<p>^Yes, but they are trying to increase the undergraduate student body size. That’s what I heard from my interviewer.</p>
<p>Yes Ryan1119, that is the longgg term goal, but your interviewer seems to be uninformed on the matter. It will be several years before that will be talked about again. What they were planning to do was to build larger dorms across the river for upperclassmen. All of the students that would regularly live in the quad would move there. The quad would then become more graduate housing. But there is two major problems to that. One, where would the extended freshman class live? Possible Adams I suppose, but that would be strange. Second, they money to start rebuilding all of Allston is no longer there. So I think it will be a long time before that is talked about again.</p>
<p>Harvard Suckkkkksss</p>
<p>Princeton-Yale-Stanford-Penn all the wayyy</p>
<p>It seems like that there is gonna be radical changes…</p>
<p>Probably not while you’d be at Harvard… construction might start as you’re getting ready to leave. Things move pretty slowly around here.</p>
<p>2150 / 29,000… hm, odds aren’t looking too good…</p>
<p>well, i’m still hoping.</p>
<p>lets look at this rationally. how many of the extra applicants do you think are actually qualified? i mean there could be 50,000 applicants but i’ll bet big money that still only about 5,000 are legitimately qualified. I dont see what the big deal is.</p>
<p>On a side note, does this include people who withdrew?</p>
<p>Because obviously ED-accepted people are out of the running, and I’m curious to see whether Harvard counted their now-gone apps in this number.</p>
<p>Because that should eliminate 1/8 to 1/4 of this, possibly more.</p>
<p>Harvard sent emails to many people to encourage others to apply. That record number is not because of the financial aid package alone, it is because they asked for the extra applications.
Trust me, there is no school like Elihu Yale!</p>
<p>^we know you like yale; i do too (that’s why i applied there); i like harvard too; both are world-class schools</p>
<p>supereagal–</p>
<p>I would think few people apply to Harvard that aren’t at least reasonably qualified. This is just speculation but I would say around half of their applicants are highly competitive. Also, you can’t argue that your chances of getting into Harvard are better because you assume you’re part of that “legitimacy qualified” group. You’re still up against 29,000 applicants.</p>
<p>“We could get down to our final cut of 7000 applicants, throw the entire pile of folders out the window; go down and pick up a random 1600 folders and have a perfectly well rounded class.” </p>
<p>A memorable quote from Harvard College’s Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, Bill Fitzsimmons about six years ago.</p>
<p>I know there are a fair amount of applicants who know they are NOT qualified, but apply just to say they did. Later, allowing them to say “I was not part of the 8% accepted by Harvard College”. Even the lack of success comes with some sort of prestige in this age of BNP. 
The implication being that “Wow, he was good enough to apply to Harvard.”</p>
<p>Come to think of it, you can still say that without even applying. :)</p>
<p>“We could get down to our final cut of 7000 applicants, throw the entire pile of folders out the window; go down and pick up a random 1600 folders and have a perfectly well rounded class.” </p>
<p>haha, that’s funny; great quote from the dean</p>
<p>speaking of which, did you guys see his recent interview with On Harvard Times (i think that’s the name)? it’s pretty good</p>
<p>Is it even possible that they’ll be able to read all 29,000 applications? (Assuming Dean Fitzsimmons was joking about throwing them down the stairs! 
)</p>
<p>Okay here’s my thoughts… If you have high SATs 2250+ (750+ on each section), a GPA unweighed at 4.00, a URM, an athlete, a legacy, or an extracurric god … they WILL read your applications and give you the full benefit of the doubt! </p>
<p>However, if you do not fit into any of these categories… they’ll drop your file! </p>
<p>Competitive admissions have rounds! So applying is the easiest part but getting to the Admissions committee isnt… From there the admissions committee weighs your essays and personality heavily. </p>
<p>Right?</p>
<p>So… the fact that sooo many people apply shouldnt be the issue… the issue remains how many of the 29000 applicants actually make it to the committee? Then from there we can look at the selectivity. So I even think that the whole 8% selectivity and the extremely low percentages are a tad misleading.</p>
<p>There’s a problem with your reasoning though, brandybeer- In order to determine if you are an EC god, etc., they have to read your application.</p>
<p>I didn’t have a single one of those things and I was accepted. Don’t worry about it.</p>
<p>And I promise everyone that the committee feels that more then 5000 (or whatever that number thrown out was) of the applicants belong at Harvard.</p>
<p>Heh, White_Rabbit, you just made my day.</p>
<p>supereagle, there is no way only 5k are legitimately qualified for H. It has to be way more than that. everyone has their own thing, ya know? It could look amazing on paper…</p>