had someone helping me understand what the next step should be.
That was probably one of the biggest differences. When you are applying alone and something is not working, you might not even know why it is not working.
With guidance, there was usually a clearer path forward.
Interviewer: How would you summarize your experience in one final thought?
Alex: Um, I think The Ivy Institute helped me communicate the strongest and most honest version of who I already was.
That sounds kind of polished for a final answer, but it is true.
The process had a lot of stressful moments. There were times when I felt behind, times when I did not understand feedback, and times when I thought a 200-word essay might actually defeat me.
There were also times when everything started clicking—when the essays felt connected, when a revision came back and sounded exactly like what I had been trying to say, or when the application finally looked organized instead of like ten separate projects.
Michael was there through all of those stages.
He helped me with the bigger strategy and also with the small questions that were keeping me stuck.
When I got into Penn, I felt like all the effort had paid off, but I also felt grateful that I had not gone through the entire process alone.
So, yeah, I would describe the experience as a lot of work, a lot of changes, probably too much overthinking on my part, and ultimately an outcome that made all of it completely worth it.
Final Thoughts
Alex’s journey reflects how the college admissions process is rarely defined by one essay, one meeting, or one major breakthrough. Instead, it is built through hundreds of smaller decisions—how to describe an activity, which details to emphasize, how to respond to feedback, when to submit an application, how to prepare for an interview, and how to remain focused when deadlines and expectations begin to build.
Throughout the process, Alex remained actively involved in shaping his application. He drafted and revised his essays, reorganized his materials, asked detailed questions, incorporated feedback, and worked to ensure that every part of his application accurately reflected his experiences and personality. The Ivy Institute provided the strategy, editing, guidance, and ongoing support needed to help him bring those individual pieces together into a clear and cohesive application.
His acceptance to the University of Pennsylvania represented the culmination of that sustained effort and collaboration. Just as importantly, his experience illustrates the value of having trusted guidance throughout a process that can often feel confusing, highly personal, and overwhelming for students and their families.
The Ivy Institute is grateful to Alex for sharing his experience and allowing future applicants to better understand what the admissions journey can look like from its earliest stages through the moment an acceptance arrives.
The student’s name and certain identifying details have been changed to protect his privacy. The interview has been reconstructed from documented student communications and feedback and lightly edited for clarity and readability.
