Episode 9 — Rejected Premed Case Study

The Game: A Guide to Elite College Admissions

In this episode, we review the profile and applications of a premed student who was rejected from both of their early decision schools, roughly top-25 to top-35 national universities. This student attended a top-1% US high school, possessed a 3.9 unweighted GPA, 99th percentile test scores, took 15 AP/honors courses, and had what many would consider an excellent resume filled with many “leadership positions” and “service activities.”

In our case study, we break down several of the student’s application weaknesses and errors, including the following:

• The Difficulty of Premed Positioning
• The Importance of All HS Grades, Not Just Overall GPA
• The Importance of Relevant Coursework (e.g. Premed = STEM course rigor/grades)
• Analyzing Test Scores by Subject/Section vs Overall Scores
• Awards That Matter/Don’t Matter for Admission
• Resume Analysis
  • Why Leadership & Service Aren’t Enough
  • Highly Common/Cliche Activities That Don’t Separate Students
  • Branding of Activities
• Application Mistakes
  • Poor Essay Hooks/Endings
  • “Kitchen Sink Syndrome” (too many themes)
  • Poor and Non-Unique School Knowledge/Details
  • Failure to Show Intellectual Promise
  • Misplacement of Information and Voice (Narrative vs. Analytic) Throughout Application

“The Game” is hosted by Sam Hassell and brought to you by Great Minds Advising.

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