What are my chances?

JHS
Fri, 03 Feb 2017 13:17:41 +0000

Come on. You know perfectly well that, on paper at least, and presuming that everything you say is true, you look like the kind of person Harvard accepts. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who look like the sort of person Harvard accepts whom Harvard doesn’t accept, so you get to wriggle and squirm like everyone else. Everything gibby said is true, but no one would tell you it was a waste of time for you to apply to Harvard.

Here’s what you are doing wrong, though: First, you are trying too hard. Three supplemental recommendations is two-and-a-half too many. The impressive one, as long as he knows how to write a little, is not the Harvard researcher but the district superintendent. You’re obviously a science kid, and someone paid for you to spend the summer at Harvard, so obviously you worked with a researcher there. What’s special is that you are a science kid who is also working with the school board – that’s a little sparkle.

Second, I hope you are not as insensitive in real life as you have been in this post. You know perfectly well that you are a winner. People tell you that all the time. You are obviously a big deal at your school. You have done a bunch of impressive things, and you have had some opportunities that aren’t available to everyone. Then you post here talking down your achievements and wringing your hands with self-doubt. How do you think that makes the 99.9% of students who don’t have a resume anything like yours feel? Why is your need for praise from strangers so great that you are deliberately contributing to the worst aspects of College Confidential, the culture of anxiety and hyper-critical evaluation? A real leader – and I suspect you are one – doesn’t do that, even to strangers.

Stop fretting. Assuming you applied to more than one college, you are going to be accepted someplace great, maybe a lot of places. Harvard may or may not be among them, but it really won’t matter. Your personal qualities have much more to do with the quality of your college experience and your post-college success than the relatively tiny differences between Harvard and dozens of its peers, some of which are likely to accept you. Looking back ten or twenty years from now, you will know for certain that getting into Harvard or not will not have been a critical juncture in your life.