Then the first wave in may taking off a good chunk of people (we dont know how many but it is probably in the range of 150-400)
So lets say 200. That becomes 1000. Then removing 200-300 students who are international. Making it 800.
Then again more people leaving the waitlist in this past wave (2/3 choosing to remain again or a bit higher since we don’t have the full stats).
Making it 480.
This is at the high end. Of course it may be higher. I can also see me being wrong here, this is taking into account if every waitlisted intl student decides to remain on it.
Many have guessed the waitlist size at harvard to be similar to the size of yales (proportionally being around the 1,000-1,500 range)
This shouldn’t be used as guidance to if your chances are higher.
Your math implies over 200 been taken off the waitlist already. That seems high based on past precedent. Big question is whether those 200 have been given spots because they already were anticipating international kids to drop away
Depending on the political and legal situation, hypothetically, if incoming foreign freshman and returning foreign upperclassmen students are not able to physically attend classes at Harvard, would Harvard possibly take everyone from the waitlist and make a larger than ever freshman class to make up for the lost revenue, empty housing, meal plan losses, etc., ?
nah they won’t go that much over- they still got a rep to maintain and looking that desperate is a fatal move. likely they’ll accept only a few more if any
I don’t think it looks desperate to take exceptionally qualified waitlisted applicants and use all of them to make a larger freshman class and contribute to Harvard’s reputation. All the waitlisted students are deserving of the opportunity if it opens and that’s so much additional income to Harvard. If Harvard loses 1,000 students overall in all grades (returning students and freshmen), and they enlarge the freshmen class with 1,000 waitlist students (if there’s that many still in the list), then Harvard can
continue whatever legal battle they choose to for the following year
use the huge income that it will gain from the waitlisted students to pay legal fees for Harvards endeavors
Have one year of no net gain or losses of students and continue to have the funding to provide an excellent education
How does it help Harvard in any way to just refuse to admit waitlisted students to have a larger class to even out total enrollment? How does that benefit anyone? It would only be for a year and it would keep Harvard financially solvent and would give a deserving opportunity to students who will make the most of it. Win-win.
hmm i see ur point and it makes sense. still, do we know if they have the capacity for that many extra first years? its a different story if its a variety of years on the waitlist but all of them are first year or transfer (fewer) so how would that work
I think the max Harvard would do is to replace the incoming international freshmen who did not already obtained the visa as of now with the waitlist. It would be a stretch to assume they’re gonna fill in for the upperclassman spots. I hope I was wrong though.
The legal battle will likely continue into the fall, after school starts—unless Harvard caves, which they’ve said they won’t. Overenrolling isn’t ideal; no one wants to be squeezed into a triple meant for two, or fight for class registration and club spots. If a large number of international students planned to defer, Harvard likely would’ve been notified by now, and we would’ve seen bigger waitlist movement back in May or June. My guess is Harvard is holding out for potential last-minute visa or border issues. It would be helpful if they told us how many students are still on the waitlist and how many spots are realistically available. That transparency would help us decide whether it’s worth staying on past mid-July.
They have to decide between the risk of over and under enrolling. I bet they would err on the side of over if necessary. But probably won’t go too much over for obvious reasons.
I wonder what the holdup is. If Harvard wins its battle on July 21st the Government administration will appeal to the Supreme Court. Realistically there will be no answers before the fall term. I guess Harvard and the Feds could conceivably reach a settlement agreement with the next few weeks but from what I read in the news I think that is unlikely. So exactly what is the point/date that Harvard will make a decision and let all students have some clarity about the situation
If you’re bored as I am, there is a reddit discussion on how they estimated Harvard’s waitlist size. The OP estimated 1300-1500, while a reply used a different method and came out about 700. It’s just for fun, so take it as a grain of salt.
r/ApplyingToCollege/s/ikw8FgekTQ
Thank you for that link. I’m definitely bored too and this stuff weighs heavily on my mind. I read everything I can find ro keep as updated as possible about the situation. Plus I find it fascinating
