Chance me for Harvard

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

Hey I’m new here.
I know everyone says you shouldn’t post these but still.
I’m an international school applying to the following schools intending to major in computer science.
Harvard is one of my dream schools ^.^

Academics:
-SAT Score: 1500/1600
-SAT Math Level 2: 800/800
-SAT Physics: 790/800
-IB Diploma predicted score: 40/45 (7 in HL Maths, 7 in HL Economics, 6 in HL Physics, 6 in SL Chemistry, 6 in SL English Language and Literature, 6 in SL French)

Activities/extracurriculars: (in order of importance to me)
-interned at 3 different software companies (2 startups and 1 established company)
-work experience at the same established company on a later occasion
-learnt programming alone (mainly web development, have hosted a website which provides resources and aids future IB students)
-was part of a research project (presented at a conference, the write up will be published soon)
-played the guitar and piano since the age of 10
-3 years in the school soccer team, played in various tournaments
-part of the school Drama Club which has produced 3 plays
-part of the school Organisation Team which organised 3 large scale events (a marathon, an Olympics and a futsal competition)
-volunteering in general
-went on an international understanding trip (helped various schools and hospitals in China)
-academic excellence award for grades 9,10

ethnicity: Pakistani (live in Australia)
Financial aid required

Chance me?
Also could you please tell me if applying restrictive early action to Harvard would help?
Should I list my ethnicity as Asian or other in the CommonApp?
Thanks,
Emily

2

Welcome to College Confidential!

You seem like a wonderful applicant, as are most students who will ultimately be rejected. As Harvard receives more qualified applications than they have seats in their freshman class, Admissions uses a student’s teacher recommendations, guidance counselor’s Secondary School Report (SSR), essays and interview report to choose one high performing student over another. They look for wonderful scholars of good “character” – that’s an old fashioned word meaning the way you develop your inner qualities, intellectual passion, maturity, social conscience, concern for community, tolerance, inclusiveness and love of learning. Unfortunately, none of those qualities can be gleaned from a post like yours.

The best that can be said from your post is that your GPA and test scores are within Harvard’s range, so you will be a competitive applicant. Do you have a chance? Sure! How much of a chance is anyone’s guess.

You should also note that acceptance rates for international students are not the same for US applicants. Harvard (and most US colleges) restrict the number of international students to about 10% to 11% of an incoming class. Please go to http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics and from the pull-down menus select HARVARD COLLEGE (the undergraduate school) STUDENTS and AUSTRALIA and you’ll see that there are 33 students from Australia attending Harvard who are either freshman, sophomores, juniors or seniors. That means that Harvard, on average, accepts about 8-9 students per year from Australia.

Now Harvard doesn’t publish the number of students applying from each country, but I imagine 400 to 500 students from Australia (maybe more) apply for those 8-9 slots. If I’m correct, that’s an overall acceptance rate of less than 2% – those are horrible odds no matter what you’re stats.

With regards to SCEA or RD: Applying early does NOT increase your chances, as virtually all recruited athletes (approximately 230 students) apply in the early round and are accepted. Ditto with legacy applicants. So, those applicant numbers skew the overall SCEA acceptance rate. In addition, the general wisdom is that MORE students with perfect (or near perfect) GPA’s and test scores apply in the early round, so the early applicant pool is comprised of MORE highly accomplished students.

If Harvard is your first choice school in the US, then you should apply there early, but keep in mind that Harvard defers 82% to 84% of applicants applying in the SCEA round. So every applicant applying early should expect to be deferred (and if you receive an acceptance it will be a happy occurrence).

Best of luck to you!

3

@gibby Thanks for all the information! Just a few questions if you don’t mind answering :slight_smile:

  1. As you mentioned, the acceptance rate for the early action round skewed by the athletes and legacies. So to increase my chances of getting in, do you think I should early or not, provided all the other parts of my application stay the same?
  2. If not Harvard, which kinds of schools do you think I should be targeting solely based on my grades and ECs? Could you give me some examples?
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^^Answering your questions in reverse order:

2: If you need full financial aid in order to attend a US college, your options are very limited: https://www.internationalstudent.com/schools_awarding_aid/

  1. According to the College Board's Concordance table, your 1500 SAT is equivalent to a 2170 on the old SAT: https://collegereadiness.collegeboard.org/pdf/higher-ed-brief-sat-concordance.pdf. And according to a recent Harvard Freshman survey, the average reported SAT score for the class of 2020 was 2234: http://features.thecrimson.com/2016/freshman-survey/makeup-narrative/

So while your SAT score is within Harvard’s range, it’s not in the top range. In the SCEA round that could mean your application might be overshadowed by other international students who have higher SAT scores and you stand a greater chance of deferral. I would suggest you look at applying early to Amherst, as your chances are slightly better there in the early round: http://amherststudent.amherst.edu/?q=article/2016/04/06/admissions-accepts-137-percent-class-2020

5

@gibby thanks for taking the time to reply! Since I’m from Pakistan, should I list my ethnicity as Asian or not, because I’ve heard there are several negative stereotypes associated with it when applying to college? My name doesn’t give away my ethnicity either so…

6

^^ Given the current political climate in the US, and the fact that Pakistan may be included in the recent immigration ban in the coming months or years, I don’t think it’s to your advantage to say you are from Pakistan (even though you are applying from Australia). Nor do I think it’s to your advantage to say you’re Asian, so I would leave the ethnicity question blank as that section is optional.

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@gibby Thanks for all the advice!