<p>[Regular</a> Admits May See 3% Acceptance Rate | News | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/3/27/three-percent-admission-2016/]Regular”>Regular Admits May See 3% Acceptance Rate | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>Not quite sure what you’re asking. If you are asking whether kids should even ‘bother’ applying to Harvard, then my answer is - of course! </p>
<p>There is a Senior at step-d’s school who is headed there next year (got in ED.) He’s a wonderful kid and will really thrive at Harvard. His big sis is already there so he is more than ready to attend and to have a great time! I fully expect to see him running the world in the near future ;)</p>
<p>From the article:</p>
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<p>It makes the math difficult, no? apply early action to harvard where they admit 18% of applicants, or apply RD where they accept 3%.</p>
<p>Or, apply somewhere you might actually get in during the early round, and toss your lottery ticket in the harvard bucket on your way out the door?</p>
<p>Just wow. I wonder how many parents even really understand this?</p>
<p>Absolutely, if that is what a student wants and they have good reason to believe they would thrive there. If they don’t apply, the acceptance rate is 0%.</p>
<p>Also, the process of putting together an application for a reach is probably good practice for applying to other schools with somewhat higher acceptance rates.</p>
<p>Then again, Frazzled kids did not apply anywhere SCEA or ED…</p>
<p>People buy lottery tickets with odds much less than that.</p>
<p>Yes, they should bother. But they shouldn’t count on it. They should apply and then forget it until the decision comes out. They need to let go of the “Harvard dream”, shoot for it, and then let it go. “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”</p>
<p>Isn’t a thread like this made every single year?</p>
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<p>Athletes and legacies really skew SCEA, so I doubt the acceptance rate for unhooked students is much different than RD. I think parents should be wiser, actually, and explain this to kids because SCEA prohibits them from applying to EA schools, especially safeties, where they have a better chance of acceptance.</p>
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<p>Yes. I thought it was a good time for it, since there are parents on here who will be trying to make sense of what happened THIS year, since this is their first year here.</p>
<p>Feel free to skip over it, if the subject bores you. :)</p>
<p>Your chances of being accepted if you don’t apply are 0%.</p>
<p>Harvard is so crowded that nobody goes there any more.</p>
<p>They have to pick somebody so it’s fine to apply but good to understand the odds.</p>
<p>A friend of my D’s from elementary school days is a freshman at Harvard, and one of her high school classmates got accepted SCEA, in the fall. Both are of course lovely, highly accomplished young people, but neither strikes me as being amazingly above their peers, by which I mean typical top 5% students with excellent ECs.</p>
<p>With current acceptance rates, all applicants to highly selective colleges need to be braced for rejection and it just seems to me so obviously true that those who are chosen are not necessarily “better” than those who were not.</p>
<p>LOL Hunt. And the food sucks.</p>
<p>Think of harvard aps like americal idol. Lots and lots and lots tryout. Some are amazing, some have been told they are amazing, some do it cause they really want to be there, others because they have been told they deserve to be there</p>
<p>It depends on what day you auction, who may have gone before you, if they picked too many girls that day already, if the panel is tired, whatever</p>
<p>It’s a crap shoot…once you meet the minimum its truly luck of the draw, talented as one may be</p>
<p>And once in a while a William Hung or Sanjaya Malakar makes it through to the final ten, which keeps everyone busy trying to figure out the admissions process…</p>
<p>I think they made the mistake of dividing number of actual class slots by number of applicants, when the relevant calculation is the number of admitted divided by number of applicants. Given that H has about a 70% yield, it doesn’t help a lot, but it helps a little. Takes the rate up closer to 5%. Still bleak, but not AS bleak.</p>
<p>^^ and then several years of applicants work on “She Bangs” and create faux-hawks as hooks…</p>
<p>(Opps, crossed posted. See posts 14 and 15.)</p>
<p>My own thought is that kids shouldn’t appply to the Ivies unless they are truly in range, academically and with activities, or have some particularly great accomplishments that make them stand a bit taller than all the rest. AND, can write a decent app package. But, I realize so many kids think founding the pie club is extraordinary. Or spending a few hours at a walkathon or just being in NHS. Or writing such a great novel. Or loving to read. What else?</p>
<p>@ Katlliamom - exactly, and small portions.</p>
<p>It is a function of yield. If more people turn it down because everyone knows Harvard is crowded and food sucks, then more can get admitted.</p>