To everyone reading this book, I wish you luck in your endeavors, and lots of caffeine at exam time.
Rt. Hon. Sir John Key
Introduction
When I was 15 I bumped into my school valedictorian on a train.
It was a chance meeting, but I took the opportunity to say hello, given the guy was my academic role model and being valedictorian—or as we called it dux—at King's was on my list of high school ambitions.
We stood and chatted as the train rocked and my backpack pulled on my shoulders and bumped into the back of another book-laden kid standing behind me.
I didn't say much, mostly listened, and if you asked me now exactly what this older kid said to me, I couldn't tell you.
But what I do know is that, when I got on that train I had my future all figured out: valedictorian, high school graduation, medicine at the University of Auckland. But by the time I got off, my entire plan had been shot to pieces and replaced with another, and all because this kid told me that he had gotten into Yale.
At this stage, of course, I had no idea what I was doing.
The best plan I could come up with was this: more is definitely more. Although other kids took three A Levels, I took ten. If my peers were making Top in New Zealand, I set my sights on making Top in the World (I made it for English Literature). If my older mate managed to get into Yale applying to a handful of schools, I figured it was best to hedge my bets and increase my chances by pure volume, and so I applied to many of the world’s top universities.
Of course, no one was more surprised than I was when I got into all of the greats I applied to: Harvard, Yale, Wharton (Hunstman), Cambridge, Yale-NUS, and more! I was just a skinny kid from the bottom of the world who narrowed the odds by going overboard.
So would I do it the same way again, given what I know now, given the people I've met and the places I've studied and the questions I've asked of scores of my mentors and peers at Harvard, Stanford, and Oxford?
The answer is yes and no.
We're all told time and time again that there is no secret formula of guaranteeing a spot at an Ivy or Stanford or MIT—and that is true, but only to a point, given like any highly sought-after goal, sooner or later you start to see a pattern. I started Crimson Education with my then-girlfriend at 17, on the floor of our respective parents' living rooms, and even then, I knew there was an art to what I'd done that went beyond any talent or element of luck that I'd unwittingly tapped into.
It is true that acceptance rates at Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton hover around the 4% mark—but 4% still get in. The trick is building an application that puts you in that 4%, and if you have the talent and the right strategy you can increase your chances significantly.
More may still be more, but these days tens of thousands of kids do that “more,” so the secret lies not just in what you do, but the intricacies of detail behind it.
It's about the support you get, the mentors who engage, the time line you set, the strategy behind your application list, and knowing how to make every grade you achieve, and every written word on your application, count.
There's a reason the students we work with are up to four times more likely to get into an Ivy than the general applicant: they're bright and hard-working, but so are many thousands of kids out there with whom they're in direct competition.
As human beings we all like to think there is one secret solution to a frequently asked question such as “How do I get into Harvard?” But the truth is, that doesn't exist. What there is, however, is a set of secrets that align to increase your chances significantly. Think of it as getting on the train at one stop, ticking off a list of very specific stations, talking to the right people, shifting your balance so the ride is smooth and steady, and getting off at the other end with a whole new realization of what's possible.
So how will reading this book help you make your start?
ACCEPTED! is the embodiment of the best part of 25 years of high-intensity academics navigating the most difficult competitions required to get in and study at Harvard, Stanford, Yale Law School, the Rhodes Community, and more, as well as my experiences navigating the careers and education pathways for thousands of students across more than 20 countries.
Think of it as your own train ride from here to there, with “there” being admission to one of the best universities in the United States.
Ready to get started?
Jump on board!
Chapter 1 Signaling, the Hunger Games, and McHarvard
From the moment we are born, we are trained to compete for all things—for food, for partners, for a place to live, for our beliefs, and more. As our economy and education system has gone global, competition has only increased, and the returns to success have grown and grown as talented individuals can access much larger markets than ever before.
Certain countries like China and Singapore lean in on competition. From a young age, children in China prepare for the rigorous college entry exam—the Gaokao—which force-ranks a nation of learners and precisely determines which universities and even careers they can access. In Singapore, children are streamed at each stage of learning, creating a gladiatorial system that at the highest levels in schools like Raffles Institution Singapore produce exceptional learners.
The biggest mistake made in the Western world, which I suspect will have more of an impact on why countries like China continue to grow in prominence at mind-blowing speeds while countries like the US appear to trend sideways, is hiding from the competition that made these nations great in the first place. The classic story of the child at his weekend soccer game who may lack talent in that particular sport but is given a participation trophy for turning up because no one would want to shake his confidence seems kind and encouraging. But ultimately we have to ask if this approach leads to a false perception of reality, and more importantly, if it might dilute that child's ability to engage with the real world.
The real world is competitive. Colleges assess you on paper and look at your personality, extracurriculars, academics, and references to determine whether they will accept or reject you from their gates. Employers offer generous salaries to those individuals who pass this initial college admissions officer assessment—those who get in—effectively handing these students access to jobs and post-graduate degrees others will simply not have access to. Venture capitalists will invest millions behind a few select young people who have risen to the top of a competitive hierarchy and have identified trends in the market others haven't spotted.
Although it is nice to imagine a world in which the results of our youth do not meaningfully affect our future or an environment in which everyone is judged by their merits and on nothing else, this is terrible parenting advice for a young person. The reality is there is no launchpad that can propel you into a career of success, significance, and impact with the same consistency as a college degree from a top institution.
I've sent more than 1,000 students to the world's best universities, and like clockwork they land jobs at the types of institutions that offer life-changing opportunities: Blackstone, the world's largest private equity firm; Google DeepMind, the world's leading artificial intelligence lab; McKinsey, the world's most prestigious management consulting firm; Goldman Sachs, the world's most competitive investment bank. Despite the fact that these companies have massive resources, they can't go on a worldwide talent search for every single position. Rather, they inevitably gravitate to recruiting from the same pool of highly selective colleges. These colleges have already done a lot of the heavy lifting for them in assessing