Can I get in to Harvard?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>I got a 224 PSAT and am expecting Nation Merit Finalist if not Scholar. 2150 SAT, really bad day, thought I was taking it a month later, no studying whatsoever. I am on the Varsity soccer team at my 2000+ division 5A high school, take all IB classes. I build my own guitars and amps, have had life-changing trauma(not going in to detail) but it didn't affect me academically. I am half Iranian living in a single parent(teacher) household. Also, I am expecting to get Eagle Scout and am told I have great character. BAD: I have around a 4.3 (weighted, obviously) GPA, mainly b/c of all of my hobbies.</p>

<p>What chances do I have of getting in to Harvard or equally selective school?
If it's not good, what schools should I look at?</p>

<p>Thanks so much for any info, it will be greatly appreciated!</p>

<p>P.S. I re-read that and it sounds kind of snooty, I REALLY did not mean for it to sound like that, I was just listing the things I think a good school might be interested in.</p>

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<p>You might have to bump up your SAT score, are you going to retake it? What's your class rank?</p>

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<p>Sure, you might get into Harvard. Your GPA matters in the context of your school and the difficulty of the courses taken, and how your high school does the weighting. Deciding to apply to Harvard is easy - the hard thing is to look at other schools that incorporate what you like about Harvard, but are slightly (or a lot) easier to get into. </p>

<p>My nephew who was interesting in bio-engineering - applied to Rice (he liked the residential colleges), MIT, Caltech Johns Hopkins, RPI, Cornell and U of Md. that I can remember. My son applied to schools with good computer science - so Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, RPI and WPI. Someone with an interested in the humanities or social sciences would have a completely different list of safer schools. </p>

<p>There's a good thread here you should search for - I believe it's called something like "What's your safety school?"</p>

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<p>Can you get into to Harvard? Yes. Will you? No idea.</p>

<p>Lots of applicants, many of them are qualified--depends on what the college is looking for that year, who you're applying with, etc.</p>

<p>Regarding your SAT score... well, it's higher than mine :) haha, I just have my fingers crossed. Test scores are my weakness...</p>