Notre Dame admissions wrote our student a handwritten note…I was blown away by what it said…

Last week, I wrote about the power of standing out in college admissions…I wrote about the power of embracing being different & unique vs. just putting your head down and "grinding."

I wrote about why this is now the case–how every one of the top 40 schools in the country are trending towards single-digit acceptance rates.  I wrote how the game has changed vs. 30 years ago.

And I provided an actionable 14 minute exercise to help students embrace this notion of "different > difficult."

Well, I’ve got a fun update...

In case you thought I was just making this stuff up…in case you thought there was no credibility or backing to this methodology…

Remember Emily? The HS Senior, who's been in our program for over a year, and is now bound for Notre Dame?

A year ago she completed the exact same "Different > Difficult" Exercise in our all-inclusive College Confidence Program.  The result of this exercise, for her, was to apply for a provisional patent for a seatbelt she had helped design...not only was she super excited about this long term project, it also aligned with her mission to be an engineer.

The process to apply for a provisional patent was not very difficult! It required perhaps 10-20 hours of total work (ex: compare that to the hundreds of hours of total work it takes to complete one extra AP class, start to finish).

But guess what? It was different.

And Notre Dame not only felt it was different...they felt it was so different, so unique…that they decided to mail Emily a handwritten letter expressing this.  Seriously.  In 13 years of doing this, I can't say I've ever seen something like it. And yet, she received one at her doorstep just this weekend.  Here’s the letter:

Did Notre Dame mention Emily’s 1500+ SAT? Or her top 5% grades?

Nope. Those marks are common these days in the ND admissions department.

Instead, they mentioned the item she had on her application that, in all likelihood, zero other ND applicants (zero!) had–she had applied for a provisional patent.

Did ND care that applying for this patent had taken far less effort than if she had simply signed up for an extra club or had taken an extra AP?

Nope. Not at all.

Admissions committees want to see different. 

I’ve always known this. But I’ve never had true, paper-trail level proof.  

Until now.

Different > Difficult…just ask Emily (or her ecstatic parents).  She's off to her dream school because of it.

To your college planning success,
Jack Delehey
Founder, CollegeConsulting.us