Harvard Acceptance Rate Data for TOP 9 AI Applicants?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>Hello all,</p>

<p>Here's another thread from a twerpish high school student! Ahh, please don't pummel me with your hate!!</p>

<p>On a lighter note, I've seen a lot about Ivy Leagues from these forums, and I know that the current Harvard acceptance rate is hovering at an all-time low, and still decreasing, rate of 6% or something.</p>

<p>But that's just the overall acceptance rate.
So I wanted to ask about what the acceptance rate from the data given would be for a student with say, a 3.9-4.0 range GPA, 800s on 2-3 SAT IIs, and a 2300+ at the minimum (2350+) SAT score? By calculations, this is a roughly 9 Academic Index. But a roughly 9 AI is the average for Harvard's accepted Class of 2017, so that's basically some 2200+ SAT scores, 3.9+ GPA, and some nice 750-800 range SAT IIs. Not hard to make. But here we have another case, the TOP 9 AI.
(If you don't know what AI is, there's a calculator for that on CC).</p>

<p>I'm assuming lots of Harvard applicants have ranged 7-9 AIs during RD season, and most have 9 AIs during EA season. However, there's always talk about how TOP 9 AIs (basically students with 4.0/2400 get rejected), but NEVER any actual numbers. Is it still a mere 6% chance for those top students? Perhaps, but pretty unlikely. Not everyone applying to Harvard would have a 2350+/3.9-4.0, and this is easily proven from average SAT applicant information directly from Harvard.
The GPA is standard in terms of being high, 3.94 was the average GPA for the Class of 2017 (last year's admitted). But the average SAT was 2237. Although this is easily in the upper 9 AI section, the difference in SAT I scores still separates it from the TOP 9 AI students.</p>

<p>So, how truly bad are TOP 9 AI students' chances? Surely the 6% rate from RD and maybe even the 15-20%-ish EA rate is not 100% composed of TOP 9 AI students. I would guess then that the acceptance rate for these TOP 9 AI students would be around 15%, if not lower.</p>

<p>I know, and I completely believe that AI/academic components of the application are not enough to get you into any Ivy League. However, AI is essentially the core of the application; it doesn't matter what ECs you have if you have a bad GPA and SAT- the application gets thrown out easily.</p>

<p>But getting some numbers and percentages, obviously far from guarantees, of acceptance rates scaled to 9 AI students would be extremely helpful. For some reason, I haven't been able to find any data on this at all.
Even more useful and a "godsend" would be a chart comparing relative SAT I/UW GPA or Class Rank/SAT II to Acceptance Rate for that group.</p>

2

<p>Yo, dude, here’s the deal: harvard doesn’t care about your grades. they could really care less. once you have a certain GPA, certain SAT reasoning and subject scores, and have taken certain classes, you’re just like the other 9 AIers. The acceptance rate is likely very near that 6% figure; perhaps slightly higher. </p>

<p>So, what ddddoooo they care about? Leadership. Your 9 AI is well and dandy, but, unless you’re a future academic or the next great mathematician, it means nothing to them. It’s a checkmark; that’s it.</p>

<p>Harvard wants people who will change the world. Your 4.0 and 2370 won’t do that.</p>

<p>I should also mention that Harvard accepts very few 9AIers who are just AIers. As a result, the charts that you’re looking for (which you will not find) are meaningless, as you don’t know which applicants displayed leadership qualities.</p>

3

<p>I’m sorry if I seemed to be hinting at something, but a 4.0 GPA/2370 SAT I score isn’t my stats. I meant it in a general sense.</p>

<p>Also, see this quote from my original post about grades and such at Ivy leagues:
“I know, and I completely believe that AI/academic components of the application are not enough to get you into any Ivy League. However, AI is essentially the core of the application; it doesn’t matter what ECs you have if you have a bad GPA and SAT- the application gets thrown out easily.”</p>

<p>You are correct and I agree with you on the part that Harvard couldn’t care less about grades, assuming you meet the 9 AI threshold.
I don’t know if you were trying to sound a bit caustic there, but I’m with you on that point, a 4.0 GPA with a 2350+ SAT score won’t do anything for college apps, unless it’s accompanied with ECs and other stuff.</p>

<p>My point here isn’t to argue for anything, it’s merely to ask for data. Obviously the majority of those 4.0/2350+ or aforementioned TOP 9 AI scorers have some form of ECs to show for themselves.</p>

<p>So rephrasing, ASSUMING that these TOP 9 AIers aren’t brainless study nerds and have some respectable form of ECs and the prime quality of “leadership” that seems to be what Harvard is looking for these days, what are the percentage rates in those sectors?
Understand me when I say that I’m not asking for a chances thread, but rather a data set from already existing Harvard application data- this is for past, perhaps 2013, application data sets, that show students who have the AI and ECs in their application. Obviously, if we took a chart of a Harvard applications scattergram and divided it up into half-AI based sections, the upper half of the 9 AI would show significantly more green spots than the lower half. My question is HOW much more significant? It could be the coincidence that greater SAT/GPA/AI is associated with better leadership qualities and more passionate ECs, but I believe there is something of academics importance in there as well, and I’m seeking to find the answer.</p>

<p>Nonetheless, thanks for your answer!</p>

4

<p>There’s a number of college chance or prediction sites that can kind of tell you what you want. I’d suggest Parchment, partially because it doesn’t give you a bunch of “XX College wants to recruit you!” emails and partially because it seems pretty accurate. You input race, gender, location, GPA, SAT etc. and it’ll spit out a percentage chance of admittance. It goes off of past cycles’ admission results, and for most large (or popular, rather) universities, has a pretty decent confidence interval. I can’t vouch too much for practical accuracy, because the admissions cycle is nowhere near over and I have yet to be accepted or reject from a school with less than a 62% expected chance given my particular stats. </p>

<p>To give you a kind of benchmark, I don’t think I’m in your “TOP 9 AI”, but I’m pretty sure I have an 8 or 9. Okay, I just did it, and my AI is 230 out of 240, or a 9. I put in my stats in Parchment, it tells be I have an 18% chance of getting in – that if there were 100 people like me, we’d expect 18 to get into Harvard and 82 to get rejected.</p>

<p>Of course, as mentioned before, H and other schools probably don’t care too much past a certain SAT/ACT and GPA. So, you have to take these kind of lightly. </p>

5

<p>I think the best data available for this is Princeton’s class profile, which describes an 18% acceptance rate for those with 2300-2400 SATs. Now some in this pool will have subpar grades, SAT IIs, and many will have bland extracurriculars. So if an applicant is good in all of the categories listed above, then his/her acceptance rate would presumably be higher. Harvard has a slightly lower acceptance rate than Princeton, so just assuming that the acceptance rate boost mentioned above is counteracted by the larger Harvard pool, you can expect the rate to hover around 15-20% overall for the group you mentioned. However, in my experience, college admissions rarely make objective sense from the student’s perspective. The numbers above should just give you the idea that if you apply to several top schools, you MAY possibly get into one, with no guarantees of course.</p>