Ivy Consultants

Big news for anyone with Yale University on their list! 😱

Yale has officially reinstated the SAT/ACT requirement for all incoming applicants beginning with the Class of 2031.

After six years of test-flexible admissions, standardised scores are back as a mandatory part of the application.

Yale College Dean Pericles Lewis noted that these scores help identify well-prepared candidates, particularly those from less privileged backgrounds — when reviewed as part of a holistic process.

If you're planning to apply, now is the time to make test prep a real priority.

💬 Do you think bringing back mandatory testing makes the process fairer, or does it put certain students at a disadvantage? We'd love to hear your take.

Polish talent has always punched above its weight. The question is whether the system around it does too.

Poland is now one of the 20 largest economies in the world, but the model that got it there is running out of road. What comes next depends entirely on whether the country's best minds get the education they actually deserve. 🧠

Unfortunately, most of the time, they don't because mass education systems aren't built for exceptional people. And that gap is quietly costing Poland more than it realises.

It's a conversation we've been having for years. This month, we had it in Forbes.pl in our article and in Aleksander Fedoruk's piece on MBA education, where our CEO & Founder Krzysztof Daniewski, shares what truly great education should deliver.

Grab your copy or read it online from the link in the comments. 🔗

[Paid Partnership with Forbes Poland]

Harvard University just changed the rules on what an A is worth. 🧐

Their faculty voted this week to cap A grades at 20% of students per course, starting in fall 2027.

The groundwork was already laid after the administration urged faculty to take grade inflation seriously last October, and A grades dropped from 60.2% to 53.4% in just one semester.

Interestingly, Yale University made a similar attempt in 2014, and its faculty turned it down. The difference now is that Harvard has gone first, publicly and decisively, making it far easier for other institutions to follow.

For families navigating admissions right now, this is the right moment to think about what a student's application says beyond the transcript.

Most families start thinking about recommendation letters in September, but by then, the window for a truly great one is already closing.

Admissions officers read between the lines. They can tell when a letter was written with care versus written under pressure. So here are the 3 rules we start with for every mentee:

1️⃣ Choose presence over prestige. The right recommender isn't the most decorated—it's the person who has genuinely paid attention to you and has something real to say about who you are.

2️⃣ Give them the full picture. Share goals, growth, and the challenges worked through this year. The more context your advocate has, the more precisely they can advocate.

3️⃣ Think in range, not repetition. Each letter in the application should reveal a different dimension of you. If two letters say the same thing, one of them is wasted space.

Connect with your potential recommenders now, while you still have the summer ahead of you. And if you need guidance, we’re always happy to help you navigate the best way to approach them.

133 years of trusting students to police themselves. And Princeton University ended that last Monday—all because of AI.

👉🏻 Faculty voted to put instructors in every exam room starting July 1st.

The trigger was predictable: AI tools made cheating invisible to peers, and peer reporting was the whole foundation of the system.

As it turned out, nearly 30% of seniors admitted to cheating. 44% stayed silent about violations they witnessed.

When even Princeton has to make this call, something has fundamentally shifted in academia.

💬 Should we even be surprised?

Yale University may be coming to San Francisco, and the details are more serious than you'd think.

Yale's Engineering Dean has been in active talks with city officials since December and personally toured potential sites in March. Mayor Lurie already convinced Vanderbilt to move in earlier this year. Now Yale could be next.

So what does this shift actually mean for your college journey?

▪️ unique programs bridging Ivy League academia and Silicon Valley industry,
▪️ new pathways into one of the most competitive universities in the world,
▪️ stronger ties between elite research and real-world innovation.

For the first time, choosing between East Coast prestige and West Coast opportunity might not be a trade-off at all.

💬 Would you want to study on a Yale SF campus? Drop your thoughts below!

The world of elite higher education just got bigger.

Forbes identified 20 colleges (the "New Ivies") whose graduates are earning serious attention from top employers in 2026.

Here's the full list:

👉 Private: Carnegie Mellon, Case Western Reserve, Emory, Georgetown, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Rice, Tufts, Vanderbilt, Washington University in St. Louis.

👉 Public: US Air Force Academy, University of Florida, Georgia Tech, University of Michigan, UNC Chapel Hill, Purdue, UT Austin, University of Virginia, William & Mary, UW-Madison.

What sets them apart? A bold commitment to AI fluency across all majors, hands-on employer partnerships, and curricula built for the world as it actually is today.

Any surprises on the list for you?

Most people read the headlines — acceptance rates, who got in, who didn't. But the real lessons are in the details, and this year had plenty of them.

Here's what the class of 2030 admissions cycle actually showed us:

⏰ Start earlier than you think. Clarity, depth, and compelling storytelling don't come together at the last minute, and the strongest applicants this cycle proved exactly that.

💰 Financial aid is changing the game. More students can now afford to apply, competition is intensifying, and how well you position yourself matters more than ever before.

💪🏻 Early Decision is one of your most powerful tools. A significant share of each class is filled before Regular Decision even begins — making this one of the most strategic decisions you'll make.

✨ Prestige isn't everything. Political tensions are shifting how some schools are perceived, so choose a place where you genuinely see yourself thriving.

If you're starting to think about applications, share it with someone who needs to hear it. Understanding the landscape early is already half the battle.

This Ivy Day, 9 of our mentees earned their place at Ivy League universities and MIT — making this one of the best years we have ever celebrated! 🎉

Several of them received multiple acceptances from top U.S. universities, faced with a decision most applicants only dream of making.

Each of those offers represents a student who showed up fully, did the hard work, and dared to tell their story honestly. We feel very fortunate to have been part of that process.

To our mentees and their families: thank you for trusting us with something so important. 🙏🏻 We are proud of every single one of you!

Over the coming weeks, we will share a selection of stories from our Class of 2030 mentees. We look forward to introducing them to you.

A few weeks have passed since Ivy Day 2026. The dust has settled, so the data deserves a proper look.

To put it shortly, every school we tracked became harder to get into than last year:

🎓 Brown University - 5.35% (2030) vs 5.65% (2029) - 47,937 applicants,
🎓 Columbia University - 4.23% (2030) vs 4.29% (2029) - 61,031 applicants,
🎓 Dartmouth - 5.84% (2030) vs 6.00% (2029) - 28,863 applicants,
🎓 Yale University - 4.24% (2030) vs 4.60% (2029) - 54,919 applicants.

What does that mean in practice? It means that the students who do well in this process aren't always the most talented ones - they're the ones who understood the landscape early and built their applications around it.

So if you're starting your journey now, you're not too late - you're exactly on time to do this right. And we're here to make sure that timing works in your favour.