College admissions tips from a Harvard graduate [Show summary]

Julie Kim shares her journey from growing up as an immigrant daughter to obtaining a Master’s of Education from Harvard to now operating her own college consulting company. She shares her tips for getting into Harvard despite low test scores. 

How following a passion for education led Julie from HGSE to admissions consulting [Show notes]

Welcome to the 428th episode of Admissions Straight Talk, Accepted’s podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Before we dive into today's interview, I want to mention a free resource at Accepted that can benefit you if you are applying to graduate school. The challenge at the heart of admissions is showing that you both fit in at your target programs and stand out in the applicant pool. Accepted’s free download, Fitting In and Standing Out: The Paradox at the Heart of Admissions, will show you how to do both. Master this paradox and you are well on your way to acceptance. You can download the free guide here. 

It gives me great pleasure to have on Admissions Straight Talk for the first time, Julie Kim. The daughter of immigrants, Julie admittedly didn't excel in high school. However, using a passion project, she was able to secure acceptance first to USC as an undergrad, and then attended Harvard's Graduate School of Education where she earned her Master's in Education in 2015. She founded Julie Kim Consulting, an undergraduate admission consultancy in 2015 and has grown it ever since. Julie, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk.

One question that I had right off the bat was, your undergrad degree was in Business Administration and Marketing. Why the pivot to Education for the Master's? Or was that your plan all along? [1:25]

That was my plan all along. As you know, there's not a lot of undergraduate majors that students could take advantage of. At USC in particular, they didn't offer an education major but said they allowed a minor. I thought, well, I want to get into business one day and I feel like this is such an applicable skill set in all industries so that's where I started. Even though I was majoring in business, I continued to participate in education related internships and volunteer work and research.

How did you know that you wanted to do education all along? [2:22]

I always loved teaching. I remember when I was in third grade, I sat my little brother down and I was like, “I'm going to teach you math.” And he was like, “Okay”, because we're only two years apart. So I always loved teaching, and even with my parents, I would always be explaining to them what's going on in the education world and what is the difference between SAT and ACT. I think I was kind of born with this love for education.

You attended USC and majored in Business and Marketing, and then you chose to go to Harvard. Did you take some time off in between, or did you go straight? [3:37]

I took a year off to prepare for the graduate admissions process. So a year later.

How did you prepare for Harvard? [3:57]