SITUATION

Before coming to Ivy Coach, Andrew had applied Early Action to Harvard, the University of Michigan, and a few other public universities. He was denied at all of his Early Action schools. He then repeated many of the same mistakes he committed on his Early Action applications on his Regular Decision applications. Oy vey is right!

In the Regular Decision round, Andrew applied to several other highly selective and moderately selective schools. And while he received a few waitlist decisions, he didn’t approach the waitlist process the right way, choosing to update the schools on his achievements since first applying rather than following our prescribed method of winning the waitlist game. After all, Andrew and his family hadn’t yet discovered Ivy Coach.

He ultimately earned admission in the Regular Decision round to a large public university that, going into the admissions process, the family would have considered a very safe safety. Andrew and his family didn’t know if he should pursue a PG (postgraduate) year, take a gap year, or attend the only school he earned admission to and then seek to transfer.

GOAL SCHOOLS

After a disastrous college admissions process, when Andrew and his family came to Ivy Coach to find out what went wrong, they didn’t have a specific school in mind. They just wanted Andrew to have options among some highly selective schools.

CHALLENGES

While Andrew was passionate about computer science and his activities reflected an interest in computer science (although his activities were the cliche, low-hanging fruit kind of activities we at Ivy Coach would never recommend for a computer science applicant, like robotics and tutoring underprivileged students in coding), Andrew hailed from Northern California.

Why does this matter? Because Northern California is the home of Silicon Valley and Silicon Valley is bursting at the seems with aspiring computer scientists. Andrew was dime a dozen. To make matters worse, Andrew’s parents were also computer scientists, working at the same major Silicon Valley tech company. Those jobs, of course, are listed on Page 2 of The Common Application under the Family section. Elite college admissions officers don’t appreciate students who wish to follow in their parents’ footsteps. Rather, they root for students who wish to blaze their own trail.

HOW IVY COACH HELPED

As it turns out, beyond his interest in computer science, Andrew also had a strong interest in political science. Instead of encouraging Andrew to take a PG year (he didn’t want to spend another year in high school after his classmates had all gone off to college) or to pursue a gap year (gap years often flaunt privilege and elite college admissions officers frequently get scared when students are a year removed from a structured academic curriculum), we encouraged Andrew to attend the moderately selective public university he earned admission to and then apply, with Ivy Coach’s assistance, as a transfer with an interest in political science.

While Andrew didn’t wish to pursue a major or career in the field of political science, Andrew and his family understood that elite college admissions is a game and we simply wished to help Andrew beat that unfair game — fairly and ethically. Andrew genuinely had an interest in political science and, as such, it was easy for him to get involved in the wonderfully weird political science-related activities we recommended in his hometown as well as at the public university he’d be attending. Heck, he even came to truly enjoy these activities!

Besides, with only a few exceptions, students can change their intended major from when they apply (even as transfer candidates). After all, that’s the whole point of a liberal arts education…for a student to figure out what genuinely excites them. So if, after he earned admission, he wished to major in computer science rather than political science, at most (though not all) highly selective universities, Andrew could do just that.

Below are the only highly selective U.S. universities among those ranked in the top 50 “National Universities” with their own admissions process strictly for computer science:

College / University	2026 US News Rank (“Best National Universities”)	Computer Science Major Requires Specific Admission Process?
University of California, Berkeley	#15	Yes
Carnegie Mellon University	#20	Yes
University of Michigan – Ann Arbor	#20	Yes
University of California, San Diego	#29	Yes
The University of Texas at Austin	#30	Yes
Georgia Institute of Technology	#32	Yes
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign	#36	Yes
University of California, Santa Barbara	#40	Yes
University of Washington	#42	Yes

COLLEGE RESULTS

Andrew applied to 10 universities as a transfer applicant with Ivy Coach’s assistance. Among these schools, he earned admission to the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Cornell University.

He did not earn admission to the other 6 schools to which he applied, which is quite typical for Ivy Coach’s transfer applicants. Ivy Coach’s transfer applicants so often pick off one or two top schools off their list (or in this case, four!) but fail to earn admission to most (in this case 6 schools) since the transfer admissions process, unlike the first-year admissions process, is slightly less predictable. As but one example, there was one year in which Harvard University didn’t accept any transfers (how wrong is that?!). As another example, Princeton University accepts few non-U.S. veterans as transfer applicants since reinstating transfer admissions a few years back.

In the end, Andrew debated between UChicago and Penn before ultimately landing on attending UChicago.