Gabriel

Amherst College ivy campus representing the complete admissions guide to Amherst College, the second-most-selective liberal arts college in the United States.

Gabriel’s Story

Gabriel approached Oriel Admissions in late summer, just ahead of his senior year. He had been working on his college list and his personal statement for many months. However, he was unsure if he had the right balance of colleges and if he should apply to any colleges during the Early Decision round. Gabriel was involved in a large number of activities at school but he needed guidance on how best to present them and what approach to take with his applications to increase his chances of success.

Preliminary College List

Georgetown University
Boston College
Tufts University
Lehigh University
Princeton University
Dartmouth University
MIT
New York University

Strengths

Gabriel came from a low-income family and was a pell-eligible student. He was very involved in his community and had logged many hours of volunteering across a number of different organizations. But beyond the number of hours, he genuinely loved his volunteer work and wanted to continue impacting his community in college and beyond.

In addition, Gabriel was very committed to his activities, participating in sports and other school clubs from 9th grade. During this time, he had earned a number of leadership roles and he had displayed multiple instances of taking initiative and bringing new ideas to the clubs that he was involved with.

Weaknesses

Gabriel was a strong student, taking a number of AP classes and demonstrating a high level of rigour. However, there were areas of weakness on his transcript and with his test scores. He had a couple of Bs and he was in honors math during his senior year, having just narrowly missed the opportunity to get into AP math that year.

Gabriel wanted to study either economics of business but his original activity list did not include any business-related activities. At the beginning of the engagement, he was not even sure if he even had relevant activities, despite his passion for business.

When Gabriel presented us with some of his writing, he had made several common mistakes.

Oriel Admission’ Impact

We took several definitive steps to provide Gabriel with more direction and a clear strategy for applying to college.

College List

Given the 2023 Supreme Court decision to end affirmative action in college admissions, pell eligibility (coming from a low-income household) has become a proxy for increasing diversity on college campuses. After learning more about Gabriel, we knew that he would be an incredible addition to many college campuses. However, for him to have the best chance of getting into one of the competitive colleges that he was aiming for, he needed to apply Early Decision, which would ensure the best chances of getting a strong financial aid package and allowing his family to afford his college education.

Despite his strong interest in a number of Ivy League institutions, we discouraged him from applying to any of these colleges. With lower than average test scores, and Bs on his transcript, he would be overshooting with these institutions. For instance, MIT has publicly shared that their internal research shows that students need a 780 SAT Math score or higher in order to be academically successful at their institution. Unfortunately, Gabriel did not have high enough test scores to be competitive at MIT or other Ivy League colleges.

Instead, we shifted our focus to Boston College. Gabriel had visited the college on 2 separate occasions and he also knew a number of alumni, who had positive experiences at the school. He really enjoyed his visits and felt that he could envision studying in Boston. We also felt that the Jesuit values of Boston College were well aligned with Gabriel’s passion for volunteer work and that he would be able to showcase his unique personality through the supplemental essays.

Activities

Gabriel had participated in well over 10 activities in high school and he was not sure which ones to showcase or how to demonstrate his passion in business. After some discussion, we learned that Gabriel had been working at a local restaurant during high school and that he had even helped an uncle over the summer with marketing his business. After pointing this out to Gabriel, we shifted his activity list and his resume to highlight these very relevant experiences.

Early in his senior year, Gabriel had an opportunity to organize a fundraiser for one of his clubs. He was not sure if he should dedicate the time to the fundraiser but after consulting with us, we helped him to realize that this would also be a business-related experience that would be relevant for his applications.

Essays

Gabriel had spent a lot of time preparing his personal statement as well as drafting several supplemental essays for the colleges on his list. After reviewing his essays, we saw several common mistakes. A core portion of his personal statement was focused on participating in sports, which is an overused topic, considering that over 50% of students play a sport in high school. We helped to further brainstorm topics with Gabriel and we were able to land on a far more personal and unique childhood experience that helped share him into the person that he had become.

With the supplemental essays, Gabriel presented us with several good ideas but he was having trouble finding appropriate essay topics for some of the more complex prompts. He helped him to dissect the prompts and to pinpoint what he could share in order to both answer the prompts and demonstrate how he would add value to a college community.

Results

Gabriel was admitted to Boston College during the Early Decision round, receiving his decision in early December. Gabriel also received a financial aid package, covering his entire cost of attendance to the college.

Gabriel is now happily attending Boston College, the Carroll School of Management.