<p>Fair enough. Still higher than Cornell’s admission rate. :P</p>
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<p>You are wrong. Harvard isn’t a lottery. If you have really good Academics and I know a lot of people from my country, with silver medals at International Olympiads, even with a bronze medal at Astronomy Olympiad and they(three last year) and all of them made an Early admission for Harvard and they got in. Harvard can can not decide to accept between two normal applicants because they can not choose. First one or the second one, because they are almost equally. These outstanding people with international award have a really good chance.</p>
<p>Really I don’t know any normal student from my country who was accepted only because he got good SAT and he was the first in his school. If Harvard admission process was a lottery one of them in all of these years could be a lucky guy.</p>
<p>In conclusion at this level Harvard isn’t any lottery. I am lucky that I am in this category and they know which of these people deserve to be admitted. </p>
<p>Grace and Peace for you from God the Lord and Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>Grace and peace… but you need to work on your English writing skill first. I can’t even begin to point all the awkwardness in that post.</p>
<p>Although… you can pay for people to correct your essays right?</p>
<p>My point is: Harvard is not a lottery.</p>
<p>However who else thinks can be admitted by Harvard this year?</p>
<p>Grace and Peace for you from God the Lord and Jesus Christ.</p>
<p>“My point is: Harvard is not a lottery.”</p>
<p>Oh, but you are wrong; selective college admissions has become a lottery, of sorts See: [Application</a> Inflation - Admissions & Student Aid - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“Application Inflation”>Application Inflation)</p>
<p>“Admissions officers are chasing not so much a more perfect student as a more perfect class. In a given year, this elusive ideal might require more violinists, goalies, aspiring engineers, or students who can pay the full cost of attendance. Colleges everywhere want more minority students, more out-of-state students, and more students from overseas.”</p>
<p>“Today’s application inflation is a cause and symptom of the uncertainty in admissions. As application totals soar, colleges struggle to predict yield—the number of admitted students who actually attend—leading to longer wait lists and other competitive enrollment tactics. Students hedge against the plummeting admissions rates by flooding the system with even more applications.”</p>
<p>"Fred Hargadon, former dean of admissions at Prince*ton and Stanford, doubts that more and more applicants make for a stronger class. “I couldn’t pick a better class out of 30,000 applicants than out of 15,000,” he says. “I’d just end up rejecting multiples of the same kid.”</p>
<p>It’s not a lottery in that it’s not totally random. Admission officers are trying to balance and diversify the incoming class and of course they aren’t going to pick someone with borderline stats unless they have a mighty good hook. </p>
<p>But once you’ve passed the entrance requirements – great scores, grades, ECs, etc – then it becomes a lottery in that you don’t know what they are looking for this year. Do they need more musicians? More people from Idaho? Did your application get looked at by an admissions officer who will just love what you have to say or the one next to him who will shrug and waitlist/reject you? Did 100 other people apply with the exact same stats as you? Who knows? You can’t control those aspects, and while you may have amazing qualifications, essays, etc. that give you more chance than the average applicant, the odds are still against you.</p>
<p>And … so what? You did your best, and now you’ll submit the best application you can. And whether you believe you’ll get in or not … you’ll find out whether you beat the odds next spring, just like everyone else.</p>
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<p>I am utterly unable to predict what kind of nonsense your posts will bring each time, and for that you are now one of my favorite posters. Congratulations.</p>
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<p>I think the term “lottery” is inadequate because it conveys “randomness.” At no point in the Harvard admissions process is anything actually random. Somewhere, someone is deciding that X is better than Y. The fact that the criteria upon which they do so is unknown or unclear to the applicant doesn’t change the nature of the decision. </p>
<p>“Subjective” is a better word to use.</p>
<p>So far, my bet would be on T26E4 to be accepted. Good luck to everyone!</p>
<p>Why Thank you Ohiomom! The fact is my college application days are way behind me. I applied to and was accepted at two Ivies, eventually graduating from a Harvard rival, for whom I recruit and interview (over a dozen kids each year).</p>
<p>My oldest is a HS sophomore and so I’ll be helping to guide her. Schools of H caliber are on her radar – we’ll see though.</p>
<p>@Dwight: I concur with you! HC is an interesting poster!</p>
<p>Maybe I missed my calling. Should have gone into Ivy admissions. :)</p>
<p>This thread is like watching a train wreck.</p>
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<p>The fundamental problem, as others have pointed out, is that there is a huge chasm between “can be admitted by Harvard” and “actually admitted by Harvard.” Every year, Harvard denies admission to tens of thousands of young people who are good enough to go to Harvard–who can be admitted–because there just aren’t enough beds in the freshman dorms or desks in the classrooms to hold them all.</p>
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<p>I almost always agree with Dwight, but in this instance, I have one small quibble. I’m not sure anyone is really deciding that X is better than Y. I think it might be more accurate to say, someone is deciding that Harvard would rather have X than Y. This distinction–that after Harvard and its peers weed out the applicants who just don’t belong, it’s no longer strictly about merit, but about what the institution wants its entering class to look like–is why it’s positively ridiculous for an applicant to “believe that [he or she] will be admitted to Harvard this year because [he or she is] an unique student.”</p>
<p>^That’s fair. “Better” is poor word choice too since as you said, merit stops being the issue. I guess I should have said that someone is deciding that X is a better fit than Y, and that idea of fit is subjective and variable. I suppose at the end of the day, “subjective and variable” and “random” mean effectively the same thing from an applicant’s view, even if they’re not technically the same.</p>
<p>DwightE, I agree. It’s not random but it is subjective. I guess I was trying to say that it isn’t within the applicant’s control. You can do the best with grades, scores, etc. - but you can’t know exactly who they will pick and why. You can be great and perfect and wonderful and unique - and get rejected. And never know why you did - except there were just too many other “unique” applicants.</p>
<p>honestly, when i put in my application last year as early decision, i was confident and wasn’t even nervous. it was different than arrogance or whatever, but i knew i had done the best i could do and believed that if i’m good enough, then i will be accepted, and if i’m not, then i’m not… i didn’t go around saying i was going to be accepted but i was definitely confident.</p>
<p>Of course there is the “luck factor” that plays a role but it is not that that gets you in. Top tier students are applying there. It is impossible to know if you will be getting in, it is impossible to be even most certain. What is not impossible is knowing that you have given all your strength and undivided focus for this cause and that is not a waste. I can tell you that much.</p>
<p>As a parent who has observed the outcomes for quite a few applicants, I would like to offer some advice:</p>
<p>You really need a good back-up plan, in case you are not admitted to Harvard. This should be something that will work well for you, even if you would prefer to go to Harvard. Your back-up plan also needs to have good odds of having a positive outcome. “Wait a year and then reapply to Harvard” is not a good back-up plan. “Put in two applications, one to Harvard and one to Princeton” is not a good back-up plan.</p>
<p>From the outcomes for other applicants at your school, or other applicants in your country who are similarly qualified, you can determine whether you have a good chance, moderate chance, or slim chance of admission. However, there are no guarantees. Harvard turns down some really superb applicants every year. Also, preferences change over time in the admissions business, and you can never be certain that a qualification that has worked reliably in the past will work again in the future.</p>
<p>Good luck, though! And do keep in mind that while admissions is not a lottery, there is an element of luck involved.</p>
<p>I really wish this thread had remained dormant. I don’t think it needed to be revived. </p>
<p>But in light of the previous post, I feel compelled to state that even a “good” chance of being admitted to Harvard is good only in relation to the chances of 34,999 other applicants, and not very good at all in an absolute sense. It’s not just some highly qualified applicants that are denied Harvard admission; it’s literally thousands. I guess there are very few applicants every year whose chances for admission are good in an absolute sense, but if you have to ask whether you’re one of them, you should assume you’re not.</p>
<p>Every college applicant needs a good back-up plan. A good back-up plan requires a good safety: a college or university where the applicant can be (reasonably) sure of being admitted, where the applicant would have a reasonable chance of being successful and happy if she were to attend, and where the family can pay the bills reasonably comfortably.</p>
<p>And, yeah, that doesn’t mean Princeton. And depending on your qualifications and your state of residence, it might it might not mean your state flagship.</p>
<p>Sent from my DROIDX using CC</p>
<p>If OP gets in, I don’t want to go anymore. He seems like a arrogant prick. Sorry.</p>