What are my chances?

gibby
Fri, 03 Feb 2017 00:26:02 +0000

How do my ec’s look?

Harvard is an academic institution, not an extracurricular camp – so they are MORE concerned with a student’s performance in the classroom. Admissions looks at a student’s extracurricular activities to gauge the level of commitment they have made to something beyond the classroom. The idea is that a student’s energy, drive, determination, and commitment is a transferable skill – something that could be transferred to another activity in college, or something later on in life. Based upon what you wrote, you seem to have that. However, when Admissions builds a freshman class, they look at a student’s extracurriculars to make sure that the institution is not recruiting too many students interested in one particular activity. For example, admitting 50 tuba players when only 4 are needed is not helpful to an institution’s orchestra. Ditto with being a writer on your school newspaper, or a non-recruited athlete who is on their high school’s cross country team, or a member of the school’s local chapter of NHS. Without knowing how many other students are being considered for admission who have similar interests as you, it’s impossible to say how your EC’s look.

do you know what kind of weight the letter from my Harvard mentor might have?

I would think it would be a positive element, but keep in mind – and this is just a guess – about half of Harvard’s Summer School students probably get a professor to write an additional recommendation to the college. So, the weight of your letter all depends on how it stacks up against other students who have submitted additional recommendations from Harvard professors. So again, it’s impossible to say.