<p>Also, FYI: Posting YouTube videos is against CC policy.</p>
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<p>Didn’t have perfect SAT scores or hooks - had great GPA and class rank though, didn’t she? Was involved outside the classroom? Wrote good to excellent essays?
Also, I have near perfect scores on the SAT. Does that not make me a good all-rounder?
One does not preclude the other. Some of the best all rounders are kids with rank 1 and perfect SAT scores, and vice versa. The latter usually stand a lower chance at admission. Harvard, like all other top colleges, overplays the ‘we don’t just look for top scorers’ aspect. It makes some people think that if you have great personal qualities, you’ll be admitted no matter your scores. This is just blatantly false, as you can probably estimate your chances of admission better by your class rank than by your essays. And the SAT is the least important part of the process.</p>
<p>And the increase in applications is due to the worsening economy & Harvard’s excellent financial aid, and due to Harvard’s advertising. I doubt the 3 SAT requirement had that much of an effect. Harvard has seen increases in applications for the past few years and it’s always had that policy.</p>
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Right. Look at the acceptees of the past two classes: class rank#1 is norm, lower class rank acceptees (less hooks, URMs, athlets, etc.) are exceptions.<br>
Hardvard will probably cost about HALF what cornell would cost for families with <$180k. Harvard is actively advertising their low family cost to increase applications and thus to decrease the yield. They are playing the yield game to remain at the Top spot of USNWR ranking. The ranking game in college admission is played from harvard on down — and who wouldn’t ?? the benefits are real – top students like to matriculate in top ranked schools. there is probably no other way — if the current ranking criteria are altered, the new ones will still have own problems. harvard is cheap! lower ranked schools are expensive.</p>
<p>I am not saying that they do not want ANY students without perfect SAT scores, rank 1, national science etc etc, but they overplay the chances that a student without those credentials has. In many of the advertisments that I have seen/read they almost make it appear like having a perfect score is not helpful to your chances.</p>
<p>I think you and I are talking about different levels of people - I am referring to their advertising to just above average kids, good kids, not great all-rounders (SAT - 2200, top 10% etc etc.) I mean your 1800, top 10% in a not so great school. That is where - as someone else mentioned - this type of advertising is just used to increase apps, to decrease acceptance rate, to make H look more selective.</p>
<p>They actively encourage students that they can be almost certain will not be accepted to apply for their benefit. That I do not think is right.</p>
<p>^ My guess is that all schools play the selectivity game to some extent, and the Harvard brand name assists in keeping the school up top. [This is also a reason why many top schools do QuestBridge- to increase selectivity rates]. </p>
<p>At the same time, I have no doubt that Harvard sees some institutional responsibility to identify ‘diamonds in the rough’ rather than just shopping from the jewelry store. The problem is that a lot of the superstars have already been identified and picked up during the first 18 years of life, so as you expand the pool, you get diminishing returns, which has the side effect of increasing selectivity.</p>
<p>Well, I guess my daughter is a real-world example that doesn’t fit into your neatly packaged scenario. SAT Score 2230, ACT score 34. Top 10%, not in the top 5% though, not an athlete, not hooked, ORM, graduating class of 800, about 130 kids applied to Harvard, 26 were accepted, Valedictorian rejected, Salutatorian accepted, and the rest of the acceptances were scattered throughout the spectrum of applicants. Bottom line: Harvard is able to pick and choose those students it wants – and no one will know why they chose one applicant over another.</p>
<p>Coming from a school where 26/130 are accepted…</p>
<p>Although the article is 15 years old, see: [Preparatory</a> schools & The admissions process | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1996/1/24/preparatory-schools-the-admissions-process/]Preparatory”>Preparatory schools & The admissions process | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>
<p>Sounds like Stuyvesant, gibby?</p>
<p>The school is irrelevant to my premise, which is that Harvard is not a meritocracy – it does not admit students based solely upon GPA, SAT scores, class rank, or EC’s. Yes, those are all important, but as William Fitzsimmons said “Personal qualities and character provide the foundation upon which each admission rests” – which is why some kids with high stats do not get accepted, while those with lower stats sometimes do.</p>
<p>@Gibby: geez, what school was this?</p>
<p>Imagine if Harvard used post counts on College Confidential instead of SAT scores…</p>
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This is not a contradiction to what any of us are saying. We all know this (and quite frankly, your daughter is better than just an all-rounder, the only thing not excellent about her application is her rank, and it’s only slightly less than it should be). What we’re saying is that Harvard overplays the significance of the subjective part of the application, misleading some seniors into thinking they stand a good chance when in fact, one look at the objective part of their application might get them into the rejected pool.</p>
<p>No one denied that admissions are indeed holistic.</p>
<p>I don’t think 26 kids get into Harvard each year from Stuyvesant…</p>
<p>From what I hear, on a good year, it’s about 27. In a normal year, it’s about 20.</p>
<p>I’m glad Harvard “overplays” the subjective part of the application. I am having the best time of my life here, and if they actively discouraged people without perfect statistics, there’s a good chance that I would not have. I was strong in the “weird and interesting” dimension. Yes, my SAT score was very good, but my class rank was somewhere between top 25% and top 40%, and my UW GPA was a 3.7. I was so nervous about that that I seriously considered not even applying to Harvard. Going into the spring admissions process, in fact, I was trying to talk myself into committing to UChicago, which took me early. I would probably have taken any discouragement as an excuse not to apply, and then spent much of my life regretting that and wondering whether I could have gotten in. (In retrospect, I think that I would not be at all happy at UChicago.) </p>
<p>True, “yeah, we take some kids without perfect stats, but it’s unlikely” is probably more honest. But for scared kids like me, on the fence about whether to apply because they think they are not competitive for an admission they will later receive, “IT DOES HAPPEN” is a much better message than “Well. Yeah, it happens. But good luck with that.” I understand that this strategy has disadvantages, and if anyone with an 1800 subsequently pins all their hopes and dreams on thinking that they have a shot, that’s really sad. But it does have advantages beyond an increased number of applications for its own sake.</p>
<p>Stuyvesant gets ~20 admits to Harvard? That’s ridiculous. :/</p>
<p>Going by USNWR, they’re 31st which is 4 under my school (Ben Franklin). We had zero admits to Harvard, and Stuyvesant’s admits outnumber the admits from Louisiana last year. What the fudge. Far as admissions goes, we had 2 Stanford admits out of a graduating class of ~120.</p>
<p>I want to tell myself I’m better than those who got rejected from Harvard in past years, but I really aren’t. Ah well, as Edmond Dantes says, wait and hope.</p>
<p>Man, our school hasn’t had a single Harvard admit since 2005, similar stats for Yale and Stanford, and only 4-5 ivy leagues each year.
I’m hopeful though.</p>
<p>high school rankings are stupid, but stuyvesant kids (and yes there are like 20+ every year) are amazing, they deserve a tremendous presence at harvard</p>
<p>Haha my school has only sent had eight Ivy league admits period. One to Harvard, one to Brown, two to Dartmouth, two to UPenn, and two to Cornell, I believe.</p>
<p>Although supposedly one girl is going to Columbia to play soccer this year. But then again that could be Columbia College, not Columbia University. =/</p>