<p>Does anyone know if Harvard is one of those schools that only looks at the letter, not considering the appended sign? If not, could someone who has read something by an admin officer (and can hopefully quote) say whether they feel that an A+ shows more excellence than an A or an A- shows significantly weaker achievement? Thanks!</p>
<p>Admissions does not ignore the plus or minus signs – it’s Harvard after all. FWIW: A+ does show more excellence than an A or an A- s, but all of those grades are excellent – no worries.</p>
<p>What you need to remember is that Harvard is not a meritocracy. Students with the highest grades and test scores DO NOT always get accepted over a student with lesser grades and scores. For example, a student with straight A pluses might be rejected, while a student with straight A minuses or even (god forbid) some B’s might be accepted. Much of the applications process is subjective and comes down to how an Admissions Director “feels” after reading your teacher recommendations and essays and compares your file to all other applicants.</p>
<p>Thanks gibby!
I know you are one of the most informed posters around here, so I have another (unrelated) question for you: which ivies weight SATs the highest and which the least? I think Brown does not give as much importance as others…is that true? And is there any one of Ivies/MIT/Stanford that places more weight upon your score?</p>
<p>For selective colleges, the rigor of your transcript and your GPA is MOST important because it is a 3-year window into your potential as a scholar. Whereas your SAT/ACT score is a 1-day window – and colleges realize than many students take test prep to achieve their high scores. So, for HYPSM and all the little ivies, your transcript is the most important part of your file. Next in importance are your teacher recommendations, followed by your essays. </p>
<p>Schools use test scores as an indicator of “college readiness.” The lower a student’s SAT/ACT score, the more an Admissions Director will ask themselves, “If I admit this kid, will he struggle with the work-load on my campus? Will s/he become a ‘B’ student or a ‘C’ student?” That’s why it’s important to remember that the higher your score, the more a committee will think you can succeed at their institution – and that’s really what test scores are used for at selective colleges. </p>
<p>On the other hand, at some state institutions all they go by is test scores . . . they sort of draw a line in the sand and admit everyone above a certain number. That DOES NOT happen at HYPSM and the like!</p>
<p>“So, for HYPSM and all the little ivies, your transcript is the most important part of your file. Next in importance are your teacher recommendations, followed by your essays.”</p>
<p>Sorry Gibby, but I have to disagree with your assessment of the order of things. Here’s how it goes: Transcripts (with a consideration of testing), EXTRACURRICULARS, letters of rec, essays, and something else. Essays are crucial and what holds the application together but are really hard to discuss in committee (I know some schools project them onto a screen but 40+ people don’t really have time to read and digest a lot of them). Obviously, to get into a HPYSM etc. all of these things must be exemplary.</p>
<p>^^ I guess Jeffrey Brenzel, Dean of Yale Admissions, on behalf of the College Board and all Common Application members put together this video to mislead students and parents:<a href=“https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/get-started/video-transcription/whats-the-most-important-part-of-the-application[/url]”>https://bigfuture.collegeboard.org/get-started/video-transcription/whats-the-most-important-part-of-the-application</a></p>
<p>“Students, when we’re on the road, we often play a little kind of quiz show game with students, asking what they think is the most important part of the application. Many, many students respond, “Well, the testing must be the most important.” It’s actually one of the less important elements in the file. The testing can give you a sense of what schools are within your range, and it gives the school a sense of what students in the applicant pool are within their range. The most important part of your application — bar none, no question, any college — is your high school transcript. PROBABLY THE NEXT MOST IMPORTANT ARE YOUR TEACHER RECOMMENDATIONS, particularly if you’re applying to any kind of selective college or university.”</p>
<p>^^ I apologize for the snark. I posted at 5:30 this morning before I had my coffee.</p>
<p>The only possible reason I could have gotten in with some Bs* is my recommendations. My extracurriculars were Harvard-good, but my friend who was much, much better than me in my chosen area of focus got rejected from all of HYPS. (It was a competition, and she swept the floor with me every time!) She’s attending Brown, so she’s fine, but I think this pretty clearly indicates some combination of essays and recommendations are what did it for me.</p>
<p>*Each year, I got approximately AAAAB+B, both of the lower grades in important academic subjects. This probably still means I was in the top 20%, 25%; I don’t know my rank, but I don’t think there was a chance in hell I was top 10%. My school had well more than 300 students a grade and three were accepted to Harvard that year, so it’s not like we were a feeder. My grades were still very good, but pretty far from the perfection many student posters here seem to think was a requirement.</p>
<p>^^ Gibby: If this is what he says is important to Yale then I doubt he was trying to “mislead” students and parents but what I wrote is what goes on some of the other very top schools. I don’t have a video to back this up because they don’t publicly say what the process is exactly. Just as I know there is another factor which you or others have never mentioned but can be very important to the decision. </p>
<p>You have long held, teacher recs and essays are the most important things after grades. Yes, they are EXTREMELY important and can help tip the application into the acceptance pile. However, as I have said before, many many teachers do not know how to write a proper recommendation addressing what admissions officers are interested in knowing (we’ve all seen the MIT piece). So, does this mean if you do not come from a top magnet school or prep school where the teachers are experienced in writing recs you cannot get into a top school? Of course not! Also, the flip side is that many posters (I don’t recall if you fall into this category) have advocated the teachers have to be willing to say that Johnny or Judy is the “best student” they have had in [fill in the blank] number of years. If you come from a self-selecting leading magnet school or top private school, how can the teachers come across the “best in twenty years” every year? It’s not possible. Yet, despite this obvious fact, these schools continue to send scores of students to top schools every year. How does this happen? Is it because top colleges know that if you can be amongst the highest achieving students at a top magnet school and the recs say that you are generally a very decent person with good leadership skills you are a worthy candidate? Probably. And if you can get a stellar rec at a top magnet school that has 700+ kids then I agree that for Benzel and others this is an important piece of confirming evidence that they need.</p>
<p>These top private and magnet schools aside, yes, teacher recs are important, but they are used to try to support or refute what the transcripts and extracurriculars are already saying about a student and to try to gain additional color as to his/her leadership abilities, special talents, social skills etc. Again, very often they fail to provide this kind of information because the teacher writes what he/she feels is a great recommendation but doesn’t address these areas. So, by your and Dean Benzel’s standards, are many extremely high achieving students not given serious consideration because of their teacher’s lack of knowledge or experience in writing recs or because guidance counselors at some schools have to work with an inordinate amount of students who they can’t possibly get to know much about? It is just not that cut and dry.</p>
<p>Lastly, as I have said before, while essays can be extremely valuable, how can admissions officers possibly know how much “help” a student receives in “editing” the essay. Grades are a true reflection of a student’s abilities (recent cheating scandals aside). Extracurriculars that result in state or national recognition can’t be embellished upon, teacher recs are generally accurate and honest, but standardized tests can be heavily prepped for (there are $400/hr tutors in high demand) and essays can be, in the extreme, “ghost written” by very expensive writers. This would heavily favor the rich if these latter items were as important as some believe.</p>
<p>i could go on and on but let’s agree to disagree. </p>
<p>In the 99% of other things you write about, Gibby, I defer to your greater wisdom and knowledge, but in this matter I stand by my original post above.</p>
<p>Exultationsy:</p>
<p>Recs and essays can certainly keep you out of top schools as may have been the case with your friend (or maybe she just wasn’t a very strong candidate to begin with). In your case, essays and recs clearly appear to be the tip factor for you. I can’t help wondering if there is more to you than meets the eye which the recommendations or essays brought out that overshadowed your grades (extracurriculars, adversity etc.). Where else were you accepted? If you were in the top 20-25% than you are clearly the exception rather than the rule. In almost all cases, no essay or recommendation can overcome less than stellar grades.</p>
<p>Falcon: Jeffrey Brenzel was not only speaking for Yale, he was speaking for The College Board. The College Board is saying the order is transcripts, teacher recommendations.</p>
<p>I don’t know since I don’t scour around looking for these things often but from the College Board’s own website it appears that recs are sixth on the list: </p>
<p>"A college’s statistics should never be taken as rules for admission, though.
Students should know that many factors influence admission decisions, including:</p>
<p>Courses taken
Grades received
Class rank
Standardized test scores
Personal statements and essays
Recommendations
Extracurricular activities
Interviews
Which factors most affect the admission decision?
Many small, selective colleges pay greater attention to personal statements and essays, teacher and counselor recommendations, leadership experiences and the individual talents of applicants. They typically offer the chance for a face-to-face interview.</p>
<p>Large, public state university systems often use a mathematical formula based on a student’s grade point average (GPA) and scores on the SAT or ACT. They tend to favor in-state applicants.</p>
<p>Regardless of the college’s evaluation system, your students should present a well-rounded picture of their skills, experience and personal traits. Applications should highlight their ability to succeed at each particular institution and what they can contribute to student life on campus.</p>
<p>Courses and grades
A student’s grades in college-preparatory classes remain the most significant factor in college admission decisions.</p>
<p>Highly selective colleges look for students who:</p>
<p>Complete core academic requirements.
Take more challenging classes, even though they may have slightly lower grades than they’d achieve in lower-level courses.
Enroll in several college-prep or college-level courses (such as AP®) and perform well.
Take four years of a world language, showing evidence of academic discipline and challenge.
Class rank
Although still reviewed by many colleges, class rank has declined in significance as many private and religious schools have eliminated student ranking.</p>
<p>Test scores
Standardized test scores remain important at many colleges. Examinations such as the SAT and SAT Subject Tests™, or the ACT, allow colleges to compare students from across the country.</p>
<p>Essays
Personal statements and essays are both a measure of writing ability and a window into each student’s background. Admission officers want to hear an original voice in the student’s own words. For a successful essay, encourage students to get to the point quickly and personalize their writing through specific examples.</p>
<p>Recommendations from counselors and teachers
At selective colleges, strong school support in the form of recommendations from counselors and faculty members has become more important than ever. These recommendations should be highly specific, describing not just each student’s love of learning, but the ways in which the students have demonstrated that they can</p>
<p>Add to the classroom experience.
Challenge themselves.
Attempt original projects.
Extracurricular activities
Evidence of extracurricular activities is important to the admission process, and depth of involvement is more impressive than breadth. Students can achieve this if they</p>
<p>Focus on a limited number of interests.
Document long-term involvement with organizations.
Highlight activities related to a major or career goal.
Show leadership skills and ability.
Additional factors to consider
Many colleges set aside spaces for students who may not meet traditional criteria but will add to the class diversity. Geographic location, racial or ethnic background, extenuating or unusual life circumstances and experience living or studying overseas may all be influential. Evidence suggests that in some cases applying early decision may also increase the chances of admission."</p>
<p>FWIW, if you have outstanding national achievement or fame i.e. Angela Zhang’s novel approach toward the treatment of cancer, Olympic athlete capabilities, etc. recs are not a high priority. They will just confirm what is already known.</p>
<p>gibby,</p>
<p>“I guess Jeffrey Brenzel, Dean of Yale Admissions, on behalf of the College Board and all Common Application members put together this video to mislead students and parents:”</p>
<p>Although “mislead” may be too strong a word, I wouldn’t rule something like this out. In fact, it’s sorta baked into the cake. The focus is always on the signs of the thing or things for which they’re looking, whether it’s grades, or test scores, or recommendations, or whatever. The very fact that they discuss the process this way shows that they’re not telling all the truth, and some of what they’re saying is true but only in context. And they’re not always revealing the most correct context.</p>
<p>All the things we discuss - grades, letters, scores, essays, all of it, are largely prerequisites. Of course the top schools are looking for really smart kids, and if you’re not really smart, fairly hard-working, so on and so forth, they’re not gonna let you in But they’re also signs of something beyond being smart, dedicated, involved. At Harvard, at least, they’re looking for something beyond that, to which all these things point, but the admissions committees don’t actually tell you the thing or things for which they’re looking.</p>
<p>Because if they did, then everyone would emulate the quality[ies] for which they’re looking, and it would become even more difficult to distinguish between the real thing and the ersatz.</p>
<p>^^ Exactly. If the magic formula were simply transcripts, recs (amd essays), as notjoe says, the market would be pretty efficient in arbitraging these advantages away.</p>
<p>It is an evolving process. We know that what mattered ten years ago (i.e well-rounded)i is very different than today. By the same token, if recs and essays were super-important five years ago, they aren’t as important today (together with test scores) because more and more have figured these things out and pay for test prep, hire professionals to edit their essays and they educate their teachers on how to write a great rec by slipping them the MIT piece and in other ways. This has diminished the value of these things considerably although they still are vitally important, I’ll grant you that.</p>
<p>What AO’s say is not always 100% what is going on. I hate to say it but Harvard, probably more than any other school, has a lot of moving pieces in the decision making process. There is almost always more than meets the eye. I’ll leave it at at that.</p>
<p>Let’s move on. We’re not exactly discussing solving world hunger, are we? I’ll concede (and have conceded) that essays and recs are extremely important and in some cases can make or break an application.</p>
<p>Exultationsy:</p>
<p>I just saw in an earlier post of yours that you are a double legacy. So saying that your recs and essays were the only things that could have got you in is not entirely accurate. Most kids do not have legacy or even double-legacy status that gets their files a careful read. Kids who are in the top 20-25% should not be given unrealistic hopes that recs or letters can save the day for them. Lightning does strike but in your case you had the help of a rod (how big or how tiny, it is hard to know - the devil is in the details).</p>
<p>Some posters come and say, “oh, grades don’t matter, I’m a white non-legacy from New York with a 2090 SAT, standard extracurriculars like NHS president and nothing more, and as many Bs as As and I got in.” Those kinds don’t tend to post a lot, so I can’t find any examples quickly, but I’m not trying to exaggerate. Those kinds of anecdotes, if true, are beyond unhelpfully rare. I try not to do that, because it just isn’t remotely correct. Letters and recs do NOT “make up for” bad grades. That is not what I was trying to say, and I hope I did not. </p>
<p>However, all other things equal (and an SAT I above 700 on each section is equal, e.g., contrary to many of the panicked posts on here), I absolutely believe essays and recommendations are often the tipping factor. This is what gibby’s links from authorities say, but I sometimes give myself as an anecdotal example for color. I believe this was true for all the colleges I applied to, incidentally. I wasn’t interested in Yale or Princeton, so I can’t credential myself by saying that, besides Harvard, I also got into one of those, where I was not legacy. I did go 4/4 with the schools I applied to, however, including Chicago EA and Columbia RD, at neither of which was I legacy. So although I am at Harvard, I feel comfortable generalizing the importance of essays and recommendations to my application beyond Harvard.</p>
<p>But I do have many reasons never to say “oh, a rank as low as mine is totally fine, look how it worked out for me”. I was at one of the top 10 high schools in the country; we were not a Harvard feeder, but 15-25 kids a year head to each of Princeton and MIT. The school was a science magnet and my Bs were all in math or science, both of which I pursued to the best of my ability. My extracurriculars included a national championship. That was before my better friend made it to the national level and “destroyed” me, but the destruction was relative: even then I was regularly placing 3rd and 4th. (Although I was close to the people next ahead of me, friend-who-won was winning by absolutely massive margins, hence “destruction”; 3rd or 4th nationally is still, however, a helpful resume line.) It would be totally incorrect and misleading to say that being below top 10% isn’t a cause for worry, that it doesn’t generally damage your application. However, once you’re in the ballpark, I think essays and recommendations often make the difference. My grades would normally have disqualified me from the ballpark, except that I was achieving them as a humanities person at such a good science high school. My extracurriculars also helped and, for Harvard, I’m sure legacy did as well. So although the reasons I was in “the ballpark” are unusual, however, I was in it. And then if you accept that I was “ballpark,” I am then an unusually clear example of the importance of essays and recommendations spoken about in all those materials from the college admissions people cited earlier in this thread. They’re not going to rescue a bad or mediocre application, except in vanishingly rare circumstances. But among competitive applications, they are of much greater importance to making or breaking the deal than any 100 points on the SAT.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification exultationsy. What you wrote makes a lot of sense.</p>
<p>Wow, I hadn’t realized that recommendations weight so strongly. I wonder, what can a teacher say anything, apart from “best student in my X years of teaching,” that will make a recommendation stand out?
Some of the teachers at my school have a system where we write our own recommendation and submit it to him and then he edits/adds to it as he sees fit. So as I am writing this recommendation for myself, is there anything I can say/discuss that will stand out? I’m not asking for a specific statement, but rather, should I discuss a particular failure? (I heard somewhere that MIT likes this). Should I focus on my extracurriculars in this subject outside of the classroom? (This seems like a bad idea though, since they can probably see this from my app.) What should I even do? Looking on the MIT website, it says “If a teacher asks you to write the recommendation for them – do not do this (these requests rarely happen in the United States, but do happen with some frequency abroad). Instead, ask another teacher. Teacher recommendations should only be written by the teacher and by no one else” but all the match/science teachers I’ve had do this, so I would have no options to ask someone for my A Evaluation.</p>
<p>Also, going back to one of my earlier questions about test scores, I suppose then that no Ivy/M/S looks at SAT scores more closely than the others? How about second tier schools? I think I heard that Duke places great value upon SAT scores - is that true?</p>
<p>MIT has a good site for teachers: [Writing</a> Recommendations | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/apply/prepare/writingrecs]Writing”>How to write good letters of recommendation | MIT Admissions)</p>
<p>All selective colleges use SAT/ACT scores as part of their holistic admissions criteria. You can look at each college’s range of test scores by googling their “Common Data Set.” For Harvard’s Common Data Set, see: <a href=“http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/CDS_2011-2012_Final.pdf[/url]”>http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/CDS_2011-2012_Final.pdf</a></p>
<p>There are some colleges where the SAT/ACT is optional: [SAT/ACT</a> Optional 4-Year Universities | FairTest](<a href=“http://www.fairtest.org/university/optional]SAT/ACT”>ACT/SAT Optional List - Fairtest)</p>