Half of Ivy League schools lower their admissions standards

[Data10]

@bgbg4us

EG: Recently an immigrant kid from a school in the district got in to Harvard with 28 ACT - showing raw potential. No way that kid would have made it without that test because that kid spent all their time working for the family after school; no ECs, national competitions, etc.

Don’t assume that Harvard expects low SES kids in such schools to win national competitions or that Harvard doesn’t value supporting their family by working every day after school. Harvard actually has a special EC rating category for supporting family by working:

@Harvard Reader Guidelines

" Substantial commitment outside of conventional EC participation such as family obligations, term-time work or a significant commute (Important: should be included with other e/c to boost the rating or left as a “5” if that is more representative of the student’s commitment)."

I expect this kid did well in both the EC and personal ratings categories, and also received the “disadvantaged” flag, which is associated with a significant admissions boost. I expect excelling in these non-stat criteria allowed Harvard to overlook the 28 ACT, which is very low for Harvard. Only ~4% of Harvard’s entering class scored below 30 ACT. I can’t imagine that the bottom ~4% ACT score is helping the applicant, so I expect the decision would have been the same, if Harvard had not considered test scores.