Ivy Brothers Case Study: Passion Project

The Linguistic Universe

At Ivy Brothers, we've helped students who are interested in languages and linguistics complete passion projects that set them apart. For this international student, they were interested in studying the various dialects of Mandarin; later, they were accepted to Princeton University, where the student now majors in Linguistics.

Case Study

A rising senior who was an international student engaged Ivy Brothers. The student was interested in studying Linguistics and Mandarin, and the student also communicated some passion for history and educational technology.

Passion Project Title:

The Linguistic Universe

Screenshot from the Landing Page

Concept Overview

The student asked: What did Mandarin sound like in the court of the Kangxi Emperor? What dialects co-existed? What cultural nuances were embedded in pronunciation? The answer was The Linguistic Universe — a platform to travel back in time and learn dialects through embodied experience.

The student created a virtual reality learning space that transported users to the heart of Chinese dialect and languages. This product was one that was targeted toward language learners as well as historians.

Project Deliverables

Using Unity for 3D placement, Figma for UX prototyping, and audio training via native speakers and AI-based phonetics engines, the student built:

• A Qing Dynasty Marketplace VR Module, where users could practice Beijing-accented phrases with vendors.
• A Ming Dynasty Scholar’s Studio, where the pronunciation of literary Chinese was reconstructed based on rhyming dictionaries and rime tables.
• An evolving “Time Wall” that lets users toggle between regional dialects like Wu, Hakka, Min, and Cantonese, all reconstructed or demoed with community contributors and native speakers.

Key Features:

• Speech-to-text feedback for tonal pronunciation.
• Interactive dialogue trees tied to historical characters.
• A language shift simulator showing how phonemes evolved from Middle Chinese to modern Mandarin.

🧭 Admissions Positioning

At Ivy Brothers, we believe in having highly personalized, targeted positioning depending on the school and what the individual admission office may be looking for. This project bridges STEM, humanities, cultural identity, and educational access, offering top-tier schools a student who isn’t just learning languages — but preserving them. It showcases technical innovation, deep research, and cross-cultural empathy, all core to a standout Ivy League spike.

We ensured this project could be tailored to different college archetypes: - For Columbia, Yale, Princeton, and Brown: the project was framed as an interdisciplinary initiative to blend history, linguistics, anthropology and as a project that gives overlooked people a voice. - For Stanford: it emphasized design thinking, innovation, use of cutting-edge technology, and cultural preservation through tech.

Why This Works for Ivy Brothers

• Originality: Using a medium such as virtual reality to explain linguistic concepts is novel.
• Intellectual Range: Demonstrated mastery of both language, academic thought, and history.
• Admissibility Edge: Over 2,300 beta users, including language learners in 12 countries. Featured in the Stanford East Asian Languages Student Symposium. Collaborated with two university professors of Chinese linguistics as advisory board members. Used as a pilot tool by a local language school for foreigners based in Taiwan.

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