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<li>I am tired of the implication that legacies, the rich, and athletes are never, and cannot ever be, equally talented or valuable members of the Harvard community. That is not true. And you didn’t do this, OP, but a lot of posts about “desirable” admissions groups also single out blacks, hispanics, and the poor as sometimes getting in without “deserving” it. Honestly, I wouldn’t want to go to a school that disadvantaged in admissions the rich, the poor, the athletes, the African-Americans, and those of Latin American descent. What, I’d be left with a school composed of a whole lot of rather indoors-y whites and Asians whose parents make between $60k and $100k a year? Eh, no thanks.</li>
<li>The legacy acceptance rate is 30%, which is high on the whole, but they do tend to come from well-educated, achievement-emphasizing homes. I don’t like to imply that legacies aren’t worthy of being here without looking at the acceptance rate of, say, Princeton legacies at Harvard, and vice versa, which analysis I’ve never seen. I would think those rates would be pretty similar; if not, I’ll get on your get-rid-of-the-legacy-advantage boat.</li>
<li>If nobody who applied early ever had as good essays, scores, and recommendations as they would if they applied regular, this might be good advice.
A lot of people do take September and October tests; I don’t think very many candidates with a snowball’s chance in hell are still trying for significant improvements the November test, which is the first one that’s too late to submit early action. After October, most of the best candidates’ scores shouldn’t have all that much room to go up. Personally, I had all my scores locked down by the June of junior year.
I feel like most people write last minute essays no matter what deadline they’re applying under. Of course, nobody should apply early if their essays are bad. Agree with you on that one, but disagree on the prevalence of people doing so.
I believe most students have both of their recommendations come from junior year teachers who don’t usually (especially at public schools) see much/any more of them between November 1 and January 1.</li>
<li>Uh, Yale’s admissions policies are so very different and so very much more egalitarian from Harvard’s? What?</li>
<li>And most damningly, even if you are who you say you are, this is all pure speculation. Nobody’s seen how Harvard’s early action is going to play out this time around. Harvard adcoms have a plan. But even they don’t know if this admissions cycle will follow the plan, because a large part of it will depend on who applies when, over which they do not have control. Of particular concern to me are your speculative contentions that Harvard will have far more early applicants than Yale or Princeton or Stanford, that Harvard will reject applicants they might accept in the regular round, while YPS would defer them, and that YPS are less, somehow, binding. A lot of posters on CC have wanted to apply to Yale early now, since “it will be less competitive,” which suggests that it won’t actually be less competitive. Princeton’s also returning to early action, so it might also go crazily selective; there is no difference, in that regard, between it and Harvard.
The “Harvard rejects qualified candidates when YPS might defer them” thing is pure speculation, and makes no sense. Why on earth would they not just defer them? Where are you getting that idea? I don’t know of any facts within the past five-ish years on which you could be basing this!
And Harvard is equally non-binding as the other bunch, and lets candidates simultaneously apply to their state’s university early/rolling. So it wouldn’t hurt you, compared to YPSM, on that front.</li>
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<p>I’m not arguing that you should, in fact, apply early to Harvard, rather than regular. I’m arguing that if you want to apply regular rather than early, that this poster’s reasons for doing so are not good ones.</p>