6 tips on applying to Ivy League schools, according to a Filipino admissions officer

For a lot of Filipinos, the idea of applying to an Ivy League school may seem daunting and actually getting accepted may seem impossible.

But according to a Filipino admissions officer, this dream is attainable even for students in the Philippines.

Zholl Tablante, Senior Assistant Director of Admissions in Dartmouth College, shared some tips for those interested in applying to any of the Ivy League schools in the United States.

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1. Write your unapologetic truth

It might sound cliche, but the first advice is to believe in yourself.

"They really have to be their own biggest fan. If they are not rooting for themselves, then how can they expect other people to?" Zholl told GMA News Online.

More than believing in themselves, the applicants have to be honest about themselves when writing their essays, which is part of the application process for Ivy League schools.

"When they fill out their applications and when they write their essays, they have to really speak their unapologetic truth, and not write for admission officers like myself, but really write the way that they want to portray their own story," Tablante said.

"The way that you write and the way that you tell your story is just as important as the numbers you get in your GPA and your SATs," he added.

2. Make sure your application paints the best picture of you

There are several parts to the application and each serves to showcase the applicants' skills and qualities.

However, Tablante stressed that not one part is more important than the other — they all come together to paint a picture of the student and help admissions officers assess if they are a good fit to the college or university.

"There’s four types of merit in the application: Academics, extracurriculars, personal qualities, and institutional priorities. Not one part of the application has more weight than the other, it’s how each part of the application comes together to paint the student in the best way possible," he said.

3. Find the right people to write your recommendation letters

Admissions officers will be gauging what applicants are like as a person based on their application form — not just as a student, but what you're like as a classmate, a friend, a collaborator and so on.

This is why recommendation letters are highly important. Applicants must find the right people to write their recommendation letters: teachers who personally know them and have tracked their progress, and in the case of Dartmouth, close friends and classmates.

"Recommendation letters are really important in allowing us to understand what type of student they are. Dartmouth has this specially unique thing called the peer recommendation," Tablante said.

"We ask the students to submit a peer recommendation because the peer is going to speak differently for them than a teacher or a counselor. We want to know what kind of student they are, what type of classmate they are, what type of friend they are," he added.

4. There are no buzzwords

Applicants should not put in impressive words just to impress the admissions officers.

Tablante said that it was a matter of properly telling their stories.

"Definitely no particular keywords, each student has their own story and how they tell that story is going to be very important to see how they fit into Dartmouth," he said.

5. Schools are seeking potential impact

Extracurriculars will definitely be an advantage for students aspiring to enter an Ivy League school but what they do in those extracurriculars are just as important.

Admissions officers will want to know what impact the students have had in their organizations and in the communities they belong to.

"For me it’s really trying to find students who have impact in the organizations that they’re doing," Tablante said.

"That tells us that they have the potential to have an impact in the Dartmouth community, which would then allow the community to grow," he added.

6. You won't be compared to students from other schools

Students should not be pressured or feel intimidated by the amount of aspirants from all over the world.

Tablante said that any high school student is qualified to apply and that they don't compare them with students from other schools.

"Each place has its own different curriculum. We don’t compare students in that way. We only compare them to the students in their school to see how they’re performing," he said. — LA, GMA News