Chance Me For Harvard!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>Hey everyone,</p>

<p>I am looking to get an idea of my odds of admission to Harvard for undergrad. My stats are below:</p>

<p>GRADES
Freshman Year
All on level classes... About 50/50 As and Bs, all "borderline"
Sophomore Year
2 honors, 2 APs... Again, about 50/50 As and Bs & "borderline"
3 on AP World, 4 on APCS
Junior Year
2 honors, 4 APs, 2 AP Self Studies
All As, in the 92-98 range
5s on all 6 AP exams (Micro/macro econ, us history, stat, human geo, environmental science)
Senior Year
Will be applying EA, so I don't think they will see any of my senior grades... my schedule for next year is: AP BC Calc, AP Lang, AP Comp. Gov., AP US Gov., AP Physics B (highest physics that school offers), Honors Spanish 4, and AP Psychology</p>

<p>TESTS
34 ACT
800 SAT Math II
760 SAT Physics
800 SAT US History</p>

<p>ECs
Varsity track, XC freshman and sophomore years
President of Investment Club Junior Year (member all 4 years)
Elected SGA Treasurer senior year
Elected to Student Leadership Council senior year
Active member in INTERACT Club (community service)
Eagle Scout
Going to Wharton's LBW summer program this summer (between junior and senior years)
Started a business (more on this below)
In the beginning process of creating a charity with dozens of other high school students from around the world
Will be inducted into 3 honor societies senior year (mu alpha theta, NHS, national history honors society)</p>

<p>ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Started tech company in 8th grade (iPhone apps)
Self-taught programming from Stanford classes that are on iTunes U
Daily revenue has exceeded $4,000
Apps used by over 40k people daily
One app peaked at #2 in the entire Apple App Store (above Facebook, Groupon, etc.)
Over 4,000,000 downloads
Backed out of a 6-figure venture round for another company I was working on to focus more time on school
Company has been featured in New York Times and on the front page of my local newspaper
I had 2 full time employees at company's peak (have since scaled down to focus on school)
Recruited ex-CFO of major internet gaming company to sit on my board of directors
Recruited ex-SVP of business dev. at XBox Live to manage day-to-day operations of company while I was at school</p>

<p>CHARITY
Co-founded a non-profit with 2 other high school students from different parts of the country
It's a micro finance charity where we raise money and lend it to people in third world countries so that they can start their own businesses or get life essentials
Just raised $150,000
About to have a Huffington Post article about us published</p>

<p>OTHER
Teacher recs will be awesome
Essays should be great too
Will probably get the ex-CFO that I recruited for my board to write a rec letter as well
School does not report rank/percentile (they do report mean standardized test scores though and number of APs, both of which I am in the top percentile in)
AP Scholar w/ Distinction
Received University of Rochester Xerox Award
Received $2000 Discus Scholarship for Outstanding achievement outside of the classroom
Went to Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference this summer for a week</p>

<p>I know my grades the 1st 2 years were below average. However, and this is by no means an excuse, my company <em>was</em> taking up an incredible portion of my time then and interfered with school sometimes when I had to fly across the country to talk to CEOs of game studios about partnerships. </p>

<p>What do you think my chances are? Will they overlook my freshman and sophomore grades? </p>

<p>Thanks so much for your time!</p>

2

<p>It’s great that your grades improved as you went. Your chances at Harvard would probably improve if you applied RD and were able to provide the school more evidence of strong academics in the form of all As first semester Senior Year.</p>

<p>Your not-an-excuse probably won’t make the Admissions Officers happy by itself, but your improvement over time and shift in priorities will look good.</p>

<p>Your ECs are super-strong, and with your good test scores, the rest of your objectives seem good enough opto outweigh the weak early grades. If your essay and recs are awesome, then you’ve a good chance of achieving awesome results.</p>

3

<p>Thanks Philovitist. What would you cay my chanced are RD? Also, does anyone else have any other opinions? I’d like to hear from as many people as possible. Thank you!</p>

4

<p>If you have your essays ready, apply SCEA. If Harvard wants you, you will be accepted. If they want to see how do your first semester of senior year, as Philovitist suggested, they will defer you to the RD round. If they are not interested, you will be denied. In any case, you will have a decision by mid-December.</p>

<p>One word of caution: Do not write anything about your grades in any of the essays or additional info section, as no matter how you phrase it, any excuse will come across as whiney and apologetic. If you feel the need to address the issue, have your guidance counselor do so in their SSR.</p>

5

<p>Thanks for the suggestions. The only thing with that is that I would waste my EA if the odds were not good that I would get accepted. Any idea what my actual odds are? I know it is hard to really tell, but I would just like to get another opinion from a third party.</p>

6

<p>Given your grades for freshman and sophomore years, any college that you apply to EA will be a huge question mark – they could accept you, defer you or deny you – it’s really anyone’s guess. So you have the option of applying to only one school SCEA – it could be HYP or S, whichever one you prefer; none of them is a slam dunk for anyone. Or, you could apply EA to a bunch of non-binding schools, such as UChicago, MIT, Georgetown etc. Those are your choices, and no one here is going to be able to tell you what to do. For that, you have to listen to your gut.</p>

7

<p>So would I be better off applying EA or RD? If EA, how much of an advantage do you think that would offer?</p>

<p>Also, I’d love to hear from some others to see what other people think about my odds.</p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

8

<p>You need to change your thinking. Applying EA does not give you an advantage. Given that you don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket for EA if your chances are iffy – and your chances at Harvard are iffy (but so are everyone’s) – apply EA to a broad range of non-binding schools, then apply RD to Harvard.</p>

9

<p>To be more specific: One of the reasons SCEA admissions are higher is that recruited athletes, URM’s and developmental cases are applying early. Possibly half of last year’s accepted SCEA students were in this group; that skews the numbers considerably. If you take those students out of the mix, an average non-hooked applicant’s chances are somewhere south of 8%.</p>

<p>But those are the chances for a student with great grades, which you do not have. So you, wcclirl444, do not have an advantage applying early. </p>

<p>Keep in mind that Harvard is above all an academic institution and is interested in scholars. So, even though you have wonderful EC’s, your academics freshman and sophomore years will be holding you back in the early round. As Philovitist suggested, if you apply EA to Harvard, Admissions may want to wait and see your grades from the 1st semester of your senior year and will defer you. That may be true wherever you apply. It’s just too big an unknown. So, you need to change your thinking and decide if you want an answer mid-December from one school or many schools. </p>

<p>As you stated you don’t want to waste your chances if the odds are not good, I’m suggesting you apply EA to 5-6 non-binding schools and apply RD to Harvard.</p>

10

<p>I mean, you’re making 1 million dollar revenue a year, why go to school?</p>

11

<p>You clearly seem like you would be a much better fit at Stanford. Apply early there.</p>

12

<p>wow.</p>

<p>that’s all I have to say.</p>

13

<p>Guys, i’m not making $1 million + in annual revenue… not even close to that. My revenue <em>peaked</em> at $4k+ a day, but that was for a relatively short period of time. Also, that’s revenue, not profit. About people saying I’d be a better fit at Stanford, why is that? I know they are in the bay area which is known for tech startups, but Mark Zuckerburg and Bill Gates, probably the two most prominent tech entrepreneurs, both graduated from Harvard.</p>

14

<p>Compare Harvard’s computer science courses to Stanford, Brown, Dartmouth, or Carneige-Mellon. As you seem to be an “app” person, notice that Harvard does not offer as many creative app-oriented courses, game design, or modeling courses as other schools. It all depends on what you want to learn – not necessarily the ‘brand name’ of the college, or whomever went there and then dropped out. (Zuckerberg and Gates did not graduate from Harvard; they are among Harvard’s best know drop-outs.) </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.seas.harvard.edu/academics/areas/computer-science-courses[/url]”>http://www.seas.harvard.edu/academics/areas/computer-science-courses&lt;/a&gt;
[Course</a> Schedule Autumn 2012-2013](<a href=“http://cs.stanford.edu/courses/schedules/2012-2013.autumn.php]Course”>Course Schedule Autumn 2012-2013)
[Brown</a> CS: Courses](<a href=“http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/]Brown”>http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/)
[Dartmouth</a> Computer Science | Undergraduate Courses](<a href=“http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/site-content/undergrad-courses/index.php]Dartmouth”>http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/site-content/undergrad-courses/index.php)
<a href=“Carnegie Mellon University - Schedule Of Classes”>Carnegie Mellon University - Schedule Of Classes;

15

<p>Guys, I just got notified that I’m in the running to possibly be a speaker at the next TED conference!!! How would this effect my chances?</p>

16

<p>Yale has some good advice for applicants on their website. I imagine the same advice can apply to Harvard applicants, as well: [What</a> Yale Looks For | Yale College Admissions](<a href=“http://admissions.yale.edu/what-yale-looks-for]What”>What Yale Looks For | Yale College Undergraduate Admissions).</p>

<p>“Yale is above all an academic institution. This means academic strength is our first consideration in evaluating any candidate. The single most important document in your application is your high school transcript, which tells us a great deal about your academic drive and performance over time. We look for students who have consistently taken a broad range of challenging courses in high school and done well.”</p>

<p>“While there is no hard and fast rule, it is safe to say that performance in school is more important than testing. A very strong performance in a demanding college preparatory program may compensate for modest standardized test scores, but it is unlikely that high standardized test scores will persuade the admissions committee to disregard an undistinguished secondary-school record.”</p>

<p>So, to answer your question: Being a speaker at a TED conference is “icing on the cake” if you have a great transcript – but it will not compensate for lack-luster grades.</p>

17

<p>I think you can even nominate yourself to put you in the running- did you receive notification about how high you are? </p>

<p>While gibby does make a solid point, I think if you speak at a TED conference it’s going to be pretty dang hard for harvard to say no.</p>

<p>Then again, I spoke at ASBMB and I have no chance.</p>

18

<p>But what qualifies as lack-luster grades? I got all As junior year and will have all As senior year, which obviously indicates a strong upward trend. Do my freshman and sophomore grades ruin my chances completely, or will they “forgive” them since I might have started to focus on school a little later than most people (due to a heavy involvement in my company)? I’ll agree that my transcript isn’t great, but I have heard that most Ivys don’t even consider freshman grades. If you take out those two years, I’d say my transcript is about average for Harvard (maybe slightly below considering that some people get perfect scores in every class they take).</p>

<p>Am I wrong with my thinking here? I would think that my test scores would validate my education & knowledge which would allow them to place less emphasis on my earlier grades and thus giving me a fair chance of acceptance thanks to my ECs. Thoughts? Opinions?</p>

19

<p>@bluenotebook, I have been told that I will be strongly considered if spots open up. Since they did the booking a little different for this conference and I wasn’t aware that it was going on a few months ago, I wasn’t able to apply in the earlier stages. However, I definitely have a chance at speaking and my story would be perfect for the upcoming conference’s theme (young, talented, and undiscovered people).</p>

20

<p>While your hard work to get your upward trend is admirable, Harvard gets more “perfect” applications than they can admit. You would somehow need to show them why they should admit you over them, and if you apply EA, they won’t see your senior grades.</p>

<p>BTW, in post #15 it is affect, not effect. Have somebody edit your essays.</p>