To those denied admission:

dar5995
Thu, 21 May 2009 22:08:58 +0000

sadovaya: don’t generalize from your son’s experience. You have no idea what what said by your son’s teachers/guidance counselors or by his interviewer. There are typically several factors which influence a decision, and unless you see his admissions file, you will not know what they are. Maybe it was the Russian studies, maybe the school he attended, maybe something else. Feel blessed he was accepted into so many excellent schools, and enjoy the rare luxury of making a choice that really can’t go wrong, no matter what.
I’ve been interviewing for H for over 10 years, and I’ve been reading the reunion reports of my classmates for 35 years (which certainly dispels any notion that going to a school like Harvard guarantees anything). There is absolutely nothing guaranteed to always succeed in the case of admissions, and there is much more random good luck operating than we can sometimes bear to admit.