College Board Statistics
Harvard College
Total applicants 37,307
Admitted 2,080
Enrolled 1,660
It mentioned there are 3% of students who admitted with SAT reading score with the range of 500-599. It means out of 1660 enrolled freshman, approx. 50 of them were scored CR range of 500s. Is it possible thing for college like Harvard?
Yes, if they are recruited athletes, kids of high profile donors etc…
If you are a typical applicant with the above mentioned hooks Harvard is out of reach for you.
Common Data Set says there were 2 with a score between 400 and 499. Not clear why you’d disbelieve the CDS.
The existence of outliers should not be taken as an indicator that people who would be outliers have a realistic chance of acceptance. There’s more to the story than, “Harvard accepts kids with <500 SAT scores.”
Students with lower scores must have other impressive aspects to their application. It could be that they are from a historically under-represented group and economic level so that their test scores do not represent their potential and Harvard recognizes that in light of their other academic achievements. They could be legacy or development candidates. They could be international or English as a Second Language candidates, who might have lower verbal scores. They could have the world’s most impressive other talents or achievements: a top level athlete or musician or inventor or entrepreneur or something of the sort. Harvard is looking for the leaders of tomorrow.
FWIW: International students do not have the same odds as US students – their odds are much lower. Most U.S. selective colleges limit the number of international students to around 10% to 11% of their incoming class. With a freshman class of about 1660, that means that Harvard admits about 160 to 190 international students per year – and most of those students come from just six counties: Canada, The United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Japan, Korea and China.
If you go to the Harvard International Office Statistics page (http://www.hio.harvard.edu/statistics) and select from the pull down menu STUDENTS, YOUR COUNTRY, HARVARD COLLEGE (the undergraduate school), you can see how many of your fellow countrymen are currently attending the college. Divide that number by 4 to get an idea of about how many students are admitted from your country. Harvard doesn’t publish the number of applicants from each international country, so you might be one of hundreds or thousands applying from your country – it’s anyone’s guess. But it’s doubtful that you could get into any ivy league school with those scores (sorry).