Chances For Harvard?

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

Before you start reading, just wanted to thank you for your time and all responses. Also if their are any other schools that would be a good fit for me please feel free to comment below THANKS!!!

This post was edited to remove the names of the companies originally included. CC does not allow self-advertising, even if that was not the intent. - Fallenchemist

I am now going to be a senior in high school and I have been stressing about college. I have a 3.3 UW Gpa and a 3.7 W. I took the ACT and scored a 33 (34 English, 32 Reading, 30 Math, 36 Science) and an 11/12 on the writing portion. I have taken a lot of AP’s (4 so far) and honor classes since 9th grade. I will continue to take 3 or 4 AP’s my senior year. I push myself to take the most rigorous courses my school has to offer. My first business endeavor was founding and running a tech accessory company. At the young age of 17, I am the co-founder of a public hedge fund based in Santa Monica. Peers and teachers alike have trusted me with the rigorous responsibility of successfully managing their hard-earned money through my hedge fund. I am a part of my high school tennis team for 4 years and I have played 3 years on Varsity. I am also a part of ASB since 10th grade. I got elected to be the Treasurer for my senior year! My business partner and I have created a club called the Entrepreneurs and Investors Club where we hold meetings once a week teaching students about finance over the course of the year. I am a part of 4 clubs and have a position in each club ( president of 2 clubs)
I have also been playing piano for 9 years and I have graduated from a Music Program that took 6 years to complete. I took 2 years of Latin at my school, however I speak 5 languages. On my free time, I enjoy photography which I used to run a blog and focused mainly on street photography. I also love to create and compose music. I am pretty good at producing beats. I also go the opportunity to edit famous music videos of artists. I also love to design websites and code. I have created countless websites on my free time for teachers, photographers, and people who run their own businesses. I am in the process of publishing a website early summer on a project I have been working on for over 8 months. I love to travel and I have visited over 17 countries. I am really passionate about learning however I have never been the best test taker at school due to the amount of work I have for my business outside of school as well as I get very stressed before test. I was able to prove my self wrong on the ACT which I will express in my essay’s how I have tried many ways to alleviate test anxiety and I studied very hard for the ACT and I got the score I truly worked for. Thank you guys for taking your time to read this and I appreciate all comments and responses.

BRAG SHEET BELOW

List of stuff I have done
Started my own technology accessory company
Played tennis for 7 years 4 years varsity at school
I have won 2 doubles tournaments
Won overall best player (best sportsmanship, citizenship, hardworking, etc) at Nike Tennis Camp…. They said they only give the award out once in a blue moon if they feel like someone deserves it
Been playing basketball for 8 years
Martial Arts for 7 years
I have been playing piano for 8 years ( graduated from Corner Stone Music Academy )
Was a manager for Marko Zecevic helped him gain followers on Soundcloud
I have built websites for teachers, artists, photographers, and myself
I am the Account Executive & Partner at a public hedge fund I started in the 10th grade.
I used to run a photography blog and was an avid photographer until I got my gear stollen and soon hope to be getting a new camera to continue my passion
I speak 6 languages fluently
I have traveled over 17 countries
I am a contributor to The Financial Bulls a website to help people start trading
I have been in ASB for 3 years and for my senior year I have been elected to be the Treasurer
I am a member of 4 clubs
I started the Entrepreneur and Investors Club
I have been on a few websites about my hedge fund and even newspapers and more to come
I have volunteered to do countless blood drives
I help close peers and family members with their financials and teach them about the concept about investing and saving money for the last 2 years.
I have been producing music for about 2 years and post my songs online so people could listen to them for free and enjoy the good vibes
I am the CFO of a magazine company coming out in 2016 focused on baseball and fitness
I have got asked a few job offers through Linkdln however denied everyone to focus on school and my business
I got asked to be a photographer for a Non Profit dealing with homeless which I will be participating in during the month of August
I have had a few youtube channels here I had a main focus on Technology
I am in the process of creating a revolutionary website which will help the average teenager help decided on what car would be fit their needs for the right price.
I have an office downtown Santa Monica at the ROC which I have been at for the last 8 months
I know a bit of HTML and CSS which help me with the websites I build

3 Words to Describe Me:
-1. Leader
2. Inquisitive
3. Driven/Focused

2

For future reference, you might want to be a little less explicit in future. A quick google search turned up you and your business partner’s names.

Also, your “brag list” seems very scattered. It could be a red flag to admission officer that you have the time to be in involved with all your activities AND hold many important positions in them. Try to shorten it to a few that you really feel passionate about.

3

Harvard with a 3.3? You’re clearly smart, but you cannot manage your time and school work with your business. Any elite school would want you, but they would have the obvious fear that you wouldn’t be able to handle your work. That will be your downfall. Your GPA is too low and you have no excuse for it.

4

GPA just not in the competitive range.

5

Not to add insult to injury, but your EC list is on par with the reject pile.

6

The GPA will hurt you. However, with the kind of things that you have done, there is a very slight chance that they might accept you. Harvard gets quite a lot of applicants who excel in both studies as well as their non academic pursuits. While your ECs are really amazing, your grades will hurt you a lot.

I’m not sure whether you considered protecting your privacy and maintaining anonymity, or not but a quick google search of a few things posted here reveal your true identity. I even sent you a connect request on Linkedin. Try editing a bit of the information out if possible.

I’m curious as to how you started a hedge fund. I am really interested to know more about this. Could you care to explain this in detail through PM or contact me through Linkedin?

7

Is your company truly a hedge fund? Is it registered and do you file a form ADV? Are your investors all accredited?

A quick search of the SEC’s database did not turn up either you or the company. Unless you are truly running a hedge fund, I would be careful about what you claim. Anyone can create a Facebook page and claim to have a hedge fund.

8

In a couple other threads you asked about USC and U Mich. The responses were that those schools would be far from certain to offer admission due to the GPA.
So now Harvard?

Here’s a plan. I’m moderately conservative with money, so let’s start there.
First figure out how much capital you have available for your education. Know this on both a per year and a lump sum basis.
Figure 60k for overhead - 15k per year for room and board. The rest is what you have to work with for tuition. If that’s also 15k/year, then you have a starting point. Make absolutely sure you have a couple schools where your tuition will be guaranteed less than that either because they’re incredibly cost effective or the merit aid is through the roof.

Second, supposing your business is a real thing, know the net value of it down to a couple bucks. Also, you should have some idea how many hours a week it takes of your time. Decide whether to sell, close, or continue to run the business. If you’re going to keep running it, staying closer to home feels much more prudent than not, so draw an arc 50 miles from home. Your clients are used to seeing you eye to eye. They’re funny like that.

Your target schools are those within that arc with net tuition under 15k a year that offer a finance degree. Merit with that GPA will be hit or miss, I think.

If the company is disposable and you intend to close it while in school, that opens your geographic options,

If you are going to close it and can go full freight, start looking through common data sets and identify good candidates that way. I might start with some private schools that aren’t “need blind” as that should drive up your chances. Less Notre Dame, more St Lawrence, Providence, Bradley, or something similar. May those aren’t good for what you want either, but you get the idea.

Then think. If cheap state u costs 120,000 over four years, and shiny private u runs 250,000, what kind of business could you start with one hundred and thirty thousand dollars ready cash. If you want to be able to retire at 40, that’s worth considering.

9

If you own a business, why not just continue running the business instead of going to college? One way I could see you getting into Harvard (if you absolutely want to go) is by possibly donating a lot of money to Harvard.

10

^^ In the past year, Harvard announced single person donations of $150 mil, $350 mil, and $400 mil alone. Unless OP can afford to make a donation at least in the high seven-figures, Harvard won’t take notice.

11

Interesting thread.

I wonder how appealing top colleges think “making lots of money” really is as an EC.

IMO it’s bad optics and says more about the applicant’s socio-economic status and values than anything else.

@Sharecentury

12

Hey,

Regarding the Hedge fund, having myself been in the industry etc, I highly doubt you have a legitimate running Hedge Fund that complies with the SEC. Investors must have a minimum of one million u.s dollars in wealth to invest as hedge as funds are not heavily regulated. With that said, apart if your parents are your clients, which is possible, I doubt they would in fact trust you with over a million dollars. My parents let me $50,000 for a investment portfolio and $250,000 to set up a business which is very generous although I doubt they would do over a million. Keeping that in mind, I do not know your financial situation so it could be true but it can also raise some red flags.
With that said, in order to trade you must either do it online or physically, considering you’re a student you would probably do it online as you wont be able to move about a lot. Although, you need to be older than 18 years old in order to do trade online and since you said you have your “hedge fund” running for a while, it is very doubtful you meet the legal age requirement. This can be fixed by making the account on your parents name although the track record would belong to them and not you.

What languages do you speak?

I think I’ve seen you on youtube to be honest via a facebook video, not sure its you though

13

bbump

14

I have now seen everything.

15

http://smdp.com/santa-monica-high-school-tennis-player-doubles-hedge-fund-manager/147918

I speak all the Yugoslavian Languages

16

What is your name on Linkdln I would be happy to speak

17

An unhooked candidate with a 3.3 and a 33 does not get into Harvard. Those stats would even be challenging for a recruited athlete.
Move on to a very different category of school.