<p>Oxbridge will also be very interested if you can make the first XI or the first XV…those three sports will get you an admit. </p>
<p>The data as analyzed by the former dean of Harvard College, Harris Lewis (yes, Marlyn’s husband…) demonstrates with strong statistic significance that regardless of what measure one uses to determine “success” after college (not merely financially or even professionally) aside from those planning on entering academia that college grades have no correlation – the one factor that does is participation on a varsity sport. </p>
<p>Admission to any college, esp Harvard is not a colored star on your homework paper saying that you colored in all of the circles correctly. Ad Coms are NOT REWARDING past efforts-- so no one “deserves” admission bc of great grades or great boards or great ECs or great sports–it is an educated guess as to who the Committee feels would fit in well in a class – a class of many moving parts-- and whom they feel will contribute not merely to Harvard while a student but who will make a mark in some way in the world. </p>
<p>When someone writes that it isn’t “fair” that such and such a type of applicant got in but he or she didn’t-- that means that they just don’t understand what the admissions process is all about–Does that mean that those people have been sold a bill of goods by Mommy and Daddy and Teacher over the years?–yup, it does. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t do the best one can and excel – but one should do it for the inherent value not because one thinks that some admissions committee will go “yippee, they have all of the boxes checked–let’s admit!!”. Doing that sets one up for a nasty fall and even if one does get admitted starts a cycle of doing the same for grad/professional school/ then first job etc until one day the person realizes that they have completely blown it-- that one has never actually “been” anywhere because one has always just seen wherever one happens to be as merely a steppingstone to the next rung --and in the end one has missed life along the way. How sad.</p>