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Student Profile
Student Name:
V
Current School:
US High School
Admitted to:
University of California, Berkeley; Georgetown University
Overview
Nearly everyone around V told her the same thing during college applications: apply for Early Decision to an Ivy League school and lock in a result. She decided not to. Instead, she applied Early Action to Georgetown University, her dream school, and kept her regular decision round fully open. She was admitted to Georgetown in December, then to UC Berkeley in the regular round, a wonderful surprise she never saw coming.
Student Background
V grew up in Beijing before moving to the US for high school, where she devoted her interests to environmental science, education, and writing. Her interests began as genuine explorations rather than deliberate strategic planning. She tried many things: dance in middle school, then golf and rock climbing after moving to the US, with her parents consistently encouraging her to try activities she genuinely liked rather than plan them to look good on an application.
In her junior year, she and a friend rebuilt her school’s environmental club. In her junior year, she and a friend began rebuilding her school’s inactive environmental club, starting by putting recycling bins back around campus. She also attended a three-day Brown University summer program of camping and fieldwork, collecting river samples with professors and learning about sustainable farming. She also spent two separate summers interning with a STEM training program in New York, where she developed her research-writing skills and produced promotional videos.
Challenge
V’s biggest challenge wasn’t academic. It was the uncertainty in future directions.
Teachers, relatives, and family friends all pointed toward Ivy League schools: Columbia, Penn, Cornell. Because her grades were strong, people around her saw Ivy League schools as natural options. V, however, wanted to consider where she would feel most comfortable living and studying for four years.
She was drawn to California and the South. After visiting several campuses, she felt a strong connection to Georgetown University. Its interdisciplinary approach to environmental science, economics, policy, and communications aligned with the interests she had been exploring.
How We Helped
When V told us she wanted Georgetown and only Georgetown, our first instinct was to make sure she had considered everything. We talked through the trade-offs with her to make sure she had considered her options carefully. Once we understood her priorities, we supported her decision and focused on helping her put together the strongest application she could.
That became a pivotal moment in her application season. V had heard the same advice from everyone in her life, and she did not need another opinion dictating what she should do. She needed someone to take her reasoning seriously and then build a concrete plan around it so that she could thrive to her full potential.
Much of our earlier work with V had been about creating opportunities that would help her figure out what she actually cared about. The STEM Teacher training internship in New York is a good example. We recommended it while she was in ninth grade, but she was confused and unsure why an environmental science student was sitting in on teacher development sessions. During the first summer, she mostly observed and could not follow the discussions. By the second summer, she could already keep up with the pace and contribute. That shift changed how she thought about her own interests. She realized she cares about nature, how knowledge is shared, and how people begin to reflect on it and work hard to change the world.
In her personal essay, we worked through round after round of revisions with her, testing different angles until something finally clicked. Rock climbing, which she’d only started in eleventh grade, seemed too new to anchor an essay. But when she connected it back to the Brown camping trip, and her changed perspective that nature has both beautiful and ugly sides, the piece finally came together.
We also helped her think about her school list in terms of fit rather than rankings, working through what kind of campus, climate, and academic structure would actually suit her over four years.
Decision Letters
Georgetown admitted V through its Early Action program in mid-December. Because Georgetown’s Early Action plan is nonbinding, she could keep her other college applications active while considering her options.
In the regular round, she was admitted to UC Berkeley, which she described as a complete surprise. Both offers confirmed what she’d suspected in November: leaving a window open was worth more than closing the door early.
If you’re deciding between Early Decision, Early Action, and Regular Decision, these guides can help you understand the differences and choose an application plan that fits your goals and circumstances:
Learning to Trust Her Own Reasoning
Looking back on five years of preparation, V says the most valuable thing she learned wasn’t how to write essays or build a school list. It was learning to understand herself well enough to make thoughtful decisions, even when other people had different expectations for her. She wishes she’d started exploring different activities earlier, since she only joined the environmental club and started rock climbing in eleventh grade. But she’s also glad she didn’t force herself to stick with everything she tried, because that’s how she found what she actually loved.
If you are a student who is feeling pressure to follow a path that doesn’t quite fit, or is struggling to turn scattered interests into a story that feels true, we’d be glad to help. Feel free to reach out and schedule a free consultation with Ivy Talent Education to talk through what a plan built around your child’s own direction could look like.
