1730 ok for harvard?

LionHeaded
Fri, 30 May 2008 11:10:53 +0000

So, LionHeaded, correct me if I’m wrong, but you believe high school is all about getting into college?

Whatever happened to enjoying ourselves…I’ve always tried to make high school the best it can be BUT at the same time focus that to make me a competitive college applicant. So far, I’d say it’s worked pretty well. Sure an SAT score is important, but it isn’t everything.

Maybe I misunderstood you, but I strongly believe ECs are more important than SATs.



Whoever told you that ECs were more important than SAT scores was trippin’ solid acid. From a certain threshold it is true that the adcom will start looking at the student as an individual (i.e. essays, recs, and ECs) in making the decision, however if you’re not up to par with the rest on that academic threshold (which for Harvard I would put at 2200 SAT1 score) you will not be considered.

Bypassing the athletes and jaw-dropping hooks to focus on the normal kids, show me a kid with the most extensive ECs available to him and a 1700 SAT score with matching GPA and I’ll show you the first file in the rejection pile at HYPSM.

And yes, academically speaking High School is about getting into college. Does that sound jaded? Perhaps. But it’s the cold harsh truth. While it is indeed a great period in everyone’s lives where friends, loves, and laughter are primordial, let’s not kid ourselves. The reason you studied your ass off for AP Cal was not because of a love of derivatives, now was it? And the reason you’re even on this site is not because you like the background color. It’s because, experiences aside, the payoff is college.

And while after a couple of years in the workforce your college does lose some of its relative importance, it does decide at what level you enter said workforce. Someone recruited by an iBanking firm from Harvard enters miles ahead from someone who finished an accounting degree at Santa Cruz and will likely start as a bank teller. That’s just fact. Does that mean that with 10 years of hard work and a strong sense of ethics that bank teller won’t rise up quickly? Of course not.

But the disillusion that which college you graduate from, doesn’t change the doors that are open to you (through recruiting, connections, location, field status, and yes the dreaded one that makes everyone hiss: Prestige), is completely, completely false. A few exceptions don’t make the norm.