@margo41 : Yes, thank you for your comforting words! I’ve read through last year’s WL round and it was really a journey and a mystery since there are so much factors involved in. I hope your transfer work out. Do you mind if I PM you to ask if I had any questions? Thank you!
@margo41 This is great stuff. When do you send the Letter of Enthusiasm, was it right when you got on the wait list or near May or something?
What did you major/focus/concentrate on? Where are you considering transferring to?
Margo, your experience are very different from those of students I know.
Also WLed… the chances are so slim (like 10 people out of more than 1000 probably??). May be better to deny WL and move on after all.
Hey guys! I was waitlisted too… Are any of you submitting additional stuff to Harvard? I’m definitely submitting a LOCI, but am on the fence about submitting other stuff. There’s an essay that I used for another school about taking a liberal arts approach to an engineering education, and in retrospect it was pretty fire. When I look at my Harvard application I feel like part of the “why Harvard!!!” is missing, even though my interviewer and I talked about it. Any thoughts on submitting other stuff?
^^^ Harvard doesn’t ask “Why Harvard?” because they assume everyone wants to attend their school and each student has their own specific reasons for wanting to do so. In addition, a student’s “reasons” or “stated interest” are NOT considered for the purposes of Admissions. So while you may have had a nice chat with your alumni interviewer about the why’s, it has no bearing on your acceptance or whether Admissions will take you off the waitlist come May/June.
My guess is that you’re having an issue embracing the colleges that DID admit you, and spending too much time concentrating on a school that basically said “you’re a back-up.” How would you feel if you asked someone to the prom and they said that to you?
If Admissions waitlisted you it’s because they liked what they saw, but other student’s were more competitive in the application pool. Sending in additional material, such as another essay, isn’t going to make them sit up and take more notice. It will just cause them to do an eye-roll, as it’s an act of desperation. IMHO, just accept a spot on their waitlist and then move on!
As usual, @gibby is absolutely correct.
Hey @gibby thanks for the response! I didn’t mean to imply anything about having issues embracing schools that admitted me… if anything I’m surprised by the ones that did. I was just genuinely curious as to what other applicants’ thoughts were. But thanks for addressing my question. I appreciate it.
Do they at one point say “NO” to your waitlist? or are you just like, on there forever?
They will say no if you are rejected
Harvard needs to receive a “Final Report” from each admitted student’s guidance counselor, so Admissions usually goes through the waitlist in waves. By mid-May some student’s will receive an email notice saying, sorry but they didn’t make the waitlist-cut, as it were. Another wave will go out by the end of May, and the whole waitlist usually closes by Mid-June. All through that 6-week period, a few lucky students will receive a phone call from the Admissions Office letting them know they have been offered a spot off the waitlist. Student’s usually are given about a week to make a decision. So, the situation does not go on forever.
Does a Letter of Continued Interest make any difference?
Hello, I am still a little confused as to whom we should send our Letter of Continued Interest to; should it be a physical letter to the admissions office or an email to our regional rep? Thanks 
Also, if there is information we would like to update our app with, should we just include it in the letter or upload a Word doc on our admissions portal describing it?
@redorc19 the email you received after accepting your place on the waitlist has a link to a separate waitlist-only portal for you to submit additional information
How significant should this extra information be? Can doing additional things for activities mentioned on the app (i.e. organizing events) count? Or is it just extra academic information and awards?
Unless the extra information is associated with awards, I don’t think it’s going to give you much of a boost. C’mon this is Harvard; an update has to be significant enough to make an AO stand up and say “Oh, by gosh we need to take @Adaephon off the waitlist!” IMHO, that’s why most students shouldn’t make an update, as very few have THAT kind of additional information.
Just wondering, if I submit a LOCI, would it be better to send a love letter (aka why harvard essay) or is a short statement better (I like you. If you take me off, I’ll go)?
Plus, if someone has reached out to me to write me an additional rec, where should I mail that?
I answered that question in Post #25
Yes, shorter is better. Think about something for a minute. Based upon your post history, you were accepted to UChicago, Duke and Georgetown. Those are great schools and your common application worked just fine for them, correct? But, because Harvard receives more over-the-top applications, you came “this close” but didn’t quite make it. Harvard liked what they saw from your application – otherwise you would have been rejected. So, I doubt an extra letter of recommendation is going to make Admissions stand up and say, “Oh, by gosh we need to take @Aliiiiiiceee off the waitlist!”
You really don’t need to send in anything extra for Harvard to make their decision. And inundating AO’s with LOCI, additional recommendation letters, another essay etc might even work against an applicant, as it makes them seem “needy” and “desperate” – two things Harvard is not looking for!
Hello gibby,
I’m a Costa Rican student that was waitlisted by Harvard. One of the things with my application is that I wanted to send another additional recommendation from a girl that was my squad leader in a construction for a town with poverty conditions here. She writes really good (she wrote one for me for another thing) and I feel like the other recommendations from my teachers weren’t so good, because they are not used to writing recommendations like the ones top colleges ask for.
In the end, she was unable to send the recommendation on time, so I really want to send it now that I’m waitlisted, because I feel like it’s a really good letter that will show more than the ones from my teachers. I will probably only send this letter and a short LOCI. What do you think? And where should she upload her letter? Because the waitlist portal is only for applicants.
Thank you!