Harvard Class of 2021 RD Thread

@skieurope thank you for saying that!!! The discussion was really confusing me

Walk-ons are athletes who try out for a sport once they gain admission on their own. There are “recruited walk-ons” and “preferred walk-ons” who are students that are sought out by coaches once they have gained admission on their own - not all schools have this classification of athlete.

Do schools and coaches really know who plans to walk on? Do applicants explicitly make it known and contact the universities/coaches?

@samc24. In most cases, walk-on athletes do make their interest known to coaches before applying or at some point during the application process. A walk-on in division 1 or 2 may be a player the coach wants but for whom the coach cannot provide scholarship money. If you have already been admitted without contacting the coach, contact the coach to discuss the possibility of joining the team. Some coaches will allow anyone to join who is willing to do the work and others have set standards that they won’t bend. Depends on the coach, program and division. Walk-ons may be more common at division 3 schools because there is no scholarship money, but there still can be a very competitive recruitment process in many cases. Think NESCAC or MIT athletics. It may be hard to walk-on to such schools. And Harvard has outstanding D-1 sports, so you’d better contact the coach and be very good at your sport.

FWIW my daughter made herself known to her coach after we paid the deposit at her D! school. She was then put with the recruited athletes as far as housing and training groups. After freshman year she was given a scholarship. There are many paths to college sports dependent upon the school, coach, sport. My younger D has not gone down the recruitment path either but is known to the coaches and there is some interest - but not at Harvard, LOL.

Is this the way Harvard calculates their acceptance rate by counting the deferred applicants in both SCEA round and RD round?

Example:

SCEA round: 1,000 applicants. 100 accepted, 800 deferred and 100 rejected. This means acceptance rate of 10% during SCEA round.

RD round: 9,200 new applicants PLUS 800 old deferred applicants = 10,000 total applicants during RD round. Only 500 accepted which equates to 5% acceptance rate during RD.

Total applicants during SCEA and RD rounds: 1,000 PLUS 10,000 = 11,000. Out of these 100 (SCEA round) PLUS 500 (during RD round) are accepted, which equates to 600 accepted students.

600 divided by 11,000 = 5.45% acceptance rate. Is this how Harvard calculates the acceptance rate? I am not sure so I am asking in good faith.

@websensation yes.

@ap012199 Then by counting this would have an effect of artificially lowering the acceptance rate, no? I didn’t know that’s the way Harvard calculates.

I don’t see how an acceptance rate can be artificial… every school with an early cycle calculates acceptance rate like that. It’s simply number of acceptances over number of applicants.

@websensation

Why is it artificially lowering the acceptance rate? They’re deferred applicants that weren’t accepted REA. Where else should you put them? IMO, stats released show higher acceptance rates because they factor in the early admits. If you calculate the RD acceptance rate, it’s VERY low.

Harvard usually admits around 2,000 every year. They accepted 2,106 for the class of 2020. Harvard accepted 918 early for 2020. Subtract 918 admitted, 464 denied, 12 withdrawn, and 106 incomplete from the overall applicant pool of 39,041 = 37,565 applicants for RD. 918 beds were taken early, so 2,106 - 918 = 1,188 beds left.

RD acceptance rate = 1,188/37,565 = 3.1625% acceptance rate.

This is more than two percentage points lower than the overall acceptance rate advertised : 5.3943%

https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■/2016-ivy-league-admissions-statistics/

See here. Every Ivy school’s actual overall acceptance rate is higher than the overall acceptance rate shown. For example, Harvard’s acceptance rate of 5.7% is actually 6.7% with deferred applicants added in. The word “artificial” was perhaps misused because there is no way to add deferred group but to the RD round. But my point is had Harvard deferred a lower percentage of students from its SCEA round (lets say 10%) would lead to the HIGHER acceptance rate than the stated 5.7%. Would you agree?

Going back to likely letters, it seems like they are staggered throughout the RD round since I got a letter today. Some applicants may still get one in the next couple weeks as far as I can tell.

@martychondria congrats! Mind posting your stats/ why you think you got one?

@martychondria going through your result thread, my guess is the fact that you are from North Dakota combined with your ACT score and GPA got you in. Again, congrats! Hopefully I’ll be joining you if you decide to attend! No way I’m getting a likely letter though…

@ap012199 I actually posted them into the Harvard RD results thread page (it’s a pretty long post so I’ll save the hassle to people having to scroll through it on this page). I’m the very first post so I’ll be easy to find lol.

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1962932-official-harvard-class-of-2021-regular-decision-results-only.html

@ap012199 I guess you respond faster than me haha…And yes hopfully we’ll meet at Visitas and possibly next fall.

@websensation - In your example, shouldn’t the acceptance rate be 5.9% (600/10200) as there were only 10,200 students who applied? Doesn’t your 5.45% double count the deferred candidates?

@martychondria CONGRATULATIONS. Very happy for you.

Congratulations!!! Is the LL in your portal link? Thanks. Did the AO call you?

@bettytchen I got an email from the AO yesterday morning requesting a time to call me that afternoon. During the call, the AO told me to expect a LL in my portal by 5pm (which arrived on time).