Kindly chance me for Harvard

gibby
Fri, 25 Aug 2017 00:57:40 +0000

So I’m an international student . . .

Stop right there! Not all international students are created equal.

International applicants do NOT have the same odds as US applicants. Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford and MIT (among other colleges) limit the number of international students to about 10% to 11% of an incoming freshman class. That means that Harvard admits about 160 to 190 international students per year – and most of those students are from 6 countries: Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, China, Japan and South Korea.

To see how many students from your country are currently attending Harvard, go to: http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics. From the pull-down menus, select STUDENTS, HARVARD COLLEGE (the undergraduate school) and YOUR COUNTRY. Be sure to divide that number by 4 to get an idea of about how many students are admitted each year from your country.

Harvard doesn’t publish the number of applications from each country, but there could be more than 1000 students applying to Harvard from your country in any given year for a limited number of slots. To be admitted you have to be the best-of-the-best from your country. Those are terrible odds, no matter what your stats.

In addition, you should be aware that all student’s apply to Harvard College as Liberal Arts Majors, and do not choose a major, called a concentration, until their sophomore year. So, whatever students select as their “intended major” when they apply to the college has absolutely no bearing on what major they will ultimately graduate with.

Colleges ask about your “intended major” to see how committed you are to your interests – the idea being that your commitment, energy and drive is a transferrable skill. So whatever student’s write down as their “intended major” they should make sure they have documented evidence in the rest of their application of their commitment to that major.

Best of luck to you!