We are proud to have helped thousands of high school students apply to and be admitted at some of the best universities in the United States. Clients who enroll to start working with us in middle school have a competitive edge in the elite college admissions process, and Solomon Admissions has deep experience advising students on building out their college admissions profiles early starting in middle school. Below we have presented some Case Studies of Middle School Package students who worked with our consultants. The Case Studies provide information on these students and what we did to help them gain a competitive advantage early on during their middle school years.
Middle School Package Case Study No. 1
Client Profile: South Asian male attending a competitive private Catholic high school on the East Coast, where most students apply to highly selective colleges. He earned a 4.0 unweighted GPA, 1560 SAT, and completed 12 AP courses while enrolled in the most rigorous curriculum offered. Student began working with Solomon Admissions Consulting during middle school and presented a general interest in medicine and business. Extracurricular engagement at the time of enrollment centered around polo and basketball.
Changes made through consulting in Middle School: During middle school, the student was guided in selecting the optimal high school to attend by reviewing two elite private high schools, one Catholic high school, and a local public high school as options for high school matriculation. Advised to enroll in Catholic high school as its AP courses and broad array of extracurricular opportunities benefited student’s college goals. Catholic high school enrollment allowed student to earn a GPA in top 5% of his high school class. Based on student’s academic interests in science and history, he was guided to explore these fields in summer activities during middle school. Student participated in EXPLO 360 Intermediate program for rising eighth and ninth-grade students hosted on the Sarah Lawrence College campus in New York. Student also took free online Khan Academy courses in Algebra 2 and ELA to augment advanced high school math and English courses in middle school. Consultant provided student a reading list during middle school to become familiar with current events aligned with recommended anthropology positioning. Consultant encouraged reading about the field to help student recognize fit with his interests and cultural experiences.
Changes made through consulting in High School: Upon entering high school, student was supported in building a unique college admissions profile centered around anthropology as an authentic strategic positioning that blended his interest in STEM and the social sciences. The consultant created a coaching plan that outlined academic, extracurricular, and intellectual pursuits that aligned with the strategy and the student’s interests. The consultant helped student identify the most rigorous academic high school schedule, emphasizing foundation disciplines while guiding club leadership, nonprofit organization implementation, and summer activities,
including college course selection, industry experience, and academic research with university faculty. Student founded a fundraising nonprofit, which led to significant facility upgrades to an all-girls school in Bangalore, India. He completed anthropology courses at public and private colleges, pitched an original TV segment to a regional news station, hosted a weekly show focused on cultural awareness topics relevant to teens, established a diversity club at his high school, interned with healthcare providers to investigate the cultural connection to disease and conducted research with anthropology faculty at a regional and national university. Student joined the American Anthropological Association and attended webinars, a regional conference (only high school student), and applied for the Junior Anthropologist Award.
Outcome: Accepted at the University of Pennsylvania, Duke University, Georgetown University, the University of California-Berkeley, UCLA and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
Middle School Package Case Study No. 2
Client Profile: International South Asian male student with Indian citizenship at English-speaking UAE private high school. UW GPA: 4.01/4.33, IB program, taking 4 HL, 2B, both junior year (English and physics). SAT: 1560 (780/780). At time of application: IB current: 35, predicted: 45. Extracurriculars: Head Student/Student Body President (1150 students); founder of Linguistics Club (first of its kind in Middle East & Africa); founder of the Combinatorics Exploration Society; founder, V.C. of varsity cricket team; founded/led the UAE National Team for the International Olympiad of Linguistics; founder of first national linguistics competition in the UAE; MUN; linguistics blog – 10K views, taught at education non-profit in India; classical guitar – completed 8 grades, worked towards Fellowship from the Royal Academy of Music under patronage of Her Majesty the Queen.
Changes made through consulting in Middle School: During middle school, consultant helped student pivot interests from computer science, an oversubscribed field, to linguistics and computational linguistics. Consultant assigned student extensive reading lists in the field of linguistics in middle school to raise student’s intellectual vitality rating for high school years. Consultant also helped student pick the right private high school to attend from several options during middle school where the student could succeed at the highest level possible, maximize class rank and be positioned for college admissions success.
Changes made through consulting in High School: Leveraging the client’s experience growing up in an environment with 200 nationalities, and in which 8 million of 9 million people are expats, the consultant explored the student’s multilingual skills and general interest in language and recommended a positioning strategy building on his unique multi-ethnic, multilingual, and multicultural perspective on the role of language across a range of societal experiences. When the pandemic occurred, we added isolation to his focus. Solomon advised the student to leverage and expand his linguistic interests through college-level coursework to build foundational knowledge in human language, applied research, and meaningful service. Client developed strong linguistic and computational skill sets, pursued relevant research with a Stanford professor, engaged in independent research, led new initiatives with an established NFP, won national awards, and showed leadership and initiative by launching clubs and competitions. In completing this strategy, the student distinguished himself academically, extracurricularly, and intellectually, while honing his positioning focus. His essays uniquely illuminated his intellectual curiosity through academic experiences, meaningful service, and relevant research.
Outcome: Accepted at Stanford University and the University of Chicago.
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