True admission rate

MrMom62
Fri, 06 Jun 2014 14:41:04 +0000

Based on our HS Naviance data, where we have many Harvard applications every year and manage to get someone in most years, but not this year, I estimated the acceptance rate for highly qualified US applicants at around 15-20%, probably closer to the 15% side, so say 16%, or about 1 in 6. I think I defined highly qualified as UWGPA 3.8+ and ACT of 32+. I didn’t perform the analysis, but stats higher than that didn’t seem to increase your chances all that much. I did not have access to things like ECs, course rigor, APs, SAT IIs, etc, just the basic scattergram.

Many of the Harvard applications are also international, which drives down the overall acceptance rate, but US students don’t generally compete with that pool.