<p>For all of you worry about your chances...stop! Stop panicking! I know you're sick of hearing this, but you will be FINE. If you get into Harvard, Congratulations! You're Awesome! </p>
<p>If you don't...guess what? </p>
<p>Congratulations! You're Awesome, too! Because you were probably equally qualified with most of the Harvard applicant pool (since a reported 85% of Harvard applicants are considered "qualified"). A Harvard rejection letter is NOTHING to be ashamed of. And you're going to either take a beautiful gap year or you're going to go to your next choice school and LOVE IT. Take it from someone who knows. I ended up at Davidson and it's the best thing that's ever happened to me! We work hard, party hard, and most importantly, strive to live our lives to the fullest we can. Everyone here is FUN. It's a competitive environment, but not cut-throat: you are competing with only yourself. </p>
<p>Wherever you end up, you will probably be happy. And if you're not happy you can transfer! Or take a gap year!</p>
<p>From this article, I would like to point out that of the 27,000 applicants, only about 1,000 were admitted. Nearly 3,000 students had PERFECT SAT scores and almost 3,500 students were FIRST IN THEIR CLASS. This just goes to show that you can have perfect EVERYTHING and you're not a shoe-in. </p>
<p>Honestly, I don't say any of this to scare you. I just say it to show you that there is NO point in worrying...you'll know soon enough!</p>
<p>That said, good luck to all of you! I wish you all the best and hope you end up in the best possible place for you!</p>
<p>amplifiar842 your advise was really nice. I assume most people here live in USA and its amazing that I found this discussion forum. I know there are many applicants from overseas, but do any of you know if Australian applicant’s qualifications, the Higher School Certificate is able to show Harvard ad coms a good picture of Australian students. I applied for the class of 2013 and I m worried that not enough people from Australia apply to ivy league schools and therefore not a lot of info is available to adcoms about Australian schools. Please let me know your thoughts on Australian applicants applying to Harvard.</p>
<p>Thanks alot and I hope everyone receives the letter/email on march 31 that they are looking forward to. :)</p>
<p>I’m sure the Ivy League does its best to get to know all about the different international educational merit systems. In any case, they probably do it better than any other group of schools. </p>
<p>Again, I definitely wouldn’t worry. If you’re qualified, you have as great a chance as everybody else.</p>
<p>Good luck to you! Australians are awesome :)</p>
<p>I’m from Singapore… and I was enrolled into NUS High there… I did not have the best of grades there… I should have worked much harder… but then I moved to the U.S., 2 years ago, and did well here… As a result of the combination of my transfer and current grades, my GPA is 3.6… Now since, I am applying from U.S. colleges will think I slacked off looking at my GPA… I have no idea how they will understand all the stuff that happened… Granted, I should have done better at my High School in singapore but still is unfortunate… In addition, it was difficult to show that I participated in an extracurricular activity all four years… the activities were different and there was no distinction in the application about where the activity was… In conclusion… my chances are… no wait… I don’t have a chance…</p>
<p>Cool, thanks for the words of advise. Thats awesome you went to a Univerity High School right specialising in maths and science. I went to Penrith High School which is an academically selective high school in Australia. My grades and ranks werent that high, but thats because selective high schools set really high benchmarks and difficult exams and students are very talented and competitive. Do you guys think ad coms take into account the fact that some schools that are really competitive and may to a certain extent lower your grades and ranks in comparison to attending a local comprehensive high school. Will my less than brilliant results in a selcetive high school have disadvantaged me?</p>
<p>The Harvard admissions site today says that applicants were supposed to affirmatively choose to receive decisions by email. I don’t recall seeing that before. Did anyone?</p>