I was wondering if it is possible to get into Harvard College after being rejected, given that one has taken a gap year and made substantial improvement and incredible change since the moment of the rejection. I originally applied to the College under its Restricive Early Action Program and was deferred, just to be rejected during the Regular Decision timetables. For an endless plethora of reasons, from academics to personal, Harvard is the only right place for me. I know there are other colleges and I “shouldn’t waste my time trying to get into Harvard and just move on,” but I just want to know if it is feasible for a re-applicant to be admitted. Do you know of anyone who has gotten in after being rejected? Have you gotten in after being rejected? Any feedback would be truly appreciate it. Thank you!
It stands to reason that your chances are worse next year than they were this past March. Why? B/c your competition has momentum: intellectual pursuits, essays, rec letters, research/jobs. Whereas you – are grasping a a plan to do something meaningful solely with the intent to go to Harvard, “the only right place” for you.
I know you’re grasping b/c you had a slew of apps into top schools. And I suspect you’d be attending one of them if the deal was right – it’s not as if you were weighing some “must do” opportunity vs. matriculating in Sept '15. No. You’re going to slip into something and simply hope to roll the dice again. If you were my kid, I wouldn’t support you at all. To practically waste another year for something that’s enormously replaceable.
Here is the truth, you don’t get to make the decision if Harvard accept you or not!
AO will decide if “Harvard is the right place for you or not” (note-I didn’t have “ONLY” in it)!!
There is always graduate school!
You’ll never know what lies ahead of you!!!
So, move on!
@Visionary123 Just from a quick glance at your previous posts, you seem to have also been very excited by the prospect of attending Stanford or Yale. No school is perfect, and believing that Harvard is the only right place for you makes no sense, especially if you really look into what Harvard has to offer and what other equally great schools have to offer too. You may or may not get in if you reapply, but I’d be willing to bet that if you do get in and go, you’ll look back on your above post four years later and wonder what on earth you were thinking.
@Planner, I truly appreciate your feedback, as it has been the kindest and most respectful of them all.
With regards to my previous posts, I was excited by the prospect of attending Stanford or Yale like any other applicant was; if you take a closer look, however, you would notice that I barely commented on the Stanford’s and Yale’s threads, and that my actual excitement and true interest were set on Harvard all along. You might be thinking that I’m just like any other dreamer who solely fantasizes about Harvard and doesn’t look at what other great schools have to offer — this, nevertheless, is not the case at all; I am very clear about my aspirations and have evaluated with great care what other amazing schools have to offer. You won’t understand why I’m so focused on Harvard, as you don’t have any knowledge of what my life situation is, but know that I do have my very well-weighted reasons for wanting to go to Harvard, and I’m sure that if I end up getting in, I will not look back at my posts above four years later and wonder what on earth I was thinking — you can have that for certain.
@Visionary123 I’m afraid I didn’t read your previous posts carefully—I just glanced at your thread history and noticed that you’d seemed enthused by Stanford and Yale. It’s always possible that the fantasy of a school and what it offers will closely approximate the reality—or that even if it doesn’t, that won’t end up mattering—but I think it’s rare. I also think it’s really important to consider that the person you are today is not the person you’re likely to be four or five years from now. You may feel completely differently about the very things that attract you to Harvard now. Say, for instance, you’re a science researcher and have a specific professor you want to work with and particular lab experience you’d like to get—and say those things are only available at Harvard. But what if you change your mind, as so often happens, after you get there? Or what if the professor leaves, dies, or ends up not being interested in you as a student/collaborator? I’m just trying to say that there are so many unknowns and so many things that can (and usually do) change, that the odds that you’ll feel the same way about Harvard four or five years from now as you do today are very slim indeed. It could happen, but it’s really unlikely. And in the meantime, by focusing on just one school that’s incredibly hard to get into, you’re setting yourself up for a lot of postponed living and likely disappointment (just because the admission rate is so low, not because of anything about you per se). I’d recommend seeing whether there are any other schools that might fulfill at least some of what you think you’d find at Harvard. There’s no harm in trying again, I suppose, if you’re willing to wait and have something compelling you’d be doing in the intervening year, but I think applying elsewhere too would help maximize the chances of a satisfactory outcome next spring.
Harvard defers more applicants in the SCEA round than they could possibly accept in the RD round (even without considering the 25,000 students who apply in the RD round). Student’s rejected SCEA are absolute no’s. But, being deferred DOES NOT mean you almost made it.
Harvard keeps an electronic file of every rejected applicant for three years, so Admissions will consult your old application again if you reapply. So, it’s paramount to find out why you were rejected. Was your application just too meh? Were your recommendations not effusive enough? How about your essays? If you (or anyone else) reapplies without knowing why you were rejected, the chances of being accepted the second time around are minimal.
@arwarw perhaps, I have presented myself in the wrong manner. Having said that, however, I have no obsession with elite schools. At all. And, I actually find quite insulting and disrespectful that you make such a remark without even knowing who I am or what my truly justiable reasons to keep striving for Harvard are. With regards to my previous posts, I was expressing interest for the schools like any other applicant was; I should also notice that I wasn’t the only one using this account, my best friend was using it too, since his strict parents didn’t like him to be in anonymous forums — so, most of those posts on other threads were not even mine.
I DO have very well-weighted and truly justiable reasons to keep wanting to go to Harvard — I won’t discuss them here, as I feel it’s not necessary and know that neither you nor the others would sincerely care about them. What only matters is that I know what those reasons are. Nevertheless, thank you for your advice and good wishes.
Visionary, it’s great that you have “well-weighted and truly justiable reasons” to want to go to Harvard, but the fact is – something that’s a .9999999 probability can get called a “fact” – that you aren’t going to go to Harvard, at least not as an undergraduate. Apply to transfer if it’s important to you, but any energy you invest in your pursuit of Harvard is energy you could be devoting more productively to your actual dreams and ambitions. Because you are going to have to follow another route to achieving them, one that doesn’t pass through Harvard College.
And here’s another hard fact: Whatever your reasons are, they are not “well-weighted” or whatever “justiable” means. Saying what you are saying essentially reveals that you know very little about higher education. Like many others, I think that Harvard is the greatest university in the world, but what makes it the greatest university in the world is almost completely irrelevant to any particular student. Harvard offers students in general millions of opportunities, but no student can take advantage of millions of opportunities. The best, most energetic and diligent, and luckiest, student may be able to pursue four or five. That best student can’t even see, much less understand, the millions of opportunities; maybe he can figure out a couple dozen on the way to choosing a handful to pursue.
Every single college in America, in all likelihood, offers dozens of Harvard-quality opportunities if you look for them. You may not have the infinite range of choices, but by figuring out the choices you have and pursuing them, you can make anyplace Harvard for you. And any of the top 50-100 universities offers more opportunities than you can possibly comprehend, including opportunities superior to anything Harvard can offer in a particular area. (Harvard being the best overall does not mean that it is the best in everything, or even that it is the best in any particular thing at all.)
No one has a valid reason why Harvard is the only place his or her educational goals can be met.
@Visionary123 It was neither disrespectful nor insulting for @arwarw to make the assumption you have an obsession with elite schools. You clearly stated that Yale is your “top choice” and that you “need to go to Stanford.” No reasonable person would have assumed that that statement “Yale is definitely my top choice” meant Harvard is actually your top choice. If you have truly “evaluated” all of your other options, as you previously stated, and Harvard is the only thing that will fulfill the endless void in your soul, then I can only wish you good luck. As for feedback on chances? Statistics are in the eye of the beholder. But I think we can agree that it is HIGHLY UNLIKELY for the second round to yield better results. Regardless, remember to follow your dreams!