<p>Harvard gets record 29,000 applicants for fall</p>
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A record-breaking number of more than 29,000 students have applied for spots in Harvard’s class of 2013, up about 5 percent from last year’s 27,462 applicants, the admissions office announced today. With an increase in applicants but the same number of spots available, this year’s admissions season is poised to be even more competitive than last year’s. </p>
<p>“The admission rate will undoubtedly be lower,” said Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 in a phone interview yesterday. “We only have about 1,660 places in the freshman class. We know the Houses are full to capacity and there are no places to put students in the Yard. As last year, we will be conservative in April and take more students from the waitlist in case there is a significant jump in the yield.”
<p>Good luck to everyone applying this year. Tens of thousands of students applying to Harvard will end up somewhere else, but you took on the challenge of applying to Harvard and can look forward to a bright future.</p>
<p>Even considering a few fee waivers here and there, the $1,885,000 in application fees should cover expenses for this year's extended team of 'voluntary' app readers.</p>
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Admissions Dean William Fitzsimmons says Harvard's generous financial aid packages have encouraged so many students to apply.
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<p>If applications are up, the Adcoms always attribute this to some identifiable program on the part of Admissions or the college. For the financial aid packages to be the reason for increased applications to Harvard, there would need be a latent population of low income students with Harvard-worthy stats, who were applying only to any public colleges on account of cost.</p>
<p>How come we never see this illusive creature at CC (which is free)?</p>
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For the financial aid packages to be the reason for increased applications to Harvard, there would need be a latent population of low income students with Harvard-worthy stats, who were applying only to any public colleges on account of cost.
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<p>I know students like that. They have long been the mainstay of state university honors programs. Harvard's admission dean mentioned such students, and Harvard's desire to enroll them, as a rationale for Harvard's most recent expansion of financial aid eligibility. </p>
<p>Getting accepted EA makes these numbers seem so much less daunting - which is the same mentality you all must share! Don't worry... we are CCers, we DOMINATE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS!</p>
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[quote]
For the financial aid packages to be the reason for increased applications to Harvard, there would need be a latent population of low income students with Harvard-worthy stats, who were applying only to any public colleges on account of cost.</p>
<p>How come we never see this illusive[sic] creature at CC (which is free)?
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<ol>
<li><p>yes they exist, very likely on cc too, it's just that not everyone who is financially disadvantaged likes to announce it on the internet ("hey everyone! I would get very generous need-based financial aid packages because my family is low-income!")</p></li>
<li><p>they don't need to apply to public universities only because of cost. My god, have you checked out how generous most of the top-tier schools' financial aid policies are for low-income students (and even for some not-so-low-income applicants)? If they were really qualified for schools of that caliber, it would be more financially advantageous for them to apply to only those top top [and rich] schools. I definitely know people who got as good or better financial aid packages from top-tier private universities than public universities.</p></li>
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<p>this is a reach school for me so yes I am def one of those that was convinced to apply because of financial aid- there's plenty of $ for the fairly poor at most schools including public but very little for those like me in the mid-$100,000s income range, until Harvard and Yale made financial aid possible for me! yay!</p>
<p>To be fair, 29,000 is less than 2,000 more people than last year. Obviosuly, that saddens me, but it could be a lot wrose. One school I looked at had a 21% increase in applicants.</p>
<p>I'm not at all surprised, but it means that Harvard's going to have to reject some unbelievable applicants this year.
And the not-so-unbelievable ones (like me).</p>
<p>^ Although these numbers are a bit intimidating, they actually comfort me a lot.</p>
<p>If I do get rejected, I'll be in the same boat as 27,000 other amazing people! In the "On Harvard Time" interview with Dean Fitzsimmons, he said something pretty cool, along the lines of:
"Here's how we look at it. Someone who barely misses getting into a place like Harvard will get into lots of other great schools. In fact, they may end up better off than some of the people we admit!" I thought that was nice of him, and very true :)</p>