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The Game: A Guide to Elite College Admissions: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Great Minds Advising
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. Sam is a published scientist, having spent four years as a neuroscience researcher at Columbia University. Building upon his work 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 helping top students across the U.S. and other countries abroad. 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.
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- 3 weeks ago1h 31m
Should You “Start An Organization” For Elite College Admissions?
Starting a business or organization may sound like an obvious way to stand out at top colleges, but merely founding something is very different from building something successful enough to matter. In this episode, we examine nine often-overlooked downsides of student-run ventures, from low risk-adjusted returns and predictable applicant positioning to parental involvement, weak execution, and the “chronicle of incompetence” an unfinished online presence can create. We explore stronger alterna...
- Aug 28, 202651 min
6 Admissions Truths That Sound Completely Wrong
In elite college admissions, intuition and logic can work against you—because the most obvious moves are often the same ones everyone else is making. In this episode, we unpack six counterintuitive admissions truths, from why a college that seems like a better fit can actually be harder to get into to why elite admissions can sometimes punish the very pre-professional ambition many top students assume colleges want. We explore how scarcity, differentiation, positioning, and unconvention...
- Aug 20, 20261h 18m
The Truth About Sports & Elite College Admissions
While high school sports may provide many benefits, for the vast majority of non-recruited students, they do very little to improve the odds of admission to top colleges. In this episode, we explain why sports are often highly common, non-differentiating, irrelevant to most students’ case for admission, and extremely costly in terms of time. We also cover several notable exceptions beyond just athletic recruitment––including niche sports, unusual applicant profiles, and sports-related academi...
- Jul 8, 202642 min
5 Principles That Build Elite Applicants
In this episode, we distill five recurring principles that separate elite applicants from the many high-achieving students who blend into the applicant pools at top colleges. —— “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 ...
- Jul 2, 202645 min
3 Teacher Rec Traps Top Applicants Miss
Teacher recommendation letters are among the most important—yet also most overlooked—components of applications to highly selective colleges, with very few students thinking strategically about the type of information they provide their teachers. In this episode, we examine three common questions found on teacher recommendation questionnaires that can unintentionally weaken an otherwise strong application. We explain why seemingly harmless prompts about academic struggles, intended college ma...
- Jun 26, 202656 min
How Elite Colleges Actually Track Students
In this episode, we answer an audience member question related to AI in admissions, specifically its use to pull student and parent data in order to forecast an applicant’s likelihood to “yield,” or enroll at a given college. While AI has given more firepower to the process of tracking demonstrated interest and predicting enrollment, we reveal how colleges have long since been building “yield” models for years—despite many colleges and admissions officers making claims to the contrary. Ultima...
- Jun 18, 202627 min
Why Elite Admissions Rewards Focus
Top colleges do not reward smart and talented students; they reward students who have harnessed their abilities toward impact in a specific area. In this episode, using two student examples, we reveal the costs of operating without a plan—from constant jumping between interests and activities to allowing outside influences to dictate actions that are misaligned with a student’s admissions goals. Ultimately, we argue that focus is about more than building an admissions “hook.” It provides stud...
- Jun 11, 202636 min
The Summer Mindset Hurting Your Candidacy
For many students targeting top colleges, summer has become synonymous with college admissions. Summer programs, summer internships, and summer research are treated as though they are the key to building a competitive candidacy. In this episode, we challenge this common view and explain why students, parents, and the college admissions industry at large dramatically overestimate the importance of summer activities. We argue that exceptional candidates at top colleges build their resumes year-...
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About 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. Sam is a published scientist, having spent four years as a neuroscience researcher at Columbia University. Building upon his work 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 helping top students across the U.S. and other countries abroad. 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.
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