Harvard Prospective Athlete???

Gourmetmom
Tue, 10 Oct 2017 22:15:43 +0000

My son graduated in May, and he actually met his admissions officer the fall of his senior year in HS. She was traveling through our town and invited him for coffee – apparently this is not unusual. Anyway, she encouraged him to submit anything - extra letters of recommendation, academic updates, etc., and in the following years as we’ve learned more about the admissions process at Harvard, it’s clear to me that they encourage and will look at anything meaningful.

That said, they don’t want a letter from someone who has never met the student and who cannot offer anything that isn’t already in the application. What they want to avoid is the letter from some bigwig alum who is a friend of a friend of the student’s parent. That type of letter definitely won’t help, but then again, I really doubt that they would hold it against a student and it would be harmful – not the kid’s fault if a clueless parent solicited such a favor.