Is it impossible?

Colleges & Universities Harvard University
1

<p>Hey all,</p>

<p>Thanks for clicking on my thread. All I am asking for are for a few people to give their opinions on whether or not I can get in to Harvard RD for Fall of 2012.
Here are my (not so great) stats:
[ *] College (LSA, engineering, etc.): Arts and Sciences- Biology Major
[ *] SAT (one sitting): 1940 (Low because of writing) Crit: 690. Math: 680. Writing: 570.
[ *] SAT IIs : Bio: 650. USH: 620
[ *] ACT:
[ *] unweighted GPA: 3.92 Weighted. (It’s considered a 4.0 at my school)
[ *] Course load (# of AP/IB/H, special courses, etc.): 8 AP classes, 1 Honors Course, all the rest advanced courses
[ *] Rank: 28/309
[ *] Other stats:
[ *] Subjective (ECs, special circumstances, etc):
First Generation College in America (My parents attended some college in another country)
Low Income <60k, dad has been suffering from heart complications forever (discussed this in essay)
[ *] Essays: CommonApp essay was really good, I am going premed and it really reflected on why I chose this path.<br>
[ *] Teacher Recs: I know for a fact one of these is amazing, the other is okay.
[ *] Counselor Rec: Good
[ *] Hook (legacy, recruited athlete, etc.): Conducted college level research in a lab at a state university. (Chemistry) Publishing my research in the next couple of months.
[ *) Location/Person:
[ *] State or Country:NJ
[ *] School Type:Public
[ *] Ethnicity: African American/White (Mixed, no idea if this helps or detracts)
[ *] Gender: male
[ *] major strength/weakness: Academic Rigor, teacher recs, common app essay. I think my SATs put me at a weakness unfortunately.
[ *] Other Factors/questions: I have been accepted to Boston College EA, and Northeastern’s Pharmacy Program EA</p>

2

<p>I don’t mean to be blunt but when Harvard sees those SAT scores, you’re going to get rejected. It’s not about them being mean or anything like that but to the people in admissions, those scores show that you won’t be able to succeed academically at the school. They don’t want people coming to the school and failing, and your scores indicate that you won’t be able to handle the work.</p>

3

<p>I don’t mind candidness. Thank you</p>

4

<p>Try the ACTs-- some kids do much better on the ACT than the SAT and vice versa. Harvard doesn’t care which but wants the ACT with writing. It still requires 2 SATIIs. </p>

<p>The scores are for just one sitting and so aren’t dispositive-- esp with a good GPA. The letters from your school will have to reflect the fact that you are not “maxing out” and that you have the capacity of intellectual growth once in college.</p>

<p>Seriously try the ACT. Also remember that Harvard does score choice so one bad set of scores can be negated if you do well on a second sitting of a standardized test–even the SATs. Study for the test too–particularly the SAT has an internal logic that one needs to master to do quite well…</p>