Brian Taylor, Director of Ivy Coach, is featured today in an article in the University of Chicago’s newspaper, “The Chicago Maroon.” The piece, written by Eileen Li, is entitled “Private college counseling companies see increase in use internationally” and, for a change of pace, it’s an article that does not focus on Asian discrimination in college admissions. After all, we’re running out of things to say on this topic since we’ve written about it so extensively. In this particular piece in “The Chicago Maroon,” Li focuses on how more private college counseling firms are starting up in countries outside of the United States and how companies within the United States are working with more and more international applicants. Indeed, at Ivy Coach, we work with students from India to China, South Africa to Ethiopia, Brazil to Italy, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and just about everywhere in between. We haven’t had a student from Lithuania in a while. We’ll have to check our records. Come on, Lithuania!

As Brian is quoted in the piece in the University of Chicago’s newspaper, “Brian Taylor, the director of Ivy Coach, stated in an email that Ivy Coach does not release the number of students they work with or the price of their packages to the press.” We sure don’t! The piece goes on, “When asked about the firm’s goals for the future, he wrote, ‘Our goals for the past remain our goals for the future…helping students gain admission to their dream colleges. This has not changed. This will not change.” That sure is right!

And the story goes on to quote Brian as follows: “He attributes the firm’s business from China and India to the fact that ‘education is highly valued in these countries.’ When discussing UChicago in particular, Taylor praised the school for keeping its quirky essays because they discourage those students who are not truly interested in UChicago from applying. ‘UChicago is defying what every other school is doing to boost their U.S. News ranking. UChicago wants students who really love it,’ says Taylor, adding that UChicago’s rise in rankings has occurred in spite of its difficult application. As a part of the college counseling business for nearly 10 years, Taylor believes that one of the biggest misconceptions about admissions is that every year it becomes harder to get into top colleges. ‘Schools encourage unqualified students to apply to Harvard or Princeton, but that doesn’t mean the student pool has become more competitive,’ Taylor stated in a phone interview.”

We do applaud the University of Chicago for bucking the trend of making it easy to apply. We do applaud them for keeping their quirky admissions essays. And may their rise in the rankings of “US News & World Report” tip off other colleges that it’s ok to ask applicants to write, to show admissions officers who they are and what they stand for, to shed insight about themselves that grades and test scores simply don’t convey. In fact, we salute the University of Chicago admissions office for bucking this trend, for daring to defy the status quo of college admissions. Way to go, University of Chicago.