Chance me Harvard ‘27!

First of all congratulations! You have done super well up to this point. You and your parents should be very proud of how well you have done. You are a very strong student and I expect that you will do well whichever university you end up attending. Being the top student in your high school is definitely not easy.

What do you intend to do with a degree in poli sci? Are you thinking of law school? There are definitely a large number of universities that will prepare you very well for law school (if that is the intention). There are also a wide range of majors that will prepare you for law school.

You should think quite hard about what you want in a university. Have you thought about a smaller school such as a liberal arts college? Why Harvard rather than Princeton, Yale, Stanford, Chicago, Amherst College, Bowdoin, Wellesley, Toronto, McGill, your in-state public university, or somewhere else? Having a good understanding of this question can be helpful both to improve your chances of getting accepted to Harvard, and to improve your chances of ending up at a school that is a good fit for you.

If you do end up at Harvard, expect to suddenly become average the day that you show up on campus. This is both a plus and a minus. There are more students like you, but classes are tough. Students who find high school easy but who then attend a top university such as Harvard sometimes have to improve their study skills in a hurry because classes have suddenly become harder.

There are something like 35,000 high schools in the US (public and private). Last year Harvard had about 61,000 applicants. They were not all the #1 student at a high school in the US. However, a large number of applicants were. Most applicants to Harvard are academically very strong. You are certainly a competitive and academically qualified applicant. Your changes for admissions are pretty certainly in the single digit percentages.

Which suggests that is it worth applying if you are sure it is a good fit for you, but you need to think hard about matches and safeties.

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