<p>OK, so here it is after 8:30PM PDT (6 1/2 hours after the official release time) and my daughter still doesn’t have an e-mail. Yes, we’ve checked the spam folder AND we did the test e-mail with no problems …</p>
<p>Does this mean that we should expect less than thrilling news? Do the e-mails go out in any particular order (accept/wait/no) ?</p>
<p>Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssss!!!</p>
<p>No EMAIL YET…all of you got mail?</p>
<p>My kid was rejected but that’s ok. I’m disappointed but life will go forward. As a parting thought for the rest of you parents that are disappointed too I wanted to share the fact that Harvard does not necessarily take the brightest. I know this for a fact because I know the scores of a classmate of my child and another friend of his/hers that got in. I do not want to embarrass anyone so I’m keeping this as generic as possible. My kid’s only negative as compared with the others is he/she is a top athlete (will play D1) like the others but was not recruited. Just a little comparison (I took the higher scores of the two that got in):</p>
<p>GPA My Kid 4.2 - Others 3.8
AP Courses My Kid 6 (4s&5s)-Others N/A
ACT My Kid 33 - Others 27
National Merit S My kid SemiF- Others N/A
Community Service My Kid 2 letters - Others N/A
Athlete My Kid Yes D-1, Others Yes Recruited</p>
<p>Harvard missed out but my son/daughter will do well. No tears but I think the system is wrong when top students are getting edged out by athletes and legacies.</p>
<p>I am so sorry that Harvard let you down. I know you won’t believe me right now but it really is not very important in the long run. First of all, life is not fair, by our personal definition of “fair”. I guess if one believes in a higher power, then it is the greater definition of “fair” that matters. But ultimately, cream does rise to the top. Please look at Obama - Occidental in California, then for his Junior Year, Columbia, and then Harvard Law. If Harvard is so important to a person, grad school is actuallly even more important than undergrad.</p>
<p>Yes I’m disappointed primarily because I thought the Ivy League took the best and brightest. I’m disappointed in finding out this is not true. My kid is a good athlete (like I said he/she will play D-1). One Ivy school told him/her that she/he was the top student among their potential recruits. What happened is that Harvard took the best athlete not the best student. The two athletes I discussed would not have had a snowball’s chance in hell at any Ivy school if it wasn’t for their recruitment for athletics. My kid’s grades, standardized test scores, extra-curricular activities (real not manufactured for a resume) were all clearly superior to the others (one had a 24 ACT) yet Harvard wanted the perceived better athlete. I always thought when 2 D-1 caliber athletes were available Harvard would take the better student. I will definitely look at Harvard grads in a different light in the future.</p>
<p>My son was notified of his acceptance this week. I wouldn’t ordinarily broadcast this fact except that he refutes what many have written here–that you have to have perfect grades and stellar ECs. My son has a 3.75 GPA. SATs in the 1500s. He was active in music, lacrosse (player, not captain) and model UN. He was accepted by Harvard, Georgetown, Brown, Williams and University of Michigan (he got rejected by Wesleyan, Columbia and William & Mary. I think what made the difference is that we have lived abroad for many years and he has grown up in London and Moscow; he speaks Russian and Spanish fluently; and he has a very international perspective. He is also a dual national. In his essays, he emphasized what it was like to always be a foreigner, and talked about the need for Americans to have a broader worldview. </p>
<p>So you most definitely can be accepted without being perfect. He goes to an international school and two of his classmates got into Harvard and almost half the class got into Ivies and Top Tier universities. Obviously they all weren’t valedictorians. So have fate and also realize that admissions are a bit of a lottery. And lest I forget, he got an excellent financial aid package.</p>
<p>^ In the 1500s? Is that a typo?</p>
<p>1500s/1600, or 1500s/2400?</p>