<p>Submitted guys.Happy new year :!! </p>
<p>Submitted. How long were your supplemental essay if you submitted one?</p>
Submitted mine about a week ago, now for the agonizing wait 
My supplement was about 500 words @Hawkace
@emenya Mine is about 1,000 words. I don’t even know if they’ll read the whole thing. Oh well.
@oxoxhawja3xoxo I used my Pton essay because I showed a part of myself never mentioned in my app so i adds another dimension to my overall application. Also, I think that essay helped me get into Princeton SCEA so I’m hoping it has the same effect on the Harvard admission officers.
@blueninja15 yeah she is Asian. But she’s also on student government and at least at my school that’s not a very Asian activity. Agh I’m Asian too and applying to Harvard RD. good luck to all 
Just applied and I feel extremely hollow, like all my work was meaningless
Oh well.
applied as a joke!
I wrote about photography for my extracurricular essay since I didn’t list it as an activity… Think that’ll be okay? For my optional essay, I elaborated on a much more academic-based EC haha.
lol for my optional essay I just copied half of my NYU essay and talked about Paul Pierce
applied to these places seriously:
Duke
Brown
CMU
JHU
Rushed These:
NYU
UMich
Applied randomly to:
Vandy
WUSTL
Dartmouth
Anyone know how the math dept. in those schools are?
hey guys i had my interview interview recently and i was wondering its normal that mine lasted like 30 mins -40 mins. Im not sure if thats bad? Eh idk
Plz ignore my grammar mistakes ma bad 
Wat did most of u guys talk about in ur interviews? Was it pretty much about the school itself?
I had my interview today, which is earlier than usual for my region compared to last year (if I remember correctly, my friend had hers in February last year). Apparently all interview reports for my region are due on the 21st and they want to interview as many applicants as possible this weekend. I only got a 5-day notice email for the interview, as they stated in the email that they had already interviewed many applicants in the region. Mine took place at a boarding school about one or two cities away, where volunteering alumnus all gathered in the library.
It was super awkward when I went in. There was a long oval meeting table, and about seven or eight alumnus were just sitting there minding their own business, chilling. One of them asked for my name, crossed it off from a list, and then just asked who would like to interview me. So unlike my friend from last year, my interviewer was not pre-assigned. Good thing one of them quickly volunteered to interview me, or it would have been super awkward.
My interviewer is a doctor, a graduate of both the Harvard undergrad college and med school. He was super friendly and did not give me any hard questions at all (it seems like some posters on CC had difficult interview questions aimed to test their knowledge). Heck, he didn’t even ask me why Harvard. However, I would not say that my interview was spectacular. It was mediocre at best. I mumbled, stuttered, and rambled. To make matters worse, I have an accent. At times it appeared to me that he was having a hard time understanding what I was trying to say. He basically read my resume and asked about my favorite ECs, hobbies, what I read in my own time, and my life. I was so embarrassed when I talked about why I like biology and forgot the name of the plate of agar that one raises bacteria in. So it went like this:
Me: Um…we spliced genes into E. coli to make glow under black light. We raised the bacteria in those small dish…starts stuttering and gesticulating of the small circular dish…ugh I forgot I am blanking out…
Him: Petri dish?
Me: Oh yeah Petri dish face burning
He asked me about what I intend to major in and mentioned that I have strong stats. He did minimal Harvard selling, only emphasizing that Harvard is world renowned and gives students a strong foundation in the liberal arts even for the science majors.
The whole interview lasted about thirty to forty five minutes. He only took a little notes on the margin of my resume. I asked some questions about him toward the end, including why he had applied to Harvard. He just laughed and said because it is Harvard – he was not sure why and felt that the school was full of energy when he visited. I actually asked him if he likes to interview students and if it bothers him that he is volunteering his own time to interview applicants when he knows that it does not weigh much in the overall decision. According to him, he likes to meet potential future Harvard students and is actually relieved to know that he is not the one who has to decide, after having talked to many applicants and knowing many of them are wonderful in their own ways and do in fact qualify.
Overall, the interview left me with a good impression of Harvard (contrasting with rumors of pretentious grads), which I suppose is one of the, if not the main, goals. My interviewer was so nice that I could not gauge if I had blundered in any manner. I am just hoping that I did not leave a bad impression. If you have not had your interview and would like to know more details, you can ask me, though I am certain that interviews can vary wildly depending on the interviewers.
I haven’t heard about an interview yet and live in a populated area full of Harvard alums. Bad sign?
@ackack For Harvard applicants, not getting an interview yet (or not getting an interview EVER) does not mean anything about the strength of your application. (no matter where you live)
@ackack In my experience, if you live in an area with a lot of alums, but have not gotten an interview, it is typically not a good sign… BUT It also could be that your application on its own was so good, that interviewing you wasn’t an urgent matter, because you’re obviously still in the running. The third possibility is that there are just so many applicants in your area that it is taking a while for them to get to you.
but really, try not to think about it too much. enjoy being a SSS.
Happily, this a.m. got an interview. Thanks to folks who weighed in.
I read a lot in this forum that interviews mean nothing one way or another but how is that possible ? Unless the people picked for interviews are randomly selected, regardless of whether or not the college is interested in them, then they do mean something. I am sure alumni do not have time to interview people the school is not interested in.