For the ivy I’m most familiar with, if you meet the FA submission deadline and are admitted, your FA award will be in your portal on decision day.
I know it’s getting stressful as we get closer to final decisions. Your application looks amazing. I just wanted to share with you what our college counselor told the VERY qualified applicants at our school after they were rejected (not deferred) from an Ivy during EA/ED:
(I’m paraphrasing…)
“Your application was perfect. Scores, grades, course rigor, essays, supplemental essays, you don’t need aid, letters of recommendation and extracurricular/volunteer/work - all perfect. There is nothing more you could have done. But remember, there are THOUSANDS just like you, also applying to XXX school. XXX has said that 80% of their applicants “deserve” to be admitted, but there are only so many spots. You cannot think there is something wrong with you or anything more you could have done. Sometimes it comes down to some small thing - something out of your control. Do you “deserve” to get in? No, no one deserves a XXX education. Did you do everything in your power to get in? Yes, your application was amazing - sometimes, it just doesn’t work out.”
I know this helped our applicant realize that even though they checked off all of the boxes, exceeded every requirement, and went above and beyond — sometimes, it’s out of your control. There was no reason for the rejection other than the fact that there are thousands of applicants who also far exceeded the requirements.
I truly hope Harvard accepts you but in case they do not - please know it wasn’t something you did wrong it’s just that there are just so many overly qualified applicants. You are going to do amazing things no matter where you attend college.
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Thank you ! I had problems on IDOC since I had to translate all my documentos, so they were a little bit late, but as far as I know Harvard don’t care if you are late.
Very well said!!! Every kid is deserving, but unfortunately, like you said, each school has only so many seats and they want to fill them a certain way. It’s out of our control.
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We have the best college counselor. It was so good for the students (who were really upset about their rejections) to hear the rep from the Ivy, state that the vast majority of applications they receive (I believe he said 80%) should be admitted, in that they were clearly qualified.
I think most students (and we parents who love them) need to be reminded that there are a lot of high stat/high achieving/interesting applicants out there.
Good luck to each of them.
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There is no difference between Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, Duke , Caltech. It all depends what you make of the oppurtunity given to you. Also every college has its own strengths. If a student gets Biomedical engineering in Johns Hopkins it is so coveted. Even colleges like UT Austin has programs like Tourings that have curriculum similar and morigorous than MIT. Trust, United States has the best admission sysytem in the world.
Admission officers do their best. Harvard does its best and will take the students that best fits its class. If it has taken 10 grand prize intel winners it may want variety. Trust in the process, my elder son went to UT Dallas. One of the best experiences they helped him so much. He now got admission Yale Law. He said it is all because of UT Dallas excellent professors and support sysytem. He was a mcdermott scholar there. We did not spend a dime for his undergraduate. So please dont fret about Harvard. Trust the process, give your best. Focus on how you can best use the resources when you get into your college.
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We got an email from College Board to ask us to submit the FA material. Do we need to do that? I know from Harvard website that Harvard only reviews the student’s FA material after the student is admitted. Should we just ignore the email from College Board? Anyone has similar experience to share? Thank you.
Login to IDOC and see if there are any required documents to submit. Getting an email from college board doesn’t necessarily mean that you haven’t submitted the documents already. The email just lets you know that FA office of one of the colleges you applied to is requesting some information from you. If you have already submitted them, IDOC shouldn’t have anything in the required documents list and you don’t have to do anything at this time. Colleges will be able to pull them from IDOC, if they’re there.
We do have one form that we did not submit for FA. I thought the school should contact us instead of college board. Since this form is a little bit complicated, we did not submit before. Harvard website mentioned that only the student is admitted, they will review the FA. So we are thinking if Harvard is not going to admit our student, we did not want to spend the time to work on the FA form.
Some of the schools FA office don’t directly email you when they need a doc. They instead request collegeboard and you get the email from collegeboard which doesn’t tell you which college requested it… 
I know it is from Harvard. So I am wondering if anyone has same experience or someone know Harvard FA office usually email students themselves or through college board. Thank you for replying my questions!!
Hi! I had the same problem : I didn’t submit one of my documents since I was having problems with the translation . IDOC email me saying that colleges require my documents, but as an International Harvard is the only University I sent my application. However, I think this is something they send to everyone whose documents are missing, because I have no posibilities.
I am also guessing that this is something college board sent to everyone whose documents are missing. Thanks for sharing!
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Yes I agree with you , but I have checked the email and It said : " Colleges hace requested…". But I suppose this is not a good sign
Why isn’t it a good sign?
Actually, the school code is usually listed next to the requested document.
I am rooting for you @Sofia24 ! I hope you do get in! Based on your posts, you also seem to be a very kind person not only a student with a spectacular resume. Even if you do not get into Harvard, I am sure you will be accepted by another great school! I hear YALE is the best 
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these are the kind of responses we need more of! what a lovely reply! I’m rooting for @sofia24 too!!
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I am going to “second” what wishwin said in their post mentioning numerous schools.
Depending on what you want to study, (some degrees more to this extend, other degrees less), going to ANY reputable quality school, with an extensive alumni network, will be fine. If you are studying computer science, data science, accounting, STEM related stuff, nursing, medicine, again, ANY reputable school will provide you with a great future.
There is a “mental health component” to all of this “get into Harvard stuff.” If you don’t get in, it is NOT the end of the day.
Regarding the IDOC, I believe the IDOC website statement that “the school requests this” simply means the school has told IDOC that the school needs that information from ALL IDOC users who apply to their school. I would not read too much into it.
My opinion
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Thank you once more for your words! It is really nice when other people think in such an amazing way about you. I really hope to be celebrating with you soon:)
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