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Ita Collins leaves Roedean School's Class of 2025 with nine distinctions and a place in the IEB's outstanding list. She also left with a problem that most South African matriculants never faced: she had to give up Stanford, Brown, the University of Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon, and Harvey Mudd College because she had already chosen Harvard.
Ita is preparing for a graduate degree in Environmental Studies at Harvard, focusing on science, policy, and public health. The school's January results showed a 100 per cent graduation pass rate for its 73 students, an average of 4.21 distinctions per candidate and twelve subject scores in the top one per cent nationally. Collins made the IEB's outstanding list.
She wasn't the only Roedean student to make the headlines. Rosemary Chung, Imogen Preston and Isabella Quaker made the IEB commendation list. But while the scores make headlines, the application behind acceptance tells a different story about what Harvard wants. south african candidate.
The American myth of the well-rounded teen is mostly folklore. What Collins created, with guidance from Crimson Education, was a consistent formula: SRC leadership, environmental activism, several sports, and an internship at the Wits Reproductive Health Institute, not listed like groceries. They were woven into a narrative.
Brad Latila-Campbell, Country Manager South Africa crimson educationSaid US admissions offices are not impressed by the volume.
He said, “Top American universities are not looking for long lists of accomplishments. They want to know clearly who a student is and where they are going.” “In Ita's case, it meant drawing a line of everything she had done and shaping it into a coherent story.”
Collins said this process forced him to separate the noise from the signal.
“I had a lot going on and a lot of opinions about what I should do,” he recalled. “Seeing the outside view was incredibly valuable. Crimson helped me see what was current and what was realistic. Also, what interests me most when it comes to building applications?”
“Writing the essay was honestly one of the hardest parts of the process, but probably also the most rewarding,” she said. “It forced me to consider things I had never stopped to think about before. I came out of it more self-aware than when I went in.”
He chose Harvard for its policy programs and its international community. This year she traded Johannesburg for Cambridge, Massachusetts, taking an offer she earned partly by finding out which version of her the admissions committee was actually buying.
“You don’t have to have it all figured out,” Collins said. “Trust what you're attracted to, give it your full attention, and let the rest take shape from there.”
This sounds like advice from a beginning speaker. In his case, it took him to the room where the commencement speakers are set up.
(Source: novanews & Roedean School)