I’ve created the entire process to help my students get admitted into their dream school. If you want to know more about how the Ivy League Challenge can help you,

Transcript 

Speaker 1

Welcome to the. Ivy League Prep Academy podcast, where we help you make a meaningful impact in your communities and get accepted to your dream university, becoming the person that. Ivy League schools recruit. Is more enjoyable and meaningful than you ever imagined. Come find out why. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in. This is a special episode of Ivy League Prep Academy podcast because we are actually going to listen to a recent participant in the Ivy League challenge. I think it's really valuable for people to be able to hear first hand what happens inside the challenge and how it affects them. And so we have ATA here. ATA is a junior going into his senior year and just participated in the Ivy League Challenge. Thank you for joining us.

Speaker 2

Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1

Tell me first of all, what surprised you the most about? The Ivy League challenge.

Speaker 2

That it not not only focus. Is on academic factors, but also like health factors, mental and physical health, with the daily planner and the Ivy League Health Challenge.

Speaker 1

So you were surprised that we put so much focus on that foundational work, right? Can you manage your time? Can your body, your health, can your energy levels support you in reaching these high levels of perform? And if they can't, if the body can't support you, your brain can't keep going that long, right? And you're not going to stay focused long enough to accomplish the sorts of things that allow you to be recruited into the Ivy Leagues and those top tier schools. So the health challenge and the time management skills, stuff like that really surprised you, huh?

Speaker 2

Yeah, I never realized that like health to keep up your mental health and physical health was as important as knowing like the academic tips and tricks. I never realized that before the Ivy League challenge.

Speaker 1

I love it. So what do you think now that you've done the challenge for the past month, you're you're still going and managing your time, managing your energy, applying the physical challenge that we we gave you to get enough sleep to do the stretching. Do the positive self talk all the things that are part of the Ivy League? Challenge do you feel like that has affected you as it has it made an impact for you?

Speaker 2

Yeah, I I definitely feel like the challenge has made a difference in my life. I'm now more conscious of my sleep when I wake up in the morning, I can focus on gratitude and breathing exercises, stretching, and that affects my day. It has a positive effect on the day and on my focus.

Speaker 1

How how big of a you said this was your biggest surprise in the whole Ivy League challenge. How big of an effect does it have on your day? How much more productive are you as a result of of taking care of your body correctly?

Speaker 2

So before the challenge I used to. You know, take breaks every now and then, but they were like long breaks and I had trouble with returning to studying from those breaks after the challenge, I take like 5 to 10 minute breaks every 50 to 55 minutes of studying and I don't check my phone. I don't check anything that can distract me and. Go to the kitchen, grab a drink, a grab a glass of water and stretch that. That like refreshes my mind, so. I can focus better.

Speaker 1

OK, so what's your favorite part of the challenge? What did you love most about the Ivy League challenge?

Speaker 2

So I love the fact that it helps, it helps me discover my values, strengths and interests with the Venn diagram and show me the parts that overlap. And I learned that I should create my impact project. Based on the sectors that overlap. So basically it should be a topic or an area focused on my values, strengths and interest at the same time. That would be the most optimal.

Speaker 1

OK. And the reason for that of course is? There's really two reasons. Right. That we talked about in class, the 1st is for you to have the stamina and to put enough heart and effort into this project so that you can really scale it to the point that it's impressive and making a real impact in the world. It's going to have to be something you genuinely care about if you're just doing it as a game. Trying to tick a box and and trick the admissions officers into thinking that you've made a big impact that you didn't make. It's not going to work. You won't be able to scale it enough, and the admissions officers can see right through that. They're trained to identify the real person behind the application, and so the best thing that you can do is to shift your mindset. You know, when when I look at my classmates from Harvard, I talked to friends who studied at. The Dartmouth and and Berkeley and Yale and Brown, et cetera. I I look at these students and some of them are introverts and some of them are extroverts. Some of them are leaders, some of them are not. Some of them are poets and others are focused on the, you know, they're big science champions and and things like that. Everyone has their own story, and the one thing that I think we find in common is that everyone has spent time recognizing who they really are and developing that, and they develop it into the kind of person that. Is interesting, right that that the university would be proud to have on. And so the better you know yourself, the more you can be true to your values, your strengths, your academic interest, then you can solve problems that are authentic. That's going to be fun for you. And then also, that's exactly what the universities are looking for. So it's very helpful for them as well and for you. So do you feel like the? Challenge helped you understand how to prepare for college admissions.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it definitely has. It's basically been maybe 10 times more useful than like what this my school teaches me about college application. And I learned, like many things from how to mail, like message university professors or admissions officers.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

Also as I mentioned before, impact project, how to how to like form an idea and then create your impact project.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's so critical. I mean, people don't even know that. You can you can communicate with the exact admissions officer who's going to make the decision whether or not to admit you into into that. So we teach you. I just give you the emails, right. The templates you put. The the just follow the system and you can reach out to professors. Do research with them and then that's great because you can have a a professor writing a letter of recommendation for you instead of a high school teacher that makes a big difference, especially if this is a professor that you want to study from. If they're at the university that you hope to. To go to. And then of course, keeping your admissions officers updated on your impact project and get them to the point where they are excited for your application to come in because they know who you are, they've received communication from you at just the right intervals and we talked about all that in the Ivy League challenge, right? When to e-mail, what to say first, second, third emails, how to approach them. All of that is in there and just follow the system. So you felt like that was pretty.

Speaker 2

Yeah, very useful templates like you can't find them anywhere else specifically created for like this occasion. So very useful.

Speaker 1

OK. So can you tell me a little bit about your impact project? What are what are you doing to make your sphere of influence a little bit better?

Speaker 2

So my impact, my impact project is an application and I like mobile app for my schools MUN conference that is model United Nations conference. Which is a conference that a lot of around 304 hundred, maybe more than that application students come to three days and replicate the United Nations, basically. And The thing is, we have like our school, our Emun club has a website, it has an Instagram and YouTube and maybe.

Speaker 1

Right.

Speaker 2

Other social media accounts, but it doesn't have a central hub of communication. And what I saw from many other examples in the world, like professional business conference. Is they use an application a mobile application as a as a best practice like all of the all of the top level conferences use this, which a lot of like all the students who come download this application when they come and they can access key information like news updates and communication from this one. Central hub like it's a one stop shop for everything. So I'm creating this and I proposed this idea to my MSN club, so I've I've been doing M UN since this is gonna be my third year, so I proposed this idea to my board of directors to my MSN clubs president. Basically, I had to make make a pitch like couple times. First of all to the Board of Directors and then to the whole club and then they thought it was a good idea. They got me into the board of directors and now I'm working on creating this app.

Speaker 1

So that the next model United Nations conference, every student will download the app. And anytime there's new communication or room assignments or a change, they can be alerted directly to their cell phones instead of having to go to a website or or hearing word of mouth, things like that. You can communicate more effectively and the conference can run more smoothly and and you're right, this is how you know top level. Exhibitions are run and big conferences for business and the professional world. So as you apply to your dream school. You're going to be able to talk. About hey, you know, I'm a business student. I want to get into business. And and I recognize that there was this, this lack of effective communication in the model United Nations conference. And so it wasn't easy to solve, but I felt like it needed to be solved. And I stepped up and volunteered it. It fit within my values and my academic interest. I'm interested in and then and then you can share right your theme, your Ivy League theme that we talked about. Share your interests, share your values and show how this impact project fits so well and how you have made it. An impact? How? Does that make you feel to know that that you're making you're solving a problem for your classmates and probably for generations of of high school students in Southeast Asia?

Speaker 2

Yeah, it it. Makes me feel really happy and accomplished. It like achieves a sense of purpose in my House high school career as it aligns perfectly with my interests and values and all that and strength.

Speaker 1

You know that you're leaving a legacy, right? This the model United Nations is going to be more, more effective, more productive forever because you stepped up and sold.

Speaker 2

Yeah, generations to come can use this app, and it's really easy to just keep going, you know.

Speaker 1

I'm proud of you. I think that's fantastic. So what would you say to someone who is considering participating in the Ivy League challenge? Is do you feel like it was a good use of your time and energy? Do you feel like you would recommend? This for other students.

Speaker 2

I would I would definitely recommend this to other high. School students and I. Say start as early as possible, like start, maybe this summer of 9th grade or even before 9th grade, because this is. What I realized in the last month. This is basically the best use of your time. Doesn't matter if you're not. If you're not going to even apply to university. This is like the best use of your. Time because it was always. It's very hard for me to do time management. I always had a lot of problems since the start of high school and this was basically like the biggest help I received the daily Planner. Which I recommend printing out, since paper copies are always in front of you and more effective in my opinion and a monthly calendar, you can print a calendar, empty calendar of the month and just stick it in front of you and that would that is really effective in my opinion.

Speaker 1

And so the time management was resolved. You also you said that this is the best use of your time. I'm even if you don't go to university, what do you mean by that?

Speaker 2

So what I mean is that the Ivy League challenge basically like helped put your mental and physical health in order. It doesn't only give academic tips on how to apply to Ivy League schools. It also right gets you in shape so that the Ivy League schools will want you. They will be, as you said, lucky to have you on their campus.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I love that. Oh, that is so meaningful to hear that from you. That's the goal. Right, because the Ivy League challenge was created to get students to the point that they understood what it takes to apply to and be recruited to the Ivy League schools and just top tier schools in general, not just the. Ivy leagues, but the top tier, those universities, they want students who are making an impact. Right. They know that the best predictor of future success is past success. So as a high school student, what kinds of problems did you solve? What kind of impact did you have? If you had a big impact when you were in high school, chances are very good you're going to have a big impact on you. And you're going to have a really big impact when you graduate and you're going to make that university proud that t you went through their system, and that's what universities. Are looking for. Now the great news is, if you're not going to university or you're not planning to apply to an Ivy League, first of all, if you're, if you do apply to a different. Well, not the top tier and you've done an impressive impact project. Maybe you want to go to your parents alma mater or you have an idea of where you want to go and you know that the bar is not that high. Well, you can also save yourself 10s of thousands or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of dollars by getting scholarships through. Having being such an impressive applicant and so it's not all about having your heart set on one university and and nothing else matters anymore in life. It's about becoming the kind of person. That the top universities and all universities want to recruit into their schools. And when you become that kind of person. That's not only the kind of person that universities want. That's the kind of person that businesses want. That's the kind of person that creates new businesses. That's the kind of person that designs their life in a way that's very meaningful, very fulfilling, and that makes a positive impact in the world. It's the kind of person that makes the world a better place. And so that's what the Ivy League challenge is about. I'm so happy to hear ATA so happy to hear you say that, that. Was your experience?

Speaker 2

Yes, that absolutely was my experience in the Ivy League Challenge. It has made me a better person. Thank you so much for creating it.

Speaker 1

Thank you for joining it and signing up and thank you for helping us get the word out.

Speaker 2

Thank you for having me here. It was an honor to be here.