Chance me for Harvard

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

I am an international student from India:

Grades
Cumulative GPA: 4.0
Top 1% of the class
SAT Score: 1520
SAT Subjects: Maths 800
Physics 800
Chemistry 790
AP: Calc BC 5
Physics 1 5
Physics C 5
MicroEconomics 5

Honors:

All India Topper with the full score in ASSET Maths National Examination (Top 0.1% National Students)
NTSE Stage 1 Scholar: Govt. scholarship awarded to top 0.5% national students(5000 out of 10000)
Distinguished Performance in ASSET Winter (top 5% national students)
1st place in International Mathematical Olympiad and 3rd place in International English Olympiad
AP Scholar with Honors
Google India Scholarship Recipient

Activities

Founder, President, Vanmitra Organisation (Planted 12000+ trees using miyawaki method) Check out www.vanmitra.org
Organized 17 Miyawaki Plantation drives, managed daily operations of NGO, supervised and supported management, sales, finance and volunteer dept of NGO.

Co-Founder, Vice President, Arth Foundation
Organized waste collection drive across the city, collected 7 tons of waste, provided 1000 textbooks and 2400 sanitary pads to underprivileged students

Author, Social Science Research Paper on Sardar Sarovar Dam
Published field research by conducting surveys on the impacts of dams on the livelihoods of local people due to Sardar Sarovar Dam

Co-Author, Research paper on the reception of the plastic ban in Gujarat by consumers, SME, and Large Scale Manufacturers

The developer of Carbon Footprint Calculator App
Received Google India Challenge Scholarship to learn app development. Developing an app that provides personalized suggestions to improve C footprint.

President, School Eco Club

Stock Market Research Analyst at Airan Finstocks
Analyzed trends in IPO listings, prepared reports, worked on stock research, advisory, and data analytics to support trading and developed 3 trading strategies

Founder, President School Finance Club
Organized info drives across the city to educate school students and citizens about equity investments, Mutual Funds, SIP etc. and provided tools for their betterment. Conducted Summercamp to specialize student in stock investments.

Managing and Helping with Family’s Finances
Filing Family’s Tax returns, helping father’s business by doing data entry, looking after family finances and investments, doing paid internships to support family’s income, family’s go to tech person.

Robotics
Attended sixth sense robotics workshop at IIT Bombay, learned ML, AI, MATLAB and IOT(Audrino). Developed a robot that cleans the house while avoiding clashes with walls, furniture and people using visual data, algorithms, and a broom of course!

Art
Interested in Art since childhood. Winner of a national art competition, 1 state, 1 city, and 3 school competitions.

I anticipate that LORs would be “one in a few students in a lifetime” type and have a solid personal essay in place.
Just to provide context, I am from a lower middle-class family in a suburb of India whose family’s annual tax returns are less than 10000 USD.

Please provide your opinions and suggestions. Welcome in advance!!

2

As I’m sure you are aware, International students DO NOT have the same chances as US citizens, as Harvard restricts the number of International students to about 10% to 11% of the admitted freshman class.

If you go to: http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics and select STUDENTS, INDIA and HARVARD COLLEGE (the undergraduate school), you will see there are only 19 students from India currently attending Harvard College. That means, on average, Harvard admits about 5 students per year from India.

Harvard does not publish the number of students who apply from each country, but I have to imagine that hundreds of students, possibly close to a thousand, apply from India. By all means apply, but understand the odds are not in your favor, no matter what your stats. And with those kind of odds, it’s impossible to predict if you will be among the lucky few chosen each year. Best of luck to you!

3

I’m curious–did you participate in the IMO International Math Olympiad as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Mathematical_Olympiad ?

It’s just that the IMO awards medals not places so was confused.

4

@hgrad2010
He is talking about an agency named SOF.

OP must be aware that these SOF places do not hold any importance. Sorry to say that, but it’s true.

5

Your EC’s are really cool!!!

6

Without anyway of knowing, what is the rationale
for guessing that nearly a thousand students from India apply each year?

No basis in fact.

7

^^ @Questar: Harvard is only one of five US colleges to offer need-blind and full-need admission to international students (https://www.internationalstudent.com/schools_awarding_aid/). And among those five US colleges, Harvard’s brand name recognition is probably #1, so it stands to reason that Harvard receives more international applications – including students from India – than any of the other four colleges on the list. As I said in post #1

So, yes my guess is that hundreds of student apply from India (possibly close to a thousand) for those five coveted slots. Your guess is also valid, but do the math:

If 100 students from India apply and 5 are accepted, that’s a 5% acceptance rate. If 200 students from India apply and 5 are accepted, that’s a 2.5 percent acceptance rate. If 300 students from India apply and 5 are accepted, that’s a 1.6 percent acceptance rate, etc.

My guess is the number applicants from India is somewhere between 500 and 1000 per year, for an acceptance rate of less than one percent. We may disagree on the actual number of students applying from India each year, but I think we can agree the acceptances rate for students from India is far BELOW that of US applicants in either the SCEA or RD round.

The OP asked about his chances, and as such, they are probably less than one percent. How far less than one percent is anyone’s guess.

8

No,
I cannot agree to something for which I have no data.

9

@Questar: The best data available is from a questionable source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_student

This data is a bit more reliable: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/06/18/growth-from-asia-drives-surge-in-u-s-foreign-students/

So if that figure remains constant, about 25,000 students from India are admitted to US colleges every year, which includes undergraduate and graduate students. Many more though apply and are not admitted.

10

Jenishah9900 your studies and extracurricular achievements are stellar. By all means apply but know the odds are slim for everyone, so if you want to go to college in the US, make sure you are educated on the options. Many international families know about Harvard and Yale but don’t have a good understanding of the many other excellent choices available.

11

No Harvard-specific data that I saw.

Drawing conclusions based upon suppositions, however well intentioned, invites wildly erroneous conclusions.

12

MODERATOR’S NOTE:

Then agree to disagree then, but please move on from the debate.