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The Game: A Guide to Elite College Admissions
In this podcast series, we break down the complex game that is elite college admissions and the strategies and pitfalls students need to adopt or beware of if they hope to win admission to one of America’s top colleges.
“The Game” is hosted by Sam Hassell and brought to you by Great Minds Advising.
Sam is a published scientist, having spent four years as a neuroscience researcher at Columbia University. Building upon his experiences in research and academia—as well as over a decade in educational services—Sam spearheaded the Great Minds Advising program, a premium college consulting service based in the New York Metropolitan Area and serving students nationwide from NYC to Silicon Valley.
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 2025–26 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).
For the first time, in this podcast, Sam and his team reveal the secrets and strategies they have used to help their students consistently beat the game of elite college admissions.
Web: greatmindsadvising.com
Contact: greatmindsadvising.com/#contact
Newsletter: greatmindsadvising.com/#newsletter
Email: info@greatmindsadvising.com
FB: facebook.com/GreatMindsAdvising
IG: instagram.com/greatmindsadvising
The Game: A Guide to Elite College Admissions
The Worst Major For Getting Into Top Colleges
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Top colleges look to admit students with focused passions or “hooks” that they’ll uniquely contribute as part of the incoming freshman class.
However, not all hooks—or the intended college majors they’re associated with—are created equal. And certain hooks/academic areas may even jeopardize students’ ability to earn admission to a top college at all.
In this episode, we spotlight what we deem the “worst major” or hook for getting into a top college. We identify nine different reasons this area of interest is so strategically disadvantaging and discuss the many pitfalls to beware—and navigate—for students going down this path.
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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).
Web: greatmindsadvising.com
Contact: greatmindsadvising.com/#contact
Newsletter: greatmindsadvising.com/#newsletter
Email: info@greatmindsadvising.com
FB: facebook.com/GreatMindsAdvising/
IG: instagram.com/greatmindsadvising