Do ivy league admissions office care which school you are from?
I am an International student taking the A-levels in a non-elite school which does not hold much big of a recognition. Would this really affect my chances at an ivy institute? Because I do have good grades but even if I apply for a need-blind admission I don't have many things that are outstanding in my extracurriculars. ( I am actually open to some suggested extracurriculars). I actually just started a podcast and it has about 5,000 listeners on Spotify, would that help me anywhere to an extent? Please answer and suggest any solutions thank you!
Yes they do, but it's not a big factor. They for example, will try and seek out high achieving students from the Oakland Public School System or from non-top tier NYC city schools.
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Ivy league admissions officers, actually just admissions officers in general, do care about the school you come from but not because they're looking to get students from top high schools, almost the opposite in fact. AOs care about your school because they need to know what is available to you as a student. It's not fair to directly compare a student who goes to a top high school and has access to 20+ AP classes, amazing teachers, and high quality EC opportunities to a student who comes from a tiny school, has no AP classes, and where EC opportunities are hard to come by.
As long as you are pushing yourself academically and doing well at your school, that's the important stuff. The AOs will be given info about your school, typically called a school profile, so they'll know how you stand against other students at your school and then will compare you to other students in context. You won't be penalized for going to a "non-elite" school!
So school does matter but not in the way you think. Everything is evaluated in context so if you are the top of your class/top5% class rank with a 3.0 gpa that shows you are a really good student in context. (GPA is a hyperbole)
As for the podcast it is an okay activity neither great nor horrible.
Hope this helps and please comment if you need clarification as I’d be happy to help clarify!
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