Why do elite colleges consistently reject “strong” applicants with impressive but scattered resumes? In this episode, we explain the strategic framework admissions officers use when evaluating applications—and why focus has become the dominant signal at top colleges.

Drawing on admissions psychology and institutional incentives, we outline five reasons focused applicants outperform well-rounded ones.

Finally, we address why not all focus is equally valuable: in oversubscribed areas like engineering, computer science, biology/pre-med, and business, focus alone is insufficient, and applicants in these areas must further differentiate their candidacies.

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“The Game” is hosted by Sam Hassell and brought to you by Great Minds Advising.

Great Minds Advising’s unique, hands-on mentorship program and its deep strategic insight into the application review process have earned the company a nation-leading track record of excellence, with 100% of its students gaining admission to a top-choice school in the 2024–25 application cycle.

Its students have recently gained admission to Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Penn, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, Rice, Northwestern, UC-Berkeley, and WashU (among many others) and are admitted to the Ivy League at a rate 14x the national average (90% when applying early).

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