L(.'*.=).

(> 3F(<';<'=FF

!"##$%&'

!"##"$ %&'!"##"$()* +,"-.

(&)%*+(,-.()%-,/)01.
.22+,3.(,4/%2043)55
6789:;

/(**0'12 34.'567'58&6 · 9':;<')(=>

Originally published on:

http://jessy.io/minerva-application/

I applied to Minerva class of 2021 and chose

the early action (deadline November 1st)
“binding option”. The advantage you will
receive from this is an expedited response
within 3 weeks of submission and exclusive
online sessions with the Head of Admissions,
Neagheen Homaifar. It’s a good option if
Minerva is your first choice because you can
avoid spending time and pay application fees if
you are applying to other colleges. If admitted
binding, you must pay a $500 deposit within 10
days to secure your enrollment.

!""#$%"$&'"()
Minerva consists of 2 entities:

Minerva at KGI — actual college that’s a

non-profit accredited by the Keck Graduate
Institute, member of the Claremont
Consortium in California

Minerva Project — for-profit part of

Minerva that licenses out its Active
Learning Forum and curriculums

For a longer explanation of this, click here

(credits to Minerva’s Outreach Lead
Michael Lai)

Minerva’s application process is highly

selective (acceptance rate ~ 2%), but not at all
competitive. That’s because as long as a student
passed a certain “bar”, they will be accepted
regardless of any other factors, such as race,
gender, family income. No quotas, no limited
space resulted in only 20% Americans in the
class. There is also no waiting list; you either
pass the bar and get accepted, or you don’t.
Though vs other elite universities that
sometimes getting accepted into depends on
luck, Minerva holistically evaluates the 3 parts
of your application so it’s not a crapshoot. You
can’t apply twice in one year. However if denied
this year, you can try next year.

Things Minerva look for in a candidate:

intellectual capacity and curiosity

someone with a high impact who has

achieved extraordinary things (even in an
unconventional sense)

someone open-minded and independent

who can readily adapt to the different
cultures of the world

Regardless of the education you’ve been

through, you will always start with the first
year’s cornerstone courses. That’s because
Minerva teaches a completely different system
than traditional education, which means they
don’t accept AP scores or any college course
replacements. However, students are expected
to come in having the knowledge of basic
college classes and skills, such as Calculus,
advanced English, and Python through
MOOCs. One of the key skill you should have
before attending is knowing how to manage
your time — simply put, there will be no time
to “mess around”.

Minerva raised its tuition from $10,000 to

$12,500 per year. The total cost of attendance
is a little below $30,000 per year, which is still
much affordable than many private, prestigious
institutions. Minerva encourages its students to
do work-study, internships, low-interest loans,
and if there are still gaps in between, Minerva
will provide financial aid.

Update: Minerva is offering a $10,000 need-

based scholarship to those who are ZeeMee
participants, see details below. This is the link.

Minerva has its own Professional

Development Agency that supports its
students for a lifetime. Anne Kauth, the
Manager of Employer Network & Partnership,
helped developed Minerva’s PDA, which is
basically a database consists of international
networks of professionals and experts
Minervans can connect with. Furthermore,
Minerva also proactively work with individual
students to figure out what they want/should
do, where to place them, and promote their
accomplishments, for their ENTIRE career.
Seems like a sweet deal. Though I raised a
question about whether Minerva will scale up
its PDA resources in the future, since
supporting for a lifetime of hundreds of
students is quite different than say, thousands
of students. Minerva’s response was that they
are already hiring more for career coaching.
Besides, knowing from data and experience,
the older the Minervans, the less likely they’ll
need career support, as they’ve already
developed the expertise and connections to
thrive on their own. In addition, giving the type
of students Minervans are — eager to
contribute to a better cause — most will come
back as alumni and help the current students in
their career, inevitably creating a positive cycle.

Minerva’s 2nd-year retention rate is around

90%. 10% of the students drop out due to
various reasons. So if you get accepted but are
quite unsure whether you should attend, I
encourage you to go. Because it may be very
challenging, it may be too stressful, and it may
just not be right for you. But you always have
the option to withdraw, take it as a special gap
year with an awesome experience with other
like-minded, high-achieving students in a
globalized and revolutionary type of education
experience, and save it in your profile.
Bottomline is, Minerva’s education is about
internship opportunities and personal growth,
as oppose to the traditional academic-based
and research-focused higher education system,
so it may or may not be for you depending on
your objectives.

*"($"'%"$%+,$-."/,00$"1$%+,$2--34/2%4"')
Disclaimer: the information below are merely
my personal experiences, please evaluate base
on your own standings.

First I had to complete Part One of the

Application, filling out my basic information
(including uploading a transcript) and one of
my achievements (later will count as one of the
six achievements). Don’t worry; you can
change any information you filled out later.
Completing this allowed me to gain access to
the Admission Center so I can fill out Part Two
and Three of the application.

Part Two had to do with completing 6

challenges that are set out to test your IQ and
EQ, with the goal to see if you have the
potential to grasp the material of Minerva’s
curriculums.

How to approach the 6 challenges:

Note: I didn’t enclose too much detail to ensure

fairness.

1. Creativity — a question asking about the

number of uses for an item, such as a paper
clip — use it as a needle, SIM card popper,
etc — you have 7 min.

Key to this: be creative, be wild!

2. Math — around 16 very straightforward

questions about basic arithmetics and logic, no
calculator, only pen & pencil — 7 min.

Key: be quick as there were no “trick”

questions, don’t over check your answers,
and watch out for time — I ran out of time
and left 2 questions unanswered because I
was being a perfectionist and forgot about
the time, so don’t be me.

3. Understanding — read a short passage and

answer 6 questions regarding the nature of the
passage — 7 min.

Key: use process of

elimination.Understanding how Minerva
works thoroughly will help a lot — I
finished this challenge in 4 min and had 3
min to check my answers

4. Reasoning — around 13 questions about

picking the right shape to fit alongside other
eight shapes, much like a classical IQ test —
around 30 min.

Key: perhaps search up on how to solve the

same type of IQ puzzle? The questions went
from easy to hard. Last 3 questions or so
were pretty abstract and I wasn’t sure about
my answer

5. Writing — a question asking you to write

something about it — 7 min.

Key: reading my other blog posts will

probably help you a lot with this, content-
wise

6. Expression — 4 questions — 10 min.

Key: try this challenge on your very

energetic day, and have hyperfocus when
you actually do it. Understand yourself
inside-out, your positives, your negatives,
what made you the person the way you are,
and the big decisions you make (why) — I
was a bit caught off guard on two of the
curveball questions but had a rather
thorough thought on the other two

Bonus Tips:

Do them at separate sessions to avoid brain

drain because the challenges are mostly
very fast past and can be intense because
it’s timed

Do them when you have high energy,

especially for the challenges of Creativity,
Writing, and Expression

Read up on Minerva’s ideologies and

practice the challenges before doing the
real one

Read my blog

Somewhere along the way, I received this

email. As you can see, Minerva really wants its
applicants to finish their applications.

Part Three examines the achievements of you

outside of school. This is an opportunity to
present the type of person you are (talents,
passion) and how you are likely going to
contribute to Minerva’s community.

I crafted my 6 achievements by laying out the

significant happenings in my life and
determined my major inspirations. I then
picked out 6 accomplishments I am most proud
of that were inspired by those people/events.
Update: I later found out that it’s best to use
your accomplishments within the past 3–4
years.

Act like the admissions officers has no clue of

where you are coming from, give as much
context and as many details as possible.
Articulate strongly of the significance of your
accomplishments, quantify it: how many
people attended, how much money you
raised/earned, how many people you’ve
managed, etc. Don’t be shy to “brag”, however,
do be honest with the statistics.

Remember to gather and organize evidence for

what you’ve done, including links to media
coverage, videos, pictures, and people who can
verify your accomplishments (contact them so
they’ll know what’s going on).

Samples of Minervans’ achievements:

Gwen was a consultant for many

organizations and a keynote speaker at
events around the world

Dorotea started an NGO called Project

Maht that focuses on mitigating poverty in
Kosovo

Njeri interviewed Bill Gates

This section also asks for your counselor to

submit some basic information about you (your
GPA, rank, transcript, rigor of the classes you
take/school you attend, criminal history, etc)
through a personalized link, send it to your
counselor early so he/she can have time to fill it
out. Ask them EARLY and keep them
accountable until they submit it. The sooner
you can present this information on their table,
the earlier you can have this section done; you
can check whether they’ve submitted it to the
Admission Center.

Alongside the 3 parts, you have to fill out

information pertaining to your
Parent/Guardian contact info, disciplinary
record, and an option for binding enrollment;
all can be filled out within 10 mins.

After completing all the above, I submitted my

application.

If you submit your Minerva app by October

10th, 2016, Minerva will expedite your
review process and make the admission
decision by October 24. If you are admitted
and enrolled, they will invite you to their
San Francisco Civitas on November 19th.

The Civitas is an annual event where you can

engage with current Minervans and leaders of
major organizations and experience the
academics, residential life, and student
community of the school. Minerva will also
provide the majority of the cost including
housing, most meals, select activities, and up to
80% of the cost of the air ticket to and from San
Francisco.

P.S. Applying to Minerva in the past weeks

made me an extremely productive person. If I
could do this all over again, I would start
applying when I was a sophomore in high
school (when I first knew about this school)
just for the heck of it

5##4%4"'23$4'1".62%4"'$%+2%733$849,$:";
6".,$4'048+%)
Student Blogs

YouTube Channel

Reddit Thread

Quora Answers + Minerva Founder Ben

Nelson Answered Questions

Online Info Sessions

Should you have any questions, I would be

happy to answer you.

Or if you would like to speak directly to a

Minerva ambassador, email Jake Schaeffer:
jake@minerva.kgi.edu or Michael Lai:
michael@minerva.kgi.edu

I wish you the best of luck and hope you

learned something from my process.

Originally published on:

http://jessy.io/minerva-application/

??& ?

@>-4=.;"< A"##(B( C;<()D= E<;D()*;.0

+FF#0;<B'G"'H4I""#

<".,$1."6$=,00:$>? !"##"$

+,"-. J);.( 1(#F K(B=#

L(.'.I('C(>;-:'=FF