Yet Another Chance Thread...

Chance Me / Match Me
1

Sorry to do this to all of you, but I want to get some outside opinions on my chances. Not only Harvard, but elite schools in general.

Narrative: Future economics professor/Policy designer

White male, can pay without any aid. From Vermont.

SAT 2240 (first try) 720 CR, 720 M, 800 W.
3.9 UW, 4.5-4.6 W.
740 math 2. Retrying this year, also gonna take US and Physics.

Soph: AP Lang, AP Gov, AP World, IB Precalc, Honors Spanish, blah blah blah
Junior: AP Physics, Calc AB, AP Lit, APUSH, Honors CompSci, IB Spanish
Senior: AP Stats, AP Econ, IB HL World Hist, IB HL Eng, IB HL Spanish, AP CompSci, AP Chem

ECs:

I write articles on fangraphs.com, which is the most prominent baseball statistics website. I do other statistics research for fun, nothing much publishable.
I build stock-trading algorithms for fun. Summer this year likely spent doing this professionally.
I have taught myself 7 languages; five of these are on Duolingo, which makes me one of the top-50 learners on the site.
I lived in Jordan for a few years and picked up some pretty strong Arabic.
Middlebury Arabic immersion program last summer
Chinese Exchange trip this summer
Model UN president, 5 awards, one from Harvard Model Congress. I have tripled the number of conferences in which the program competes.
I am a writing center tutor, which works well with my 800 SAT writing.
Thinking about attaching a booklist; I have read/listened to about 40+ books this year, mostly economics and psychology.
Counselor for school summer academic program.

Recs will be solid-stellar. One is from history teacher, who has seen me jump at the opportunity to research for him and competes with me to read more books. One from physics/CompSci teacher, whom I have had for 3 different classes. He loves me, and I share some of my research with him.

Let me know how this seems. I think that my classes and GPA are quite string, but think that my ECs and test scores could use work.

2

Your academics are solid and your background is interesting and different from the norm. Those things will be to your advantage.
I would take the SAT again, a 2240 is excellent ( and good enough)but you are competing for acceptance against the brightest and most compelling kids in the world.
I don’t know how your EC’s will come across. They clearly show your intelligence but will they show your concern for others? An interest in helping others is important, being a humble and decent person is important. Hopefully your recommendations and your writing will convey those things.

3

“Thinking about attaching a booklist; I have read/listened to about 40+ books this year, mostly economics and psychology.
I have taught myself 7 languages; five of these are on Duolingo, which makes me one of the top-50 learners on the site.”

These are good, but won’t show up directly in your application. I’d highly advise against attaching a booklist as supplemental material as admissions officers will not be impressed solely by a list that you claim to have read. However, this kind of knowledge will be useful to you in the interview - especially Harvard’s - as it is here that you can demonstrate your awareness of world events, etcetc.