Do You have a Chance? or I

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

Anyone no matter what grade you are in now, if you’re in high school post what you think you’ll finish with (GPA, SAT, ACT, # OF AP’s, Various honors, etc…) and have people answer honestly if they think you have a shot at your dream school! I’ go first

HighSchoolDreams

GPA: 4.72(WEIGHTED LIKE A BRICK)
3.93 (heavier than a stone)

TAKING THE HARDEST COURSES POSSIBLE ALL 4 YEARS (AVAILABLE)

Top 5% of my class at least, or even lower than that (3%, if my peers can’t hack it LOL)

Won several National/state writing competitions

Underrepresented minority/inspiring story

Teachers love me, strongest letters of rec. possible

Very strong writing skills

Interesting life story

Disadvantaged socioeconomic background (really poor 15,000+ -We consider that a rainfall )

14 AP’s or 15

I may self- study AP Euro (School doesn’t offer it)

(Art History
Calculus AB or Calculus BC
Chemistry
English Language
English Literature
Environmental Science
Human Geography
Macroeconomics
Physics C Mech.
Psychology
Spanish Language or Spanish Literature
United States History
World History
AP COMP and Gov)

A’s for the next 3 years, ALL A’s
Freshman A, A, A, A, C, B

NATIONAL AP SCHOLAR

(Strong maybe: National Merit Semifinalist)

Extremely lazy for freshman (mildly depressed/dealt with death) ALSO: Freshman year fell asleep during final bombed it- Honors ALG 2 Final
Grade went from A to C,
B in honors Bio reason: didn’t study for bio, to busy with math/unmotivated

Greatest Debater In all of my high school ( most NSDA points)
Nationally recognized
Most Wins in the tournament of champions

Gone to nationals twice, place in top 20 in America

WORLD SCHOOLS DEBATE CHAMPION (not yet, but next year) https://www.speechanddebate.org/usa-debate/
COMPETED IN New York, Germany, Croatia, California, Slovenia, Massachusetts, Texas, and Florida before heading to the World Championships in Croatia and Slovenia

LEADERSHIP ACCOMPS
ALSO president or Vice President of Speech/Debate

Track team, huge accomplishments
really fast

VP of NHS

150-300 volunteer hours tutoring

SAT 1550+
ACT 34-35

Greatest letters of rec possible LOL

Hopefully, a lot of other awesome crap happens in the next 3 years like maybe model UN

I know I’m forgetting something, ill edit this and add it later

My name is (blank) and Harvard is my goal

2

You have both demonstrated in your writing this post that it is not likely that you have won any national or state level writing competitions, and that you have not received scores for the SAT or ACT yet. Additionally, if you are as smart as you claim to be, you should realize that Harvard is a very difficult school for anyone to get into.

3

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.

4

Thank you, I realize that it’s very competitive and I might not get in, but I thought about something…why not try? Not getting in, doesn’t define me as a person and it doesn’t make me less than. But still, being mediocre and deciding to do just enough to go to my local university didn’t sit well with me. I always say it’s not that I don’t respect underachievers, I respect the ones who never tried to achieve in the first place. Those are the no-achievers, the ones who never went for it…

I’m not that person

Again thank you for taking time to reply gibby. :slight_smile:

5

For some reason I can’t fathom I am currently unable to edit this post, I’d like to correct the following line “I always say it’s not that I don’t respect underachievers, I respect the ones who never tried to achieve in the first place. Those are the no-achievers, the ones who never went for it…”

To this:

“I always say it’s not that I don’t respect underachievers, I don’t respect the ones who never tried to achieve in the first place. Those are the no-achievers, the ones who never went for it…”

P.S I feel very strongly about this specifically, that why I get sad when I see anything less than a 90% on my papers.

NOT I repeat NOT because I got an 87% or some crap like that, but because it almost always means I could have studied harder.

6

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7

Thank you for letting me know, it’s greatly appreciated

8

@HARVARDGOAL5 What do you mean by “in the next 3 years”? Do you mean you just finished freshman and the above stats are your goals for the next three years? If that’s the case, then remember it’s easy said than done. Based on what you did in freshman year, it’s unlikely you could achieve that. On the other hand, you may not need all that to get into Harvard as an underrepresented minority.