Student D Gets into Yale and Stanford with $42,000 for Freshman Year Alone!

Yale, Stanford, and more

Student D is an international student. By helping Student D craft his college applications from scratch to perfection, we were able to help him get into his dream schools—Yale and Stanford—with $42,000 in financial aid...for freshman year alone!

Application Persona

The drama expert who uses his craft to help others

High School Location

China

GPA

4.3 / 4.5

SAT

2250

Areas of Interest

International Relations, Theater, Psychology

Extracurricular Activities

Founder and President of Drama Club
Co-President of Model UN
China Thinks Big
Two Internships

The Challenges

Student D wanted to get into the top schools in the United States.
Student D was impressive academically, intellectually curious, serious about theater, and had meaningful leadership experience. One of his biggest challenges was figuring out what was most unique about him and how he should market himself to the admissions office.
Student D thought his SAT score of 2250 was not sufficient to get into schools like Yale and Stanford.

How Did InGenius Prep Help?

We paired him with a Former Admissions Officer from Harvard and a Graduate Coach from Harvard Law School.
We started working with Student D very early in the spring before his senior year. By speaking regularly on Skype, analyzing his resumé, and getting to know him, we were able to pinpoint what he was most passionate about, and which of his many excellent qualities and experiences he should focus on in his applications.

Candidacy Building

To validate and support his interest in theater, we:
- Helped Student D start a non-profit division of his theater group.
- Guided Student D to make a documentary about his theater organization, which we placed on YouTube.
- Arranged an internship with a film producer from Hollywood to advise him on how to create this documentary.
- Helped Student D connect with instructors at the Yale Repertory Theater.
- This way, admissions officers were not only able to read about how passionate Student D was about theater, but they were also able to see it themselves.

Application Counseling

We started working on Student D’s letter of recommendation process early. We brainstormed the pros and cons of each potential recommender and then created a letter of recommendation package for each recommender.
During this phase, we also brainstormed topics for Student D’s personal statement and went through dozens of drafts for each essay.
Student D and his counselors worked on more than 20 drafts to get the perfect personal statement!
When it was time to fill out the CSS profile for financial aid, our counselors Skyped with Student D’s mother and used the screen-sharing function to walk through every page of the application, step-by-step.
Student D’s Former Admissions Officer performed a Final Review on his application, reading it the exact same way he would have while in the admissions office at Harvard. After reading through the application, he provided thorough feedback on the entire application, down to every single comma, to make sure that the application was absolutely perfect.

“Throughout the whole process, my counselors at InGenius Prep were there to help me. So when my acceptance letters finally came in the mail one day, I knew all of the hard work had paid off and that InGenius Prep had helped me get into my dream schools!”