One of my teachers told me that a harvard admissions officer called and had a brief interview with them about me. What does this mean?
Regional Admissions Officers are like defense attorney’s, their job is to present each applicant to the full Admissions Committee in the best possible light. My guess is that the AO was calling your teacher for further information to help present your case. It’s a good sign, however, it doesn’t mean you’ve been accepted. The full committee is comprised of over 40 people (half professional Admissions Officers and half Harvard faculty) and it’s one-person, one-vote, meaning every student presented to the full committee must garner 51% of the votes in the room to be accepted – so it’s anyone’s guess as to what happened with your file. You’ll find out in 10 days!
The waiting is the hardest part
– Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
What if they try to reach out to a teacher or administrator, and they are on break?
^^ Let’s use some analytical skills here. If an AO calls, or emails, a teacher or administrator and does not get an immediate response, what are they most likely to do? (a) Leave a message, (b) try again later – as in after your break, © write you off completely. I seriously doubt it would be ©, unless your school does not return from break until after decisions have been released.
Let’s use some further analytical skills. Assuming we’re talking about a school break and not a coffee break, teachers and administrators are professionals. So they will more than likely change their voicemail and have an out-of-office message that says. “St. Jerome’s is closed for Spring Break. I will respond to your message when the school reopens on 3/20.”
It’s unlikely that Harvard would wait to call until the last week of March, and since that is not the case for you, no need to worry.
@skieurope @gibby Sorry to hijack OP’s thread, but my question is related. Is it expected that admissions officers call recommenders if the student is of interest? The same thing happened with the sal at my school, who was an exceptional candidate (but eventually deferred). I’m concerned that if my teacher hasn’t gotten a call, that would indicate I am not a competitive candidate. I’m also a bit concerned that if they did call, one of my recommenders might not speak as enthusiastically about me since my grade in his class is currently a B- (senioritis 
).
My opinion is that it means you are in the mix. Your regional AO is looking for information that enables them to bolster their presentation of you.
It does seem very late to have this be occurring.
Four years ago our daughter was contacted by the Harvard admissions office asking her for recommendations from two leaders of programs she had participated in.
I was upset at the time and felt like she was being made to jump through hoops. The entire admissions process had been so draining. We did see it as a positive sign though and our daughter hustled to get these additional recommendations in.
She ended up being Waitlisted and then being accepted from the Waitlist in mid May. Her dream came true, I hope yours does!
@ambitionsquared: From my experience, both personally and on College Confidential, Harvard Admissions does NOT call every teacher or GC of a student they are interested in. It seems they only call when they feel additional information would be useful. If your teacher or GC has not been contacted, I would not take that as a sign of no-interest. If your teacher is contacted, I’m sure they would say positive things about you, as it bodes well for your high school when a student is admitted to Harvard.
The waiting is the hardest part
- Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
No. Not only is it not expected, it is very rare. Read nothing into it.
So in other words I shouldn’t get my hopes up?
Anything we say is supposition; you’ll find out for sure in 6 days. Until then, go to a movie, throw a ball, something to get your mind on other things. Good luck.
@GreatKid if you don’t mind, what were her stats?
OP this is what you wrote before
This is the type of thing that makes Harvard interested. They are probably trying to see how deep your interests go.
@collegedad13 yeah one of my essays was on that and one of my recommenders was my mentor who works in the astrophysics dept at Harvard so I’m hoping that helped.