Another Chance Thread (but please give me honost opinion)

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
21

<p>Excuse me, I understand the admissions process better than most, but I think I was a little hasty in my post to stressed!!. Now that I consider it, I would say we are very different candidates. My scores and GPA are not on par with Harvard's usual standard but when you consider my extenuating circumstances than my college counselor thinks I have as good a shot as anyone (i.e-practically none). </p>

<p>Good luck with everything stressed!! I hope it all works out for you, and remember that Harvard isn't the only school out there!</p>

22

<p>Oh i know i want to apply to harvard, brown, cornell, vanderbilt, Purdue (top choiche) MSU (i live in Michigan), and William & Mary</p>

23

<p>^and it has to be a high-up government official...for example a house of representatives member is no good, it has to be a senator, and if its not a federal position, nothing besides governor will suffice</p>

24

<p>I don't understand how half of you think that you are getting into good schools because from the looks of what you post you sound retarded. Stressed has special circumstances which really will help him in the admissions process. Extremely low income, first gen, yet still first in his class. Yes a 29 is a lower score, but a 33? Come on, the person who said a 33 is too low for Harvard needs some brains. Our salut last year got into harvard yale and stanford with a 2220 SAT. Albeit he had quite the resume built up, he did not have any extremely amazing awards or prestigious programs thrown in there, just a lot of stuff. That compensated for his not having hooks in other places. Even though people go EC crazy, do you really think that doing a ton of extracurriculars will set you apart from everyone else? Think about it, if you are a science/math student, you try for a research internship or to do a summer program or EPGY stuff. If you are into political science, you probably would look into an internship with a senator or something similar to that. Now the majority of applicants will have pretty solid ECs that are pretty much the same, with few that really really stand out. Therefore, if you think about it logically, indulging yourself in many ECs is not the way to look really impressive. Having top scores correlates to higher admit rates, but it is not the cause of higher admit rates. Top colleges have the opportunity to admit just 99.5th percentile and above scorers on the SAT, but they do not. Why? Because they look at other things. Are those other things ECs? In many cases, no. The EC list just plays into the story. If you have none they hurt you. If you have very interesting or prestigious ones, they help you. Even if you do not have many ECs, that is when scores and other factors can really compensate. So throw away the applicants that just have scores that do not cut it, those who are special cases, and those who have an extremely impressive resume. What is left to look at? Recommendations and essays. I am not including the interview because in the US that is not usually a big factor for admissions, unlike in the beloved UK system. Recommendations are a huge tipping factor. If you can find a teacher that can give examples of how great you are and how much you have contributed in and outside of class, that really will factor into admissions. As for essays, this is the place to shine. Adcoms want to see that you are a person that is not an EC, test, or grade whore. They want to see that you are not only a human being, but also an interesting human being that they'll invest four years in. Essays allow you to bring out your personality and string together the application from a laundry list of scores, grades, activities, and honors into a nicely (or not so nicely) wrapped application.</p>

<p>Now I am tired of hearing this bull about scores and gpas and such. Rank probably plays a big factor into top tier admissions; I will give you that much. Why? Because it is a direct comparison against the peers in your school. Also, rigor would affect the validity of ranks. If the school is very rigorous, then obviously there is more leeway given to the ranks. But really, GPA and SAT/ACT is only a cutoff. After a certain point it may be a small tipping factor, I do not know for sure, but it is in no way the bulk of the app. For ECs, they just want to see that you have kept yourself occupied and tried to challenge yourself with a position or a job and that you did not just sit on your rear end all four years of high school, only to achieve the prestigious award of "You Rock" on Guitar Hero. Yes, some ECs are tipping factors or hooks even, but in no way does the application end there for the majority of applicants. If you really want to hit it home, make sure you impress two teachers, make a connection with your guidance counciler, get a few ECs that you can build on, write a good essay, keep SATs above 2200, and keep your rank in the top 10. Not 10%, but top 10. If you do that, I guarantee that you will have a much higher chance that the rest of the people out there.</p>

<p>EDIT: Oh, and on the subject of awards...</p>

<p>They are important if you have a prestigious one, but really, not everyone will be nationally recognized in something. As long as you can put something down there that looks alright and is not participation, then that should be alright. The only time that an award will be a hook is if it is at the level of great athletic achievement (state champ for example) or of high academic honor (like Intel STS or equivalent).</p>

25

<p>"I don't understand how half of you think that you are getting into good schools because from the looks of what you post you sound retarded."
-The fact that you think we are serious shows a lot about you. </p>

<p>"Now I am tired of hearing this bull about scores and gpas and such."
-Say what you want, but your transcript is always the most important factor in admissions to top-tier schools, as they have to know that you can handle the work. Certainly it isn't the only factor, but it's definitely the biggest.</p>

<p>"If you really want to hit it home, make sure you impress two teachers, make a connection with your guidance counciler, get a few ECs that you can build on, write a good essay, keep SATs above 2200, and keep your rank in the top 10. Not 10%, but top 10. If you do that, I guarantee that you will have a much higher chance that the rest of the people out there."
-1) Please learn to spell. It is a counselor. I don't understand how YOU think you will get into a good school, as your spelling makes you appear "retarded."
-2)Top 10 is relative. Top 10 at a school of 60 is extremely different than top 10 at a school of 1000. So that statement is just downright foolish.<br>
-3)The majority of the applicants to a school like Harvard have everything that you mentioned there, but only about 7% of them will get in. So just doing that does not give you a much higher chance than most people out there.</p>

<p>Overall, I'd say you need to seriously reconsider writing such lengthy posts telling people what they need to get into an ivy-league school. Are you an admissions officer there? Because if not, you can't tell people exactly what scores/rank they need to get in, as there is no definitive formula for acceptance.</p>

26

<p>There are some intelligent things in what cicero said. When I said the top 500 graduates from public schools I didn't mean them to be the top 500 based on scores. I meant the top 500 academic, extracurricular, and personality based applicants. After hooked students are taken, you really do need to be one of the top 500. The student that cicero outlined would just be termed "standard strong" and would probably have only an average chance in gaining admissions. You must be unique in what you have accomplished, not just in the essay you write.</p>

27

<p>I agree with sbarkowski... there is not a lot of legit advice on this thread</p>

<p>Okay first of all, 29 is not terrible for taking the ACT as a sophomore. If you take it again later, like early in your senior year, you should be able to get a 33 if you work at it a little bit.</p>

<p>There is also quite a lot to be said for coming from a low income family. I know for a fact that if you have to spend time working to help support your family, Ivies will not expect you to have incredible ECs. If this situation applies to you, then you should for sure make that well known in your app. And also, make sure you have great essays. They are obviously quite important for people with borderline stats. Good luck!</p>

<p>Poisonous - what you say may be true, but there are more than 500 students per class at Harvard that come from public schools. Its probably more like 900 or so.</p>

28

<p>im such an idiot.... im sorry
didnt see that there was a second page... ^this was supposed to go after #15</p>

29

<p>"If you really want to hit it home, make sure you impress two teachers, make a connection with your guidance counciler, get a few ECs that you can build on, write a good essay, keep SATs above 2200, and keep your rank in the top 10. Not 10%, but top 10. If you do that, I guarantee that you will have a much higher chance that the rest of the people out there."</p>

<p>That is actually the best advice I've read in this forum (no sarcasm).</p>

<p>And when considered together, being really poor and living in a single-parent household while maintaining a rank of 1 is definitely a "hook." But these "hooks" can only get you so far. You really need to follow cicero's advice and impress two teachers and your guidance counsellor, because Harvard weighs the recommendation letters heavily. Moreover, your essay will make or break your application.</p>

<p>That's the problem with these "chance" threads: the respondents judge your prospects without seeing the two most important parts of your application.</p>

30

<p>I was not trying to outline the type of student that would be an automatic in for a top tier school. (And thanks for the correction on the spelling of counselor...). What I was trying to say in that lengthy post was not that SATs and GPA were meaningless, but basically that they are only something to get you past the first step. Class rank, no matter what anyone else says, is more important than GPA. It is a direct comparison against your peers, and especially if multiple people are applying from your school to a top tier school, then your rank and classes taken will probably be compared directly at one point in the admissions process to someone else in your school. I was not trying to say that ECs have little importance; rather, they are not the most important thing out there. Yes, some activities are really stand out and will be a tipping factor or hook, but for the most part, most ECs are nearly the same or comparable to everyone else's ECs. Try to fit in some activities that look good where you can, but don't worry about those as much as say making a solid connection with a teacher or pursuing something that you like as opposed to something that looks good. Now my main point to be inferred from that post is that the majority of competitive applicants will have similar awards, similar activities, similar scores, and similar grades/rank. Boo frigin' hoo, zomg, someone has a 3.9 GPA, they is never getting in. That is all I hear around this forum. Stop moaning and groaning about grades, because as long as they are within a certain range, you should be fine. You won't be penalized for a couple of B's and a handful of A-'s. Surely it is better to have a higher GPA, but it is only a correlation to higher admit factors, not a cause of it. So what can set the regular applicant apart? Well, many applicants do not spend enough time formulating outstanding essays or making solid connections with teachers and guidance counselors. Therefore, that is where time in school should be devoted. The majority of applicants will having glowing recommendations, but if you can get three recs that are truly outstanding and tie it together with an outstanding essay, then as a regular applicant, you stand a much better chance. You need to show that you are a match to the university that you are applying to, so yes, put together ECs that show you are dedicated or a leader or whatever bull they want you to show. However, you should really focus on making your application show how great you are as a person and student through the recs, and how perfectly you would fit into the college you are applying to through your essay. Don't listen to people that look at your scores or grades and say that you'll never make it because they are on the lower side. I've seen from my school a 2370 SAT scorer with 2380 SAT IIs be rejected from every top tier university and a 2220 applicant be accepted to everywhere that he applied in the same year. The year before that, a 2310 SAT applicant was rejected to every Ivy + MIT and Stanford except for Harvard. As a note, all of these applicants had 4.0 GPAs, and they were ranked 1st, 2nd, and 3rd respectively. The first applicant did not have many ECs and no personality, the second applicant had loads of ECs and great recs, and the third applicant had nearly no ECs but good recs and such.</p>

31

<p>correlation generally implies causation...but yeah i agree with you for the most part</p>

32

<p>I think what we can learn from this is that there is no sure "formula" for determining who gets in where and why. All of us have different views; in my opinion, bits and pieces from each poster make sense to me. I hear that your transcript is the single most important part of your application (according to Princeton, I think), which sounds legitimate. It tells the schools your GPA, your classes, your grades (in comparison to applicants from your school and others) --- it says whether or not you were a good student, where, and why. This is the most important things about going into an institution of higher learning: whether or not you were "good at learning" in high school.</p>

<p>As for SAT/ACT: they won't get you into college, but they will keep you OUT, if you get my meaning. They are just tests to help the colleges see how you rank in comparison to others, and that is all. Example: I was accepted to Georgetown with barely 700s in CR, W, and M, with some low-to-middle 600s for the SAT IIs. Others with 2300+ did not get in. Somewhere along the line, I had something that those people did not (and my scores did not weigh me down, apparently).</p>

<p>As for ECs, I somewhat disagree. They are extremely important, because you need "breadth and depth." However, this means, as someone mentioned earlier, no "laundry list" of activities. You need to be active in your ECs and committed, REALLY. Vice President of National Honor Society won't do a thing.</p>

<p>Service is something that hasn't come up. Every applicant who thinks he has a decent chance of getting into one of the "selective schools" (Georgetown, Notre Dame, BC, MIT, Cal, Ivy League, etc) has given back to the community in some way. This is essential.</p>

<p>Essays/Recommendations are also very important. The essays allow you to be personal. Recommendations are held in high regard because Harvard doesn't KNOW you, but these teachers do. An admissions officer can learn anything from a heartfelt letter.</p>

<p>Lastly, every applicant needs a hook --- whether it be URM, legacy, low income, or something else that makes you stand out (such as someone who has an unusual selection of ECs, like a star football jock who has won prestigious classical music awards, IDK). These selective colleges get thousands of people "with great SATs" and "high GPA," but they also want the people who are different, that there are only a few of. These applicants are hard to find.</p>

<p>That's my opinion, for what it's worth. None of us here are exactly "right," about college admissions, but it is interesting to hear all these thoughts.</p>

33

<p>Not bad, rabar.</p>

34

<p>^ Thanks! After a good year's worth of the whole "college admissions thing," that's what I've been able to gather.</p>

35

<p>i totally agree with you rabar, on all but one point. What's wrong with NHS? As president, i put in at least 5-10 hours a week coordinating with other community leaders to search out and organize events, and just generally run the club, and I know that our other officers put in a similar amount of time.</p>

36

<p>^ I think he meant that VP of NHS won't hurt you?</p>

37

<p>danr74: I'm also an NHS president, and I can sympathize with you. Its a huge time commitment.</p>

38

<p>No, I believe he/she actually meant that being an NHS VP won't do a thing to help your application. Without trying to offend anyone here, it's the "easy way" to do community service because the infrastructure and support systems are already there for you. Plus, it's just so darn common.</p>

39

<p>Sorry for the misunderstanding; what I meant about NHS was that at some schools (mine being an example), various student-council-type positions are often just popularity contests, and hold little responsibility. Yes, it's a kind of a stereotype.</p>

<p>However, if your position DOES hold significance and you actually put in work, time, etc, then you should definitely be held in much higher regard, and I respect that.</p>

40

<p>Stressed, do not listen to people who say your ACT will disqualify the 1/700 class rank! Of course, I would try to get it up since a 29 is poor by Harvard's standards! </p>

<p>Beef Supreme, how can you say a 33 ACT will disqualify the OP! Harvard's middle 50th percentile is 31-35 !
I would say a 33 is about average for Harvard accepted students. </p>

<p>I do not know if anyone touched on this, but it is dangerous to express political/religious beliefs strongly in your app! Top schools, like Harvard, are very liberal. Just mentioning that you strongly support Pro-Life can get you rejected. Republican Club can also hurt your chances! No applicant should express their political/religious beliefs through their apps (Dem/Rep ; Pro-Life/Pro-Choice, anything and on any side is a no-no, but the adcoms are most likely liberal so this is especially a no-no in your case) Stay in your Republican Club and continue to support Pro-Life, just don't mention it to Harvard.</p>

<p>I am not saying this because I disagree with your belifes (I actually lean to the right, and support Pro-Life), but do not point out positions in your app that the adcoms can disagree with! If you get into Harvard, THEN you can become active with the Republican/Democrat clubs and show your support.</p>

<p>Alright, good luck!</p>