The 12th annual Korea Daily College Fair, the largest education exhibition in the Asian-American community, was held Saturday.
The event, presented by the Korea Daily with McDonald’s and Shinhan Bank sponsoring, was attended by 4,000 students and parents and marked another success. This year’s event was held at San Fernando Valley’s Birmingham Community Charter High School. Notably, more Caucasian and Hispanic students and parents also attended the event than they did in the past. This year’s event proved that the fair has become the largest education exhibition encompassing all races and communities.
Ishan Puri, a Stanford graduate and the bestselling author of the book The Applicant, gave a keynote speech in which he provided his knowhow about extracurricular activities that could make a difference in students’ success at getting into their first choice colleges. His speech was well received by the audience. The following is the summary of Puri’s lecture.
“Admission to prestigious universities largely depends on extracurricular activities and its systematic connection to how the essays are written.”
Puri emphasized that the country’s top 25 schools, including Ivy League institutions, have similar admission standards and that is why extracurricular activities and essays end up becoming difference makers in their final decisions on admitting prospective students.
School activities, extracurricular activities and writing contest must be connected at all of local, state, national and international levels and that all of those activities must be connected with one another to earn a reasonable score, according to Puri.
Hence, club activities, volunteering and writing contests are some of the strongest tools for students to strategize their plans when applying for universities of their choice. Puri added that highlighting those activities in the essay is also key.
Puri, who was reportedly admitted to many prestigious, private school including Stanford, added that he was largely active in math and science related clubs. He also represented the U.S. high school students at international essay contests. He was also involved in research programs offered by UCLA during his years in high school and more importantly, did an effective job of highlighting those feats in his essay to express his ambition in the STEM field.
When writing an essay, students must be able to ▶describe oneself in one sentence ▶written contents must be distinguished depending on the school ▶goals and vision must be clearly stated, said Puri.
Furthermore, Puri added that the admission rate for early applicants have increased by half from only 10 percent from five years ago, so that it is beneficial for students to apply as early as they can. Puri also highlighted that students should visit the schools they are applying to and also apply to as many schools as possible.
To earn admission as one of the STEM majors at prestigious universities, the applicants must know the names and various researches conducted by professors and express their desire to be a part of that specific program.
By Sungcheol Jin
