@LimboKid It was at the end of June. International student.
@gratefulmama Second that.
@visreedhar Do you have a visa already? If not, probably not possible to get one before school starts. So online in your home country is your only option. If you already have a visa and finished high school here like @waitlistedsenior , then you would hope they don’t cancel visa and send you home. Either case, I doubt H will prioritize domestics over you as long as you are paying tuition. The difference is you won’t be paying housing, meal and other fees, about $20,000+ a year. Like what I asked before, is H truly need-blind? This pandemic is a once-in-a-century stress test. Let’s see if they are who they say they are.
@BingTheBong What do you mean? Your wl letter is different from our wl letters in the language used? Any other internationals or domestics seeing this?
@LimboKid Not sure I understand your question. I myself am not an international student, so I did not see any letter. I just know someone who was informed that they were admitted off the waitlist. That someone is an international student.
I am also on the waitlist, but I am not an international student.
@BingTheBong Got it. I misunderstood.
@LimboKid Cool, glad I could clear up the confusion.
I’m also on the waitlist and the news felt significant enough to share with the people on this thread. Whether it is a positive sign or a negative sign, I unfortunately do not know. It could be read as negative for the rest of us considering we did not get any update/offers, or it could be read as positive given that it is an indication of at least some movement on the waitlist.
@LimboKid I have my visa appointment on the 29th. Hope it works. Do you think I should an email to admissions, though? I sent 3 updates in total—dont want to overload them.
@visreedhar I assume you are on H wl and trying to get a visa for your other school, correct? If that school is not 100% online, it shouldn’t affect you. If it is, you might want to see what happens to the verdict from the H lawsuit before deciding next steps. Court will be next Tue 3pm. According to the ICE announcement, students heading into 100% online fall term, like H, won’t be approved a visa. If that decree is favored at court, you might want to consider changing visa appointment date instead of getting a “visa denied” record in your file. That “denial” record is permanent and might hurt your future visa or citizenship apps.
@BingTheBong My gut says any movement is better than limbo…
@LimboKid thanks. It’s not 100% online. It’s hybrid: Georgia Tech
@LimboKid Hopefully lol
@visreedhar Congrats! Kick-ass School. Good luck with your appointment. Welcome to USA!!
@LimboKid I’m from Eastern Canada (close enough that I could drive to any of the Ivys if the land border opens) so I don’t need a VISA, the only thing stopping me is the ICE regulations.
@visreedhar I think it’ll be really hard to tell. Harvard might take more domestic students out of convenience. However, the way the waitlist works is that it’s supposed to fill gaps in the class of 2024. I’d guess that a good amount of the gap year requests are coming from international students meaning they’ll have a lower percentage of internationals than usual. They may want to fill that gap by taking more internationals off the waitlist. We’ll see in the coming weeks.
@waitlistedsenior Hey, our brothers or sisters form the north! That explains why you and your friends are offered lots of financial aid that are grants or awards. Not only don’t you need a visa. You can just drive down prior to school start and stay with your passport, can you not? There are kids in my high school from Canada who didn’t even bother with an I-20.
Wishing everyone here the best. Although we know not everyone will be taken off the list, but hoping for miracles ain’t a crime.
I agree with the poster who wrote that maybe it is time to start moving on to whatever other school you committed to. I know it’s a weird year but still, it is mid-July and your chances seem kind of slim.
I am curious: what happens to that other school if you do get into Harvard off the waitlist, and then tell the other school you are not coming? Few schools still have a lot of kids on their waitlist. I am assuming you have made deposits. Have you taken a housing spot?
I don’t really understand the perseverance here, since there are so many great schools to attend.
Online classes can be delivered asynchronously for those not in a time zone that makes classes accessible during waking hours.
I think the biggest issue with the ICE policy is with grad/doctoral students who actually live here in rented apartments and so on.
I’m sure most of us have moved on with our current schools and have started course selection, housing, etc with our current school. I personally love the school I committed too but I like Harvard more. I know my chances are slim and if it doesn’t work out I know I’ll be happy still going to my current school. I’m sure that’s the case with a lot of here but since we haven’t been rejected yet, we might as well keep each other hopeful and updated.
I’m pretty sure if one of us gets an offer and commits to H, that school will just have an empty spot left if they’ve closed their waitlist. However, it seems very few schools have closed their waitlist completely and it’s likely they’ll be open until August 1.
No Ivy+ has officially closed their wl yet. The musical chair game has enough seats to make everyone happy.
Nice long experience-sharing piece from NYTimes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/11/style/harvard-students-coronavirus.html
Let’s not forget MA has a 14-day self-quarantine requirement which I assume H has to comply with. That’s for humans from anywhere except New England, New York and New Jersey.
https://www.mass.gov/doc/covid-19-travel-advisory-july-1-2020/download
@LimboKid I am curious why you like Harvard more, enough to wait this long!
There is really no enforcement of the quarantine requirement, but it will be interesting to see what schools do to enforce, at least on paper.
Regarding the article on problems experienced by low-income students as a result of Harvard’s COVID plans: not sure what else Harvard can do. I agree they are faced with a kind of Sophie’s choice between health and student experience.
Few people seem to know this, since only 2% or less of udnergrads have historically lived off campus, but Harvard’s financial aid extends to off-campus housing. In other words, the scholarship funds granted for room and board on campus can apply instead to off-campus arrangements. In the COVID context, however, this would not help those who are in the classes expected to be at home taking classes online. The $5k is for those students to help with costs of being home and doing college online but is not intended to replace room and board scholarship money.
One more small thing: I keep reading about students doing class at 3am in a different time zone. If done properly, online classes should be asynchronous. The professor can then meet with the students who are in a different time zone, to cover anything missed, including interactive live aspects of the class.
@compmom … probably because no one in my family has been and no one including my advisor thought I had a shot. What about your kid? Gave up already?
Thanks for the info about “2%”. Knew it was a minority from campus visits. Didn’t know it’s that small. Now I see why so many upperclassmen were flipping out.
Wanna see a preview to what might happen this fall? Let’s look at Cal now…
https://news.berkeley.edu/2020/07/08/social-gatherings-produce-increase-in-student-covid-19-cases/
Imagine what happens when thousands of kids from CA, FL and TX descend upon the 35 colleges in the Greater Boston area. They might as well test who doesn’t have the virus by October. The schools can control whatever happens on campus. But unless they lock them up like in real prisons, there’s no way for any control or monitoring of who goes to which college to see/make friends. From other new reports, some summer school kids are holding parties to celebrate getting the virus so now they have immunity to do whatever they want. Maybe my mom is right, a ticking virus time bomb…