Free masterclass: Our 10-year proven college admissions framework

You shouldn’t have to exhaust yourself to build a strong application.

You’re working towards more than an acceptance letter. You’re choosing where you’ll spend the next several years, the opportunities you’ll have, and the foundation you’ll build for the professional future you want. We get it, it's an important decision.

We distilled 10+ years of admissions experience into our proven 5-stage framework, developed by all our 3 founders and simplified so YOU can start applying it to your college application strategy immediately.

Learn what to strengthen, what to contextualize, and what to emphasize for your dream schools, even if you’re worried about having a lower GPA or activities that look like everyone else’s.

After all, the effort you put in today will open doors to the future you dream of. Let’s make sure you’re investing your time and energy where they’ll make the greatest difference.

WATCH THE FREE TRAINING

Free masterclass on our college admissions strategy, refined over 10 years and adapted from our Signature framework, so you can apply it to your own application strategy.

We promise you’ll leave this training with a clearer understanding of your application , what to focus on next, and how to do it.

1. How to find what differentiates you, even when others have similar achievements.

   Identify the strengths, experiences, and personal context that make your profile distinctive beyond grades and activity titles.

2. Our framework for identifying application gaps and addressing them one by one.

   Work through examples to recognize what needs more depth, clearer evidence, or better positioning in your application.

3. How to address a low GPA without letting it define your application.

   Understand when grades need context and how other evidence can help demonstrate your academic readiness.

4. When to start a new extracurricular and when to focus on what you already do.

   Learn when another activity adds meaningful value to your application and when deepening an existing commitment makes more sense.

5. The only prioritization matrix you will need for all your college applications.

   Weigh each next step by its potential impact and what you can still influence, whether you have years or weeks before applying. See how to do it through 4 real examples.

6. How to research colleges the right way and build the most compelling strategy for each college.

   Go beyond rankings and acceptance rates to understand each university’s priorities and opportunities, then decide what to emphasize before you start writing.

7. 2 real student walkthroughs: from profile diagnosis to Harvard and Princeton.

   Put our framework into practice with 2 real student case studies. Diagnose their backgrounds, strengths, and gaps, determine what deserved their attention, and build the application strategies that ultimately led them to Harvard and Princeton.

WATCH THE FREE TRAINING

Free masterclass on our college admissions strategy, refined over 10 years and adapted from our Signature framework, so you can apply it to your own application strategy.

WHO'S TEACHING THIS

Hey, we're Lara, Marah, and Jorge!

We’re the three founders of The Ivy Centre and graduates of Columbia and Cornell. The Ivy Centre is a founder led college admissions mentorship, which means every student works directly with all three of us. Lara is a Civil and Environmental Engineer and former BCG management consultant, Marah is a Counseling Psychology PhD candidate, and Jorge is a practicing physician and surgeon.

Our backgrounds have opened doors to many different careers, but we came together to build The Ivy Centre because education is our true passion. Each of us has experienced its power to change lives, and we want to help many more ambitious students access those possibilities.

Over the last 11 years, we have mentored more than 400 students and achieved exceptional admissions outcomes, including a 100% acceptance rate among our Stanford Restrictive Early Action applicants over the past 5 application cycles. That experience shaped the structured college admissions mentorship framework we use today to understand each student more comprehensively, identify the strengths and gaps in their candidacy, and determine where their effort can make the greatest difference with the time they have available.

Because every student is mentored by all three founders, that strategy is informed by multiple perspectives rather than the judgment of a single advisor.

In this free masterclass, we’ll introduce you to that framework and walk you through 2 real student examples, so you can begin applying the same thinking to your own application.

We’re excited you’re here and hope you enjoy the content!

WATCH FREE TRAINING

LEARN FROM REAL APPLICATIONS

2 real student cases in detail.

See our framework in action through the stories of 2 students who looked equally impressive on paper and applied to the same colleges, but whose applications needed very different strategies

• Real student examples

  Understand why a step that was exactly right for one would have done very little for the other.

• A framework you can use

  Practical insights to guide what YOU can focus on next.

DIRECTLY FROM OUR STUDENTS

Subah M.

Princeton University

Felipe A.

Columbia University

START HERE

When you care about getting into your dream college, it’s tempting to say yes to every opportunity... But you can fill every hour of your schedule and still leave the most important gaps in your application untouched.

Before starting your application, start by asking these 3 questions:

1. What does your application already prove about you?
2. What is still missing or still a weakness from the story you want colleges to understand?
3. Which next step would add the most value to my application with the time I have left?

In this video, we'll show you how we work through those questions using the framework our founders developed for our Signature Mentorship Program. You'll learn how to turn your application assessment into a clear set of priorities that will maximize your chances in your dream schools.

OUR GOAL WITH THIS TRAINING VIDEO

Know what you want to say before deciding how to say it

We’ll walk you through the thinking behind a strong application: what to include, how to structure your storyline, and how to turn your experiences into writing that reveals who you are.

That starts with understanding what each university values and looks for in applicants, so you can connect your experiences and ambitions to the college receiving your application. The more competitive the university, the more important this step becomes.

You’ll learn the principles that guide our approach, what to keep in mind as you draft your application, and how to carry that thinking through to your essays and activity descriptions.

Ready to bring your story to life?

WATCH FREE TRAINING VIDEO

HEAR FROM OUR STUDENTS

Subah M.

Princeton University

Klethon G.

NYU Abu Dhabi

Nubia T.

Purdue University

Felipe A.

Columbia University

WATCH FREE TRAINING VIDEO

Matheus Farias

Harvard University · PhD

The American selection process is very complicated, especially if you are not from the U.S.. In Brazil, you're safe scoring high on this one test called vestibular for undergrad or selection process exams from previous years for grad school. In the U.S., the application is much more complex and unique, because the process is directly related to your experiences and to how you tell your own story. So it ends up being challenging to have access to actual quality material that has worked in the past.

The first thing I'd like to highlight is The Ivy Centre's access to past accepted applications. Their Statement of Purpose and Personal Statement bank of essays is a valuable resource! One of my mentors, Lara, personally shared other students' successes in the most competitive universities in the U.S., especially the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, and Caltech. Reading and analyzing them together, I was able to model my own essays based on what I know works.

The second thing I'd like to highlight is that, even though you have access to previously accepted material from other students, what to write on your application and how to write it depend on what you want to portray to the admissions officers. And exactly because of that, there is no other way: It DOES make a difference having someone who has been there to instruct and mentor you. It won't matter if you did the most amazing things in high school or college if you don't know how to write it the way THEY want to see it. You have to write it THEIR way. The Ivy Centre helped me enormously with that; Ivan, my other mentor, was extremely attentive - He'd spend every night with me, editing my documents, criticizing what needed to be criticized, and giving me valuable feedback. Today, he is someone who can not only tell my story, but tell my story better than I can do it myself!

There is no doubt in my mind that mentorship program was essential for me to get accepted into Harvard.

Felipe Polo

University of Michigan · Statistics PhD

I do not doubt saying that the mentoring service provided by The Ivy Centre was a key factor in getting me accepted into one of the top 10 Ph.D. programs in Statistics in the USA. The Ivy Centre mentors have extensive knowledge of the admission process to the best and most competitive undergraduate and graduate programs. At no time I felt lost or demotivated during the process, given I had their support. Since I met my mentor Lara, I have felt her passion and preparedness to help other students achieve their dream programs' admittance.

In my case, the biggest help that The Ivy Centre was able to provide me was when I was writing the essays, which are so important for admission to the academic programs in the USA. Before I contacted them, my main difficulty during the writing process was to organize my story and motivation coherently, also making my strengths and passions explicit. A few meetings with my mentor Lara were enough for me to learn how to express myself correctly and put the best of me on paper. A great repertoire and achievements are not enough to be admitted to a top program. It is necessary to apply several storytelling techniques while writing your essays. The Ivy Centre mentors indeed master those techniques and are willing to teach you about them!

The Ivy Centre's mentoring service was an investment with huge returns. I recommend it to all those who wish to get admitted to the best undergraduate or graduate programs!

YOUR NEXT STEP

Get a clearer direction for your application.

WATCH THE FREE TRAINING