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At InGenius Prep, we are always proud to share the success of our hardworking students. Today, we share the story of "Kate," a high school student who came to us in the middle of the 11th grade, and how she secured an early admission acceptance into her dream school—Penn University—with the help of her InGenius Prep counselors. She began counseling with our College Application Counseling for 11th Graders program, which included extracurricular enhancements, choosing majors, school exploration, course selection, and more! 

Kate has permitted us to share her story, and her original name has been altered to protect our student's privacy.

Student Profile 

Kate's journey into higher education began with her passion for the arts and a strong academic profile. Her main interests were film, business, and theater. She began working with a team of counselors from InGenius Prep, including Former Admissions Officer Abigail Kalkstein and Graduate Coach Rachel Bloom. Kate started her counseling as a high school student with a solid academic background and an interest in the arts and business. In her studies, she maintained a GPA of 4.18 weighted/ 3.98 weighted, and she earned an impressive 1570 on her SATs. Kate is a creative, self-starting student with an inclination for film and theater with the ultimate goal of becoming a film director. 

However, Kate's profile also posed a list of challenges that she and her team would have to overcome if they wanted to create the most potent possible version of her application. Specifically, her application in its academic and extracurricular sections was robust, but she needed to improve in many business-related activities, which would prove difficult if she wanted to pursue her interest in business. 

How InGenius Prep Helped

     11th Grade Strategies

Kate and her team began working on a strategy. They analyzed her profile, noting her strengths and weaknesses and ideating how to best approach her application to leverage its more compelling aspects. This would guide the team toward their development strategy and how to optimize her application best. 

With her strengths and activities, Kate's team identified an Application Persona, the central theme of her application, that would bolster her profile and coalesce all the disparate aspects into one cohesive application. 

Part of developing an optimal strategy along with an application persona was suggestions on how to best highlight her extracurricular activities to show off her more compelling personal traits—proactiveness, leadership, curiosity, and more. To help further develop Kate's application for her interests, Kate's team also suggested seeking out concrete business-related experiences that would enhance the business side of her profile. 

     Extracurricular Enhancement

Kate had an impressive array of extracurricular activities to showcase on her application. To best utilize her achievements, Kate's team suggested actionable steps to further develop her extracurriculars, especially those business-related. These steps include joining a business-related club in senior year or shadowing someone who works in business—especially in the film industry.  

     School List Research 

School lists are another vital section of a student's application. Creating a balanced school list can sometimes be the difference between multiple acceptance offers and no acceptances at all. As such, Kate's counselors guided her through the research process and helped her select a balanced range of schools that aligned with her interests and where she would make a compelling candidate. 

Many college admissions officers take personality and how well a student may fit into their campus culture into consideration when reviewing applications, so Kate's counselors provided methods on how to organize her research to compare and contrast her selected universities. Kate's Former Admissions Officer also offered suggestions on schools that met Kate's criteria. 

This research helped Kate realize she wanted to attend a smaller-to-mid-sized college with a flexible curriculum. Kate valued schools that allowed their students to explore various interests freely—something that she definitely wanted to take advantage of with her dual interest in film and theater as well as business. Kate and her team decided that she should apply as a theater or media major, given her background, and selected schools that also had notable business programs that Kate could explore. 

     Application Persona

Once Kate and her team determined her major and a list of schools to choose from, Kate's team narrowed down her application persona. Determining an application persona is often a vital part of a student's application as it unifies their profile under a strong theme that college admissions officers can easily recall. In a landscape as competitive as college admissions, having every advantage helps, and the Application Persona can significantly impact the tone and strategy of a student's application. 

For Kate, her counselors determined her persona: "Future film director with strong playwriting experience surrounding the societal issues faced by young adults."

Kate's counselors also guided her on how to highlight this persona in other areas of her application, such as her essays, personal statement, and activities section. 

     Personal Statement 

Kate began her personal statement the summer before her senior year, brainstorming subjects to arrive at a compelling topic. As one of the key areas where admissions officers will see a student's personality, Kate and her team wanted her personal statement to be a memorable narrative that would make a positive impression lasting throughout her application. 

Kate's counselors encouraged her to tell a story that would highlight her most critical personality traits, namely critical thinking, creativity, and social justice. 

Throughout workshopping and careful feedback, Kate created a compelling and exciting personal statement that depicted an intellectual young student with a passion for creativity at the intersection of social justice and art. 

     Supplemental Essays 

Kate's supplemental essays served as another way to further enhance her application persona and showcase her qualities and skills as a student. But in order to achieve this while also forging a strong connection between Kate and her chosen schools, Kate's team focused on methods to tie her experiences and interests with the opportunities that would be available at her chosen schools if she were to be accepted.

Kate utilized her unique writing voice in her essays. Guided by her team, they crafted essays that showed Kate's interest in her schools and described how those interests would align with the programs, clubs, and classes available at those schools. The result was creative and enthusiastic essays that conveyed her combined interest in academics and the arts.

     Activities List

For Kate's activities, she has a long list of impressive achievements and extracurriculars to highlight in her application, including activities relating to playwriting, film, and acting. Kate's counselors helped her organize these activities in a way that would not only showcase her passion for the arts but also strengthen her profile in other academic areas. 

In the final version, Kate listed 19 extracurricular activities, including being the director of a theater, president of an advisory board, peer first responder, environmental activist, and many more. Many of these activities highlighted her involvement in her community and dedication to her field, further enhancing her profile and application persona. 

Final Review

Kate responded well to feedback from her counselors and made improvements wherever needed—slowly refining each piece of her profile as the submission date approached. 

Before she submitted her application to her chosen schools, Kate's Former Admissions Officer, Abigail, took one final step before approving her profile—reviewing Kate's application as if she were Kate's admissions officer, determining whether Kate's profile would make the cut. Following Abigail's thorough review and suggestions for wording, formatting, and style, Kate received the green light to submit her application.

After all of their hard work perfecting every aspect of Kate's application, Kate submitted her application, and she was accepted to her top choice school, the University of Pennsylvania, through Early Decision!

If you, too, want to experience the benefits of a well-optimized college application, our education experts at InGenius Prep are ready to bring your candidacy to the next level. Our programs, run and designed by Former Admissions Officers at the top schools, are crafted to give every student the best chance at getting accepted into their dream school. To learn more about our various programs, schedule a free consultation call with one of our advisors today!