Applying REA to Harvard and hope to study economics and foreign policy.
Stats:
SAT superscore: 2350 (800M, 770W, 780CR)
Subject test scores: 740 Math II, 750 Bio M, 750 USH
GPA (weighted): 4.42
GPA (unweighted): 4.00
Class rank: 1-2
EC’s:
-Debate (two time state runner up and captain)
-Speech (state champion and captain)
-Quizbowl (three time national qualifier and captain)
-Research (worked at local state university for past three years)
-Work (worked at local bookstore)
-Tutoring (100+ hours)
-Volunteering at local library (250+ hours)
-Helped found environmental student activism website to lobby to politicians across the world.
-Study two foreign languages outside of school (quadrilingual)
Course Rigor: Took all AP’s junior and senior year, took 3 more classes than allowed Junior year, taking two AP Physics classes senior year, hardest course rigor in all of high school
Really want to go to Harvard, hopefully this will do the trick, but I don’t know! Chance me!
Harvard is a 20-1 shot. Let’s handicap your odds at 8-1.
@BigRig101, you are a potentially a “strong” applicant. You easily pass all the academic criteria (GPA, curricular rigor, standardized tests close to the 75th percentile. And you have some potentially strong ECs that could set you apart, if you present yourself well. In what area was your research?
@renaissancedad My research was in chemistry and mechanical engineering, not econ or fp. It was however math intensive.
@ClarinetDad16 What do you mean handicap? And is 8-1 good?
@jsm2015 5’s on all except enviro and psychocology (4’s). I took Calc AB but due to a testing error I got a 3, so I won’t be sending that one.
He means he believes your chances are about 12%.
I am not able to arrive anywhere near this kind of precision because so much goes into the decision that we can’t see:
- Your essays
- Your recs
- Your demographics and family circumstances
- Who else from your school is applying and what the history of your school is at Harvard
You have good test scores and grades so you are a viable applicant. Whether your EC’s measure up is difficult to say. Certainly, your speech and debate awards are notable. Your research would be more impressive if you were published or won competitions and they don’t relate to your intended fields of study so sort of a head scratcher.
Even if we had all the information above in front of us, we couldn’t accurately chance you because we aren’t admissions officers and we don’t have any sense of how you compare to who they are letting in at the time they’re reviewing your application.
Here’s a thought exercise for you to consider if you are applying SCEA to Harvard and you are a white, middle class applicant (just guessing for the purpose of this exercise).
About 10% of the spots will go to Internationals
About 21% of the admittances will go to Asians
About 21% will go to URM’s
About 23% will got to recruited athletes (okay, I’m not allowing for overlap, but anyway)
About 15-25% will got to legacies (okay, again no allowance for overlap and I’m saying perhaps 25% because the total class will end up containing about 15% legacies and most will apply early).
About 2% will go to developmental, children of celebrities, scions of mega-wealthy, or politically-connected candidates.
about 3% will go to super-geniuses and prodigies in the performing arts
That means that not taking into account overlap, 95%- 105% of the spots are accounted for and anyone not fitting into the above categories is competing for rthe emaining spots.
I’m sure my math is all over the place but it still makes you stop and think.
^^ I’d estimate that the overlap is about 25% at most. That means that you are competing for 20- 30% of the total available seats for SCEA. That certainly drives down the SCEA acceptance rate for anyone not in any of the above categories into the single digits.