<p>*Woah, I was not thinking when I wrote that at all.</p>
<p>I took Word History, thinking it would be appropriate for a classics major (since I had a so-so US history score), but that was a bad choice. I think I did awfully (700 if lucky). I already have a good Latin score.</p>
<p>asian male
no national awards
recs iffy
ec's also not very focused</p>
<p>btw, does harvahd contact us for interview AFTER we send in application? Or do we call them asap and schedule?</p>
<p>I'm so non-traditional it seems crazy to most people. I pulled out of high school in the ninth grade to "unschool" myself. I'm insanely into politics, but have spent most of my political energy trying to be an anonymous Thomas Paine of my preferred movement. Anonymous = can't (or, I technically could, but I won't) put it on an app. As for using my own name, I continually chicken out on trying to publish anything. I feel like I'm constantly researching stories, so I'm totally effing random. I'd rather go to Enlightment group at some church one week, Tai Chi somewhere else the next week, then spend the next digging around in an old antique shop. I volunteer the way people shop the day after Thanksgiving; try to get everywhere once. I'm an experience junkie.</p>
<p>In other words, I am not even on the scale of normal good students. Though, strangely enough, I am responsible and capable of following a routine. I was a very good student before I left school, and I hold a job now which involves more hours per week than my own mother's.</p>
<p>Also, I have too much pride to associate myself (in the app) with any person who could help me get in anywhere. I want a school that wants me, not my relatives/friends/contacts.</p>
<p>PS: This thread rocks.</p>
<p>I got 790 for Japanese and I'm supposed to be "fluent". ARGH.</p>
<p>I'm asian.
Low SAT scores.
No legacy.</p>
<p>I think I'm good everywhere else. I need to improve my E.C.s a bit.</p>
<p>I'm asian, my standardized tests suck, and I am a horrible essay writer.</p>
<p>--But--</p>
<p>I started YouTube.com!</p>
<p>Yay Harvard material.</p>
<ol>
<li>Horrid gpa/ranking</li>
<li>I look dumb (in case of interview)</li>
</ol>
<p>horrible generic ECs.</p>
<p>Bad SAT and AP scores.</p>
<p>Not top 1% of school.</p>
<p>Asian.</p>
<p>I could go on and on.</p>
<p>bad class rank (school does not weight class rank + gym class freshman year did not help gpa).
bad SAT IIs (by the time i took them in december I couldn't care less about the app process ---> senioritis).
spend way too much time watching tv and reading celebrity tabloids (though they will hopefully never know that unless some teacher wrote about that in their recs).</p>
<p>mediocre school, really generic ECs, mediocre to horrible essays, and to top it all off, I'm an asian male</p>
<p>Fun thread :) for the most part</p>
<p>When applying to H for graduate school, I saw the number of blank lines available for "Leadership Positions You Have Held" and threw the app away ;)</p>
<p>haha good idea for a thread guys. while mildly depressing, it is nice to just rant about things that you couldn't ever rant about to your friends.</p>
<p>-my school isn't that great, and my rank could be much higher if I had taken stupid band and gotten stupid honors credit (note: I would be number 6 in my class if I had done band instead of varsity sport, and no, I don't really think band/honors credit is stupid)
-my SAT math score might as well only contain double digits
-I am fluent in Spanish and I somehow only got a 700 on the SAT Spanish!! I shouldn't have taken the one without listening. </p>
<p>otherwise I am...decently ok? Maybe? </p>
<p>Who am I kidding. It's Harvard. All of us are amazing but NONE of us are OK.</p>
<p>Awards field empty (my own doing), essays bad, got a couple (ok maybe like 5) of Cs in my transcript, and my application looks quite weird.</p>
<p>I know that I'm not exactly the target audience for this, but here goes:</p>
<p>I've always looked around on College Confidential and seen people who spent 20+ hours researching in the labs of famous scientists and making new discoveries (although I highly doubt many of them are THAT groundbreaking) that I thought were only possible in the adult years.</p>
<p>Well, what if my dad doesn't play golf with the president of an important research laboratory? What if I don't go to a school that has special programs for people who go into research? What if my idea of fun and research is to read Wikipedia and Nature magazine? What if I run little experiments in my backyard?</p>
<p>Does this mean that I don't have a passion for science, less passion than all the kids who get such amazing opportunities (and I don't begrudge them those opportunities, I would take advantage of them in their places, too)?
We as a society are too focused on tangible results in an age where we tout conceptualism. So I may not cure cancer in the backyard, but my sense of satiation and curiosity is at least the match of theirs. </p>
<p>The sad part is that if I were an outsider reading this post, I would probably say "too bad, stop complaining". But somehow, I think that other people go through this too. </p>
<p>Any thoughts?</p>
<p>I agree with ajkcorner1 to a certain degree. A lot of the people who are able to do research in university labs and such have some kind of opportunity or connection that other kids don't. It may not be because of their parents, but it very well may be because of their school or community. While I know that there are hundreds of kids who have worked incredibly hard to secure positions doing research in labs and secured said positions without any leg-up on anybody else, there are equally hundreds of kids who are given opportunities others are not.</p>
<p>So yes, I guess that's unfair. And as much as I hate to say it, life and college admissions are unfair, but it's not worth complaining about. Maybe you live in Montana and it's not as hard to qualify for All-State band as it is in New York because of population. Maybe you live in Florida and can't extend research about the half-life of icicles (...kidding). </p>
<p>I understand ajk's problem, but I think that your love of science can be expressed through your essays better than a lot of those kids who "love science" enough to do research. Obviously you do love science, and sometimes that can be more valuable than an obligatory "I spent 30 hours per day in a science lab" on the EC list. </p>
<p>Good point presented though.</p>
<p>I totally understand ajk's point. j07 I have the priviledge of fitting both of your comments: For me it's that I'm from Texas, and I live in a small isolated town, so I don't have those opportunities, but again I'm from a huge state in which making All-State band is no walk in the park (choir in my case though). Anyways, that's my main anti-hook, plus a bad Math 2 score.</p>
<p>wouldnt it be funny if they took the WORST applicant from the pool every year...and accepted them?</p>
<p>^^^ Wouldn't be funny, it would be tragic.</p>
<p>For the applicant, that is...</p>
<p>alright</p>
<p>1) Secret love child of Hitler and saddam hussain</p>
<p>2) only asian member of the kkk</p>
<p>3) wrote an article in mad about how john harvard was having an affair with ezra cornell</p>
<p>4) used why duke essay as supplemental essay.</p>
<p>hahahahah! Thats hilarious! esp number 3!</p>