Faithful readers of the Ivy Coach blog will be able to tell you that much of our advice about the elite college admissions process boils down to one thing: be likable! In the case of developing relationships with admissions officers at your top choice of school, this mandate could not be more accurate! However, an applicant’s likability is fickle, and admissions officers are nothing if they are not human beings. They can see through your attempts to woo them in exchange for a slot in their school’s incoming first-year class! Let’s unpack how academically ambitious high schoolers can toe the line between a healthy rapport with college admissions officers without crossing over into the territory of being downright annoying.

Show a Healthy Amount of Interest in Elite College Admissions Officers, But Don’t Overdo It!

Let’s start with the actions that will help a student’s case for admission. Students should, by all means, attend in-school information sessions about prospective colleges, enthusiastically raise their hands and ask genuine questions, and send brief thank yous to the admissions officers in attendance. These actions demonstrate that you genuinely care to learn more about the prospective school. Highly selective colleges might deny it, but showing interest is undoubtedly a factor in admissions consideration. If this weren’t the case, why would Early Decision/Action applicants, who signal that the school is their top choice, get in at a higher rate than Regular Decision applicants?

Things get tricky when a brief correspondence to learn more about a potential school crosses over into pen-paling or, worse, sycophantic groveling. It bears repeating: admissions officers are human beings! They can tell when your “have a happy weekend” email has an ulterior motive. The last thing these underpaid and overworked professionals want to do is correspond with a family bent on instrumentalizing their relationship for a greater chance of admission! It harms more than it helps.

Any communication with an elite college admissions officer should be highly strategic. Don’t send a Trojan horse email asking a question about the school that you could easily have looked up online to start a correspondence. This comes across as lazy and opportunistic! If you have a genuine question that an extensive perusal of the school’s website could not shed light on, send an admissions officer a brief message containing your inquiry, but leave it at that. This quick and easy correspondence is enough to show your prospective school that you are an enthusiastic applicant.

How Ivy Coach Helps Students Prevent Overdoing Their Relationship With an Admissions Officer

We at Ivy Coach are familiar with the pitfalls of flubbed correspondence with an admissions officer. Students who were not our clients but come to us for the first time after facing deferrals or rejections often ask us why their dream schools didn’t offer them admission in the Early round —”We were so nice in our notes to the admissions officer; it just makes no sense!” Upon viewing these notes, we immediately understand why. They’ve scared their dream school away with transparent attempts to form a provisional relationship that would have ended the second an acceptance letter made it to the inbox.

Fortunately for these clients who come to us after a deferral or rejection in the Early Decision/Action round, we offer a signature PostMortem service with a former elite college admissions officer to identify everything that went wrong with the application and to begin to strategize the correct strategy to help with elite admissions in the Regular Decision round. 

Those families who come to us before their child’s senior year are guided through the correct way to establish a genuine relationship with admissions officers without straying into any murky territory. It’s easier said than done (and it’s certainly not necessary to develop any relationship with an admissions officer!), so leave the intricacies of application etiquette to us! Ivy Coach’s former elite college admissions officers have been through it all before. We know what plays well and what falls flat.

If you wish to optimize your child’s case for admission to a highly selective college by creating the proper rapport with an elite college admission officer, fill out our complimentary consultation form, and we’ll be in touch.