SUCCESS STORIES

Success Story #1
M.G., Accepted by Stanford (Early Action), Harvard, Princeton

M.G. is a high-performing student at a highly-ranked, suburban public high school in California. His class rank is 3rd out of approximately 200 students, and he scored a 2260 on his SATs. In recent years, his high school has seen a sizable increase in Asian enrollment, leading to an even greater competition for the limited number of Ivy-caliber slots that have been allocated to the school.

Starting in the summer prior to his senior year, M.G. began working with Asian Advantage to develop a strategy for admission to the upper tier colleges. His outgoing personality led to our advisor’s recommendation that he apply Early Action to Stanford University, along with Harvard and Princeton in the regular applicant pool.

During the fall, we worked with M.G to craft all five Stanford essays, with an emphasis on an overall application “theme” that would appeal to an applications committee known for its quirkiness. Each essay was rewritten five times with our advisor’s assistance, with the final versions containing between 20-30% fewer words than the initial drafts.

Result: M.G. was offered admission to Stanford, Harvard and Princeton. For the Class of 2013, Stanford accepted only 689 of 5,363 applicants during its early admissions phase.

Success Story #2
J.C., Accepted by Harvard, Yale, MIT

J.C. is a graduate of an urban magnet school in New Jersey. Her class rank was 9th out of approximately 150 students, and she scored the equivalent of 2250 on his SATs. Her high school is particularly known for enrolling large numbers of Jewish, East Asian and Indian students whose parents are typically medical doctors, University professors or hotel franchise owners.

J.C. had a late start in the applications process, enlisting Asian Advantage only one month prior to the regular admissions deadline. During the advisory period, members of her class were admitted to Princeton and Stanford Universities under their Early Decision programs. This information led to our advisor’s recommendation that she focus her efforts on admission to Harvard, Yale and MIT as her top choice schools.

As part of a feverish last -week push, our advisor worked with J.C. round-the-clock to create a series of extraordinary essays emphasizing her compelling life story, beginning with her humble family origins. None of her essays exceed a page in length.

Result: J.C. was offered admission to Harvard, Yale and MIT, in addition to seven other top colleges, She chose to attend Harvard.

Success Story #3
B.Y., Accepted by Harvard and Yale Law Schools

B.Y. is a graduate of Cornell University who majored in Electrical Engineering and ranked in the top 10% of his class. He had worked for five years as an engineer with a defense contractor before deciding on a career change. While his undergraduate GPA (3.6) and LSAT scores (180) were exemplary, his written and verbal communications skills were below average.

Expressing a desire to improve his writing and speaking skills while embarking in a new career direction, B.Y. contacted Asian Advantage and forwarded a set of written essays that he planned to submit to his law school choices. Our advisor recommended that he defer submitting the applications, while spending the next year volunteering with Asian-American themed community service organizations.

The following year, our advisor worked with B.Y. to develop a single Statement of Purpose essay, in which he described his work with the Asian-American community. He submitted this essay—which did not exceed 300 words in length—to all of his top law school choices.

Result: B.Y. was offered admission to every other top 10 US law school, including Harvard and Yale Law Schools. He chose to attend Yale Law School, which admitted fewer than 8% of the applicants that year.