Hello! I’m currently an eighth grader, and although it may be a little early to set my sights on a college, as of now Harvard is my dream school! I love everything about it from their mission statement, campus (hopefully I’ll be touring this summer, I live about 20 hours away. Yikes!), and everything inbetween. I know that contacting the admissions office early would definetly let them see my interest in the school, so I was wondering: what exactly should I contact them about? Should I contact them at all? If I should contact them, I was thinking of requesting a brochure or something along the lines of that. Any feedback would be appreciated! Thanks!
Harvard cares zero about your demonstrated interest. You have nothing to contact them about whatsoever at this point.
Bottle your excitement and focus it on being the best student you can be and remove any name (i.e. Harvard or Yale or Stanford) from that vision. If, in 4 years, it aligns with other accepted Harvard students, revisit it.
Right now, all you’re doing is idealization. Definitely unhealthy.
If you don’t believe T26E4, please see Harvard’s Common Data Set C7 Data Point http://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_cds_2013-14.pdf
I think it is too early to visit. If you are in the area, sure, but not if you are 20 hours away. You will just be a tourist. You are not yet informed about a great deal of things and you are still unformed about what your real wants and needs are in order to be a better critic of what is really a good fit for your future self. Just the fact that you don’t know what questions to ask should tell you how premature this is.When you are older and wiser there will be important concerns that you have about which college may be best for you. And usually you don’t have to contact the admissions office about it. You can carefully read the website and also unofficial sources, They will not make a note of it anyway.
Agreed. Here’s a site you should read: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/application-process/what-we-look
I was also obsessed with Harvard in 8th grade and I got in!! That being said, I agree with the other posters that, while it’s wonderful to have lofty goals, and I don’t think you should be embarrassed or ashamed to want to go to Harvard, it’s very much a crapshoot. So many of my peers were supremely qualified (better stats than mine) and didn’t get in. You just never know what these adcoms are looking for.
So everyone here wants to see you develop your interests and passions independently of where you may want to eventually go to school. I personally found it difficult to separate my interests from what I thought my interests should look like. I have confessed this on various posts and have taken heat for it. But if I had to guess why Harvard took me (one and done), I would say it was because I effectively articulated a true passion, something I likely couldn’t have fabricated for my essays, and something that my recommenders wouldn’t have mentioned (assuming they did) if it weren’t authentic.
So, my advice is to find your “thing” and do it amazingly well. Go for awards and accolades (don’t be shy about this) and then write about it in an original and convincing way. And then get INCREDIBLY lucky
For the vast majority of people level of interest plays no role in admissions. However that is not true for everyone such as athletes, certain legacies, z listers and some few students with very unique talents. For OP I agree it would be a waste of time to contact admissions
Lol. Harvard was my dream since 3rd grade and I got in. However, during high school I mostly gave up on the dream and forgot I ever wanted to go. Don’t stress, you’ll change more than you think. I only applied because my mother reminded me to.
As of now, the best thing you can do is focus on studying and going after you want. In 8th grade Harvard was also my dream, and unfortunately I believed that if I just studied hard and participated in extracurriculars that I could get into the school. Three years later during the application process, I realized that the only reason I ever wanted to go to Harvard was due to the prestige of the name (not saying this is true with you). I am now attending another school that is the perfect fit for me! All I’m saying is that a lot changes over the years and contacting admissions this early will do absolutely nothing. Just do your best in school now and find something you’re passionate about that can make you stand out in a very competitive process!