아래 consulting 필요한가 질문 있기에 작년 올렸던글 재탕함.
Some information is going to be outdated, even if only a year has passed.
But in general, this is the kind of thought process that many consultants go through when selecting ED colleges (along with the "obvious" academic and personal fit).

---------------------------------------------

Who am I?
I attended a public highschool in the United States, where I was solidly unimpressive, and wenton to an Ivy. I used to work in the "admissions consultant" business inKorea for two years and change, with two highly regarded companies. I\'mout of the business now, attending a top 10 graduate program in the US.I\'m not revealing any trade secrets or inside info, just gatheringstatistics and trends so that you may be better informed. And I\'mtotally trying to procrastinate some more.

Disclaimer:
Thispost in no way purports to provide you with the best educationalexperience or opportunities. In fact, depending on composition ofcharacter, you might be doing yourself a disservice.
However, thispost will (hopefully, and hopefully accurately) inform you on littleknown trends/situations at certain schools that, for whatevercircumstance, might be a very good bet.
Also keep in mind that thisis DEFINITELY "rankings only". Take note of this if you are deadbent ongoing to the "highest ranked school possible" with little regard to fitor strength of major or anything. (and I do generally believe that withcertain exceptions, you should go to the highest ranked school.exceptions: you were, are, and will be 이공계 and wish not to get a job,but to become a professor/full time researcher; you\'re a "typicalasian" (not in a demeaning way) and wish to be near a city/at a placewith a high asian population (don\'t go to "white" schools likeDartmouth and Notre Dame); etc etc)

1) Aim for the "lesser" colleges within a strong school
This is a tip that is already tricked out as hell. Nonetheless, it remains effective in many instances.
Cornell\'sfarming school (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) is no longera secret. It boasts numbers very close to the College of Arts andScience (the real "Cornell"). But acceptance rate at College of HumanEcology remains ~35%. Likewise, Fu Foundation at Columbiahas higher GPA/SAT numbers than the College (scary, isn\'t it?) butnonetheless is a lowly regarded school with an acceptance rate morethan twice that of the main school. Penn has nursing, Georgetown hasbusiness, JHU\'s business school just opened up and is a piece of crap.Northwestern has the School of Education and Social Policy. Many stateschools have colleges of Agriculture, Kinesiology, Aviation (UIUC\'saviation has ridiculously low numbers). All these schools have lowerstats and higher %s than most other schools in the University. You willbe able to identify them usually. Go to the individual schools\'websites and click around a bit. Caveat: Check out the internaltransfer policy. At most schools, this is lenient and easy. At some,like Columbia, it\'s nearly impossible. You\'ll be stuck with the FUshame for the rest of your life (although if you doIndustrial/Organizational(?) Engineering, you should be set for afinance/corporate type job pulling in high salary+bonus)

1.5) Aim for the backdoor programs.
Schoolslike BU have an option for "general studies program". NYU used to havethis, but now the discretion is up to the school, not the applicant.Some schools have programs where the applicant can choose to startschool in, like, Milan or something. Aim for these. It\'s usually forrich speds.

2) If you have good numbers but shitty extracurriculars/leadership, pretend to be an engineer.
Withthe obvious exception of Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Cornell, et al.,schools tend to focus more on the numbers and less on the "softfactors" if the student looks to be an engineer (Even Princeton!Although standards are very high to begin with). This difference iseven more pronounced at places where there is a separate school/programof engineering (Northwestern, Brown, Columbia, etc). But the numbersbecome VERY high. You should be in the 75th percentile range of SAT tobe competitive. But if you\'re competitive, the admission rate isanywehre from 1.5 to 3 times that of the "regular" school. Aim forschools with good rep but a shitty engineering program. Like Hopkins.

3)If you have shitty numbers (but decent quantitative skills) but goodextracurricular/leadership, pretend to be an entrepreneur.
Same as#2. If you look at MBA admission #s, you\'ll see. Kids get into topschools with like 3.5 and 700 GMAT, where as top Medical and Lawschools require near perfect academic credentials. Same with undergrad.WIth the obvious exceptions (Wharton, Stern, etc), business, especially INTHIS ECONOMY, tends to draw kids that are a little less numericallyqualified, but have that personal characteristics that will drive themto succeed (leadership, ambition, etc). However, keep in mind that allasians want business. Some schools will not let you apply as afreshman, or competition is very keen as a freshman (Emory for theformer, Michigan for the latter). Also, because EC/Leadership isintangible, it is difficult to accurately measure your competitiveness,so it\'s less of a sure thing than aiming for engineering, but it\'s worth an app/EA(Georgetown, Notre Dame, etc). This advice also applies less to stateschools (Illinois, for one) which breeds more accountants and less CEOs and bankers.

4) Play the Early ACTION game
You\'veheard it before. Early numbers are much higher. But we do not payenough attention to Early Action schools. APPLY TO ALL OF THEM. There\'s a bunch of them (ND, BC, Case, UNC, Rice, etc). First,it\'s always a good feeling to have a safety. Second, although someschools are tougher to get into early (MIT\'s EA accept % is lower thanRD %), some schools, like Case Western, accept a crazy % of studentsearly. Same with Notre Dame. You can see these numbers for yourself onUSNEWS.com. (Shit dude, pay the $15. You\'re paying $200,000 for collegeanyways, what\'s another $15). For the kids at the top, now that HYP areshying away from Early, Stanford is your best bet. I think thebreakdown is like, 8% RD and 13% EA. Something along those lines.

4.5) But don\'t be TOO optimistic about Early Decision
Everyone knows that ED pool has higher acceptance rate and lower average SAT. Yes, this is partly because colleges are more lenient on ED candidates because it shows commitment to the school, raises yield rate, lowers overall acceptance rate, breeds happier student body, etc.
At the same time, ED candidates often are legacies, recruited athletes, recruited AA candidates, and other "hooked" candidates. Perhaps at a larger school like Cornell, this is less of a problem, but at a smaller Division I school like Dartmouth, there often isn\'t room for a subpar unhooked Asian candidate. Not that you shouldn\'t apply--but just don\'t be overly optimistic when factors suggest otherwise. (Of course, at a Division III school like Hopkins, there will be less recruited athletes; at a place like Lehigh, there will be [relatively speaking] less legacies, etc etc. You do the research and make the logical conclusions).

5) Play the Race Card
Atmost schools, Asians are overrepresented, and we are disadvantaged inthe process. HOWEVER this is not true at all top schools. Diversity isa factor in the USNews rankings. They will want to up their rankings,obviously. One way of doing this is by accepting more minorities, evenAsians. Now that most top universities have around 15-25% of itsundergraduates being Asian, target the ones that have <10%. This ismost liberal arts schools outside the top four, and some lesser knowntop 30 National Universities. Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, etc.If you see it on USNews, but have never heard of it, it\'s a good betthat you\'ve got a better chance than your numbers suggest. This is whyEmory became so popular in Korea. Like 8(?) years back, when they weremaking a push to rise to the top 20, they began accepting mad Asianpeople. It\'s the easiest way to (1) raise "diversity" and (2) raisenumbers, both of which play a role in the rankings. Asians as % ofschool went from 8% to 15% in like, 2 years. And of course, theyaccepted a ton of Korean kids who had great numbers and deep pockets(and didn\'t need financial aid) and otherwise had shittyextracurricular activity that they couldn\'t get into a more respectableschool. And now that these, admittedly shitty, Korean kids who,admittedly, did well in school and on SATs started going to Emory, itbegan to have a better rep in Korea, as well. "아 누구 누구 공부 잘했는데 에모리 갔대""겨우 그정도밖에 못갔어?" "무슨소리, 20위야" "어머, 그렇게 좋은데야?" etc etc. Notre Damestarted doing this a couple years ago, and saw a sudden increase ofKoreans, which I believe is still going on.

6) Play the quirks in individual admission system
ManyLACs do not require SATs. Wake Forest is the only school in the Top 30National University that does not. Why? LACs have a conscience--that\'sa moot factor. Wake wants to up its rankings BADLY (why strategy #5looks more appealing when it comes to Wake). It makes SAT optional so that kids with low SATand high GPA can be accepted without hurting their SAT score range (actually, this is partially a reason that drives LACs. With such small class size, every datapoint matters).These options are especially helpful for kids going to Korean highschools, having great GPA but can\'t speak enough English to score morethan 1900 (but then again, you wouldn\'t have made it this far if you couldn\'t read). Thereare other quirks in other systems. Do your research. Most schools willadvertise this on their front page/admissions page. For SATs, go towww.fairtest.org
Generally speaking, though, if a school does something funky, there\'s a good reason why they refuse to follow suit (whether it is Rice\'s "interim decision" program, or Georgetown\'s "you can EA, as long as you don\'t ED anywhere else" policy, etc etc). Try to understand what the admission office\'s motivation is for having such a program. Use that understanding to ur advantage.

7) Know thy self (at least, your school).
Compareyourself to people from years previous who has similar stats. At mypublic high school of about 300 people, about 30 people went to anIvy/top LAC. That\'s a lot for a public school. If we include theIvy-equals (Stanford, MIT, etc) and Almost-Ivies (Wash U, Northwestern,etc) it\'s nearly 70. An "average" kid at my school went to BC. Some privateschools will struggle to send its valedictorian even to the flagshipstate school. GPA doesn\'t mean shit, it\'s all about the class rank. Look at the graduating seniors and find your match. Some schools have thisthing called Naviance(?) that gives you graphs on a computer. Evenwithout that, the guidance department should have binders full ofresults in past years. Demand to see it. That\'s your right.

8) DO YOUR RESEARCH
EverythingI\'ve posted here comes from open sources on the internet/pay sourcesthat are readily available (USNews). Learn how to google. Instead ofdownloading porn, spend some time researching. 15 minutes just mightchange the course of your life.

Ok, I\'ve spent 30 minutes on this so I\'ll stop. I\'ve also run out of ideas, even though I\'m sure I had more.
I\'ll add to it if I think of it. And if this post gets enough responses to make it worthwhile.

You know you love me

XOXO