A college guru has figured out the tricks to get into some of the country’s most prestigious Ivy League schools, including Harvard.
Jamie Beaton, 29, a Rhodes scholar and entrepreneur from New Zealand, has a reputation for sending students as young as 11 to their dream universities.
Beaton, who founded Crimson Education, an education mentoring program, at the age of 17, suggested young people should discover their interests and skills before entering high school.
He told it The Wall Street Journal that students should focus specifically on what they know they can excel at, while also finding ways to think outside the box and differentiate themselves, such as obtaining a scholarship or pursuing entrepreneurship.
Children have flown from all over the country to get the best advice from Beaton in New York City, two from Australia, one from Great Britain and another two from Switzerland.
Jamie Beaton, 29, (left) a Rhodes scholar and entrepreneur from New Zealand, is credited with knowing the secret to getting kids, as young as 11, into elite colleges, including Harvard
He said children should discover their interests and skills before they enter high school so they have the best chance at an Ivy League education. (photo: Harvard University)
The CEO paid tribute to the “amazing education” he received, adding that it “has transformed my life”.
“It could change yours too,” Beaton, who attended Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Tsinghua, UPenn and Yale, told the outlet.
He said Ivy Leagues tend to focus on their tax-exempt status, and work to perpetuate that idea by turning away as many potential students as possible.
“If they do so much good for society, why don’t they increase the number of students coming in?” Beaton asked.
He has advised students to photograph ten activities related to one or two themes, one of which emphasizes social justice.
Beaton enjoys working with children from the age of 11, to really prepare them for secondary school.
His impact has expanded so far that one of his students called him “the Steve Jobs of college counseling.”
He noted that about 130 of Crimson’s college clients are on scholarships and receive free services, with one program helping more than 30 Maori — New Zealand’s indigenous Polynesian people — attend elite schools inside and outside the U.S. .
Since 2016, three years after Crimson launched, 1,003 students in the program have received offers to Ivy Leagues.
The operator of a $554 million company has built a customer base this year alone that makes up about two percent of the students admitted to elite schools, including Harvard, Columbia and Brown, among others.
His young clients include 24 who went to Yale, 34 were accepted to Stanford and another 48 to Cornell.
The cost to obtain Beaton’s successful tips and knowledge statistics is $30,000, with an additional $200,000 for a four- to six-year program.
The program includes test-taking guidance, academic lessons, advice on how to create great teacher recommendations, and how to launch yourself into extracurricular activities including publishing a research paper, launching a podcast, and writing of a book.
Beaton, who has found a way to “bridge the gap between ambition and action,” said Indonesia expat, has a great portfolio of its own.
He earned a Rhodes Scholarship to Harvard, a Ph.D. in public policy from Oxford, two master’s degrees from Stanford and a master’s degree in educational entrepreneurship from the University of Pennsylvania.
He also holds a master’s degree in finance from Princeton, a master’s degree in global affairs from China’s Tsinghua University, and a law degree from Yale.
Beaton’s remarkable success at Crimson has come from “supply and demand,” as elite colleges take only the best of the best, with few seats up for grabs.
Alex Robertson, managing director of Tiger Management, the high-profile hedge fund Beaton worked at in college and invested in Crimson, told the WSJ, “I don’t think that demand is going anywhere anytime soon.”
He has advised the student to photograph ten activities related to one or two themes, with one of them focusing on social justice.
In July, Beaton has excelled even more in his career, raising $75 million from venture capital funds, acquiring five consulting firms that have been converted into an online high school, and subsequently setting up 26 offices in 21 countries.
When he was in high school, Beaton aspired to be “the most qualified.” He earned top grades, started two companies, competed in debate and engineering competitions, all while working a part-time job at a fast-food restaurant.
After high school, Beaton was accepted to no fewer than 25 universities, including Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Cambridge and more.
During his senior year of college, he realized he could make a difference with his own success story when he shared it with 230 people at a speaking event.
Despite having so much success, Beaton believes it won’t take rocket science to break the mold in college admissions.
‘There’s a long history of institutions trying to pretend you can’t train for their processes. For example, at one point people said you couldn’t train for the SAT,” he said.
‘But in the same way that you can train for sports and in the same way that you can improve your math with high-dose tutoring, you can also improve things that are important parts of your application.’