Harvard Hopeful

Chance Me / Match Me!
41

<p>You do realize that going to a great state school and then going to Harvard Medical school is a more beneficial option correct? Less debt and all. Medical schools don’t truly care about which college you went to, nor do they care for the major, and after you become a physician nobody will truly care where you went to for undergrad. If you plan on becoming a physician your true undergrad goal should be personal enrichment. This can be found at Harvard but also at many other universities. I suggest you rethink on why you are picking Harvard. It seems to me that you just have heard great things all your life about Harvard and want to be part of that greatness. You want to be able to tell people that you went to Harvard College. If this isn’t it then I apologize though it truly isn’t wrong to think that way. We have all thought that way once in our lifetime.</p>

<p>If you don’t plan on becoming a physician then you should figure out what you want to be. For example, Harvard is not a university for future engineers. Pick your university by program and feeling, not by name. </p>

<p>To answer your original question however, I think that with a great SAT or ACT score and a higher GPA you can have an okay chance at being accepted. On this forum this is called a reach. Your extracurriculars just aren’t wow enough for Harvard.</p>

42

<p>Thanks everyone! And YeloPen, the thing is I’ve been interested in law since age 7/have always been able to convert my thoughts into words; but in the last couple years my dad’s told me there’s always gonna be enough lawyers, and in this economy medicine is in higher demand. I do realize they’re different, and seem like cliche “high salary jobs,” but I am also pretty passionate about science (specifically chem & bio), and realize this would be a good option for me. I will do my research, but I promise I’m not as shallow/uninformed as I may sound. Thank you all! Oh and the social networking site was GREAT advice…maybe I could try that! Any ideas on how to begin?</p>

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<p>I think if you want to show a dedication to an extra curricular then you should just make it your essay topic. A Forensics girl from my school who finaled at the national catholic forensics league tournament did that and got into harvard this year with forensics as her main extracurricular.</p>

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<p>As it stands you are not qualified, seeing as you have a 3.7 before junior year. What I mean is, if you scheduled right, junior year should be the toughest. However your ECs look great, don’t include all of them though, just the core ones. You and I are in the same boat regarding GPA, although I’m not speculating about my test scores, I actually got a 36 on ACT (which, btw, is not that hard if you study for it). Good luck.</p>

<p>Chance me: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/957028-chance-please.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/957028-chance-please.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>It seems as if you center your life around the prestige of everything? How could you want to be a Doctor AND a Lawyer? It’s probably just because you see both as very lucrative jobs not that you actually enjoy them. Can you seriously name a single reason why Harvard separates it from any other school in your mind? Asking people what else you can do in high school to get into college is exactly how you don’t get into college. Grooming your life just so you can get into a big name college? How about you just live and see if you deserve to go there? Honestly I wouldn’t accept you if I was an adcom because it just seems like you’re trying to play the system and too obsessed with rankings and all that nonsense. My best advice to you is to just do what you love in high school and let the rest play out, I’m not telling you to not work hard but I’m telling you to stop being a “Harvard Mindset” controlled robot.</p>

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<p>Thank you Extemp and davidoga for your constructiveness. It is much appreciated. Ironically, looking at my junior year schedule alone, it shouldn’t be that bad (in exclusive terms of academics alone). Honors precalc, honors physics, 2 trimesters of yearbook (seeing as I’m an editor), health (requirement), ap euro and ap lang/comp. I currently am enrolled in the “photography” class, but I’m wondering if instead my teacher will let me take ap studio art, seeing as i’m quite artistically-inclined. and so I can get a 5 and impress the admissions people :wink: to anyone who’s taken this class, what’s the difficulty level in terms of subjectiveness in the CB’s portfolio grading? I think this in addition to my other artistic pursuits (hope to become active with it and enter it in contests or something) will be impressive, as well as a genuine hobby of mine put to good use. Also, my friend told me about someone at her school who got accepted into oxford because she like did a lot with art, and like did something like making art accessible to underprivileged kids? Does anyone have any ideas on how to follow a similar path in this area? Anyways, back to my schedule, that’s, at most, only 3 APs (lang and comp more than likely being a joke for me, and euro perhaps okay seeing as I took apush this year. Art would be just producing throughout the year with my teachers advising qualitative work). Im saving the truly hard scedule for senior year: ap calc bc, ap bio or chem (can’t decide), ap French, ap lit/comp (although most likely joke), ap Econ, ap gov.</p>

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<p>Bobleman300, it’s ironic that you say that, seeing as i JUST said i understand ones point of view such as yours, but I am truly passionate about both careers that happen to be “prestigious.” I’ll leave it at that.</p>

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<p>^ Honestly speaking, that post just covered what I’ve been trying to say.</p>

<p>You can’t just tell me “oh, I’m not as uninformed as I seem.” Everything you’ve said to me has pointed in the opposite direction, especially the fact that you suggested an Ivy League school existed on the West Coast. You also seem to be uninformed as to how medical/law school admissions work, and you fail to realize that other schools have similar track records of success in admitting students to those schools (Yale, for one, has a 90+% acceptance rate into med school).</p>

<p>Furthermore, your obsession with Harvard and lucrative jobs makes you seem a bit naive. That’s even worse than a HYPS-obsessed person because at least those people realize there are 3 other schools out there just as great as Harvard is.</p>

<p>And lastly (bobleman300 mentioned this, and it’s something I like to say so I’ll mention it again), don’t plan out your life for college because:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>You really don’t know what they want, and neither do we. We’re not admissions officers, so other than very general guidelines (increase scores, grades, etc.), we can’t really tell you anything meaningful. Admissions to top schools also involve a lot of luck. So why try and plan your life out for something that can’t be predicted?</p></li>
<li><p>Admissions officers can tell when you’re doing things for college. They’ll notice extracurricular activities being crammed in, laundry lists of meaningless club memberships and officer positions, etc. Passion can’t be faked. If you really love the things you do, it’ll come out in your writing, your interviews, etc. You’ll be pouring out corny phrase after corny phrase in a dreamy, awe-inspired voice that you just can’t do for activities you’ve done for college.</p></li>
<li><p>Harvard is Harvard. Even if you plan out your life perfectly, chances are you’ll get rejected. So why bother planning if you can do the things you love and perhaps even have a better shot at getting in?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I’m sorry I couldn’t be more positive but I really think there needs to be a reality check here.</p>

<p>EDIT - Your comments above seem to indicate the same idea. Go provide art to underprivileged kids because you love community service, not because you heard somebody got into Oxford because of it. And on that note, unless admissions in England is very different from admissions here (certainly a possibility), nobody got into Oxford for doing that. How would they know? Colleges don’t tell you why you got in or didn’t, and admissions is holistic, not based on one thing. Again, more research is needed. Oh, and a 5 on an AP test won’t really impress anyone, especially not Harvard … AP scores have minimal influence on admissions in the first place and 5’s are very common anyhow.</p>

<p>Again, sorry I couldn’t be more positive.</p>

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<p>I highly, highly doubt it. Doctor and lawyer? Please. You’ve got the false image of prestige all tied up in a nice knot and set firmly inside your mind.</p>

<p>This is the bottom line:
You do NOT have to go to Harvard and become a doctor-lawyer to succeed in life. With your stats, it’s very unlikely Harvard will accept you anyway. Don’t get me wrong; I want you to succeed. But you need to set realistic goals and do something because you love it, not because of the name.</p>

<p>If you had wanted to go to Harvard and study something like Classical Studies, or you wanted to be a doctor-lawyer but go to a non-Ivy school, I might believe your so-called ‘passions’. But the combination makes it so obvious: it’s all about the name for you. Discover a passion, and go for it! Don’t get bogged down in prestige and such, you’ll only end up miserable.</p>

<p>Good luck with everything.</p>

50

<p>I think you and Alanis Morisette operate under the same definition of “ironic”. YeloPen we seem to share the same views on this issue. Honestly nothing can make you more unattractive to people or colleges than playing the system by padding your resume. Your arguments so far have followed the maturity level of a five year old’s “nuh uh nuh uh nuh uh I can’t hear you I can’t hear you” arguments. If we were to do a logical breakdown of your rhetoric (which would be easy for you since “ap Lang would be a joke for you”) all you’ve done is make fallacious arguments that merely beg the question and provide no support for any sort of counterargument. If this is satire, well done, if this is how you think, well good luck in life then I’m sure there are plenty of Doctor Lawyers out there… House was on law and order right?</p>

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<p>kal8254 - I am one of the nicer posters on here, believe me. But an aspiring Harvard doctor-lawyer? C’mon, seriously.</p>

<p>If you’re passionate about one of them, then by all means be one. But the purpose of going to an Ivy, in my opinion, is to pursue a passion. Are you really passionate about medicine and law? Have you done research/ have EC’s that are related/ absolutely love science, english and history? It doesn’t seem like it.</p>

<p>Please don’t be angry. I know I don’t know you, but I have a few friends like you who want to be doctors that claim they’re “passionate” about medicine because they got a 4 or 5 on their AP Bio exam. If you want to be a doctor, great. If you want to be a lawyer, go for it. But almost no one on the face of the earth, save for a very small few, are truly passionate about both, and passionate enough to go to a school like Harvard. If you want to pursue that at a non-Ivy, I encourage you to do it. But like I said, the Ivies should be for those who are passionate about learning not out of prestige or money, but out of love for knowledge.</p>

<p>Please don’t take my words to heart; I’m just offering advice. And I’m only a high school student, so I’m not a genius of any sort. I’m simply trying to get you to see both sides of the argument.</p>

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<p>Decrescendo’s post was purely level headed logic and you approached it as some sort of personal attack? By all means my post was pretty much an attack on the type of rankings controlled mindset you seem to be showing, not necessarily a personal attack. If you’re going to argue please try and provide some sort of evidence or support instead of just rewording your first statement. So why harvard?</p>

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<p>Sorry, I’m really not that mean. It just bothers me that someone can be so attached to a school that really, for the reasons you’ve mentioned, is not that much different from many schools out there. It also bothers me that people try and plan their lives out to gain admissions to top schools … not only does it set you up for heartbreak, dedicating so much of your time to something as unpredictable as Harvard, but it might not even be the best way to get in. After my experience in the college application process, I firmly believe that passion is one of the most important things to have. If you’re truly passionate about something, the other things will come along. For me it was music. I practiced because I wanted to, I joined all the groups I could because I wanted to, I competed against others and performed on stages because I wanted to, I picked up new instruments because. I. wanted. to. This translated into several hours/week, awards, and even a tiny hook of having performed at a semi-famous symphony hall. And most importantly, it translated into passionate essays about music and good interviews. During one of my interviews I was trying to explain why I loved a certain piece of music so much and at the end of my explanation I said “sorry, it’s hard to explain myself.” And if I remember correctly, the interviewer told me that it was okay because my voice showed him all the passion he needed to hear (which is weird because I normally have a monotonous voice :P).</p>

<p>In any case, enough about me. I hope that didn’t come off as bragging to you, I’m trying to both explain my reaction to your posts and hopefully inspire/convince you to pursue something you love and not obsess over Harvard (Yale’s better anyway ;))</p>

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<p>Your friend lied to you or was lied to. Oxford, like most British universities, DOESN’T CARE at all about your extracurriculars. Unless that girl applied for Fine Art and included her works from that initiative in her portfolio, and they impressed the people at Oxford as good pieces of art (because they seriously wouldn’t care if she made them for underprivileged children or to get money for weed), this cannot be true.</p>

<p>Anyway. Find a hobby.</p>

55

<p>I think you have great EC’s. Don’t be too set on getting into Harvard too much though. That school has so many competitive applicants. =/ Essentially no one is safe.</p>

56

<p>Kal, something you should understand about being a doctor:</p>

<p>-Pick the route that has the least amount of debt. Undergraduate study at Harvard = 60k/year. Med school is already ~75k/year (rarely any scholarships for med school). That’s a lot of money. Most people will tell you that an expensive undergraduate education is meaningless for doctors/dentists alike. </p>

<p>-GPA is the biggest factor in Med school; getting a high GPA at harvard when you have a 3.7 in your current highschool will be unrealistic. To be competitive for most med schools you’ll need at least a 3.5+. Grad schools rarely “inflate” GPAs based on schools, even Harvard. </p>

<p>There’s no point in “basking in the glory of Harvard” for 4 years, spending a lot of money (if money is not a problem, then fine), getting a subpar GPA, and then struggle to get into Med school.</p>

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<p>Kal, your junior year course selection seems a little weak for a school such as Harvard. Only two APs? If you’re in a school that offers APs at all, you should be loading up on them! I would skip the art class (unless you have already established your art credentials as a major EC with regional awards) and take more rigorous science classes to establish your bona-fides for a pre-med major. I think taking AP Biology, getting A’s AND getting a 5 on the AP exam would be a minimum demonstration of raw ability for ANY elite school with a pre-med curriculum.</p>

<p><<also, does=“” anyone=“” know=“” if=“” you=“” receive=“” college=“” mail=“” from=“” a=“” school=“” after=“” taking=“” something=“” like=“” your=“” plan=“” test,=“” scores=“” qualify=“” as=“” viable=“” candidate?=“”>></also,></p>

<p>My son got the maximum 32 composite on the ACT Plan back in October and never received a piece of college junk mail from it.</p>

58

<p>Kal, taking the most rigorous class schedule available is an absolute necessity for admission to the Ivies. For a person who plans to major in science (pre-med) and not art, a science AP would be looked upon more favorably than an art AP. There is no reason that you can’t ALSO do art as an EC, but the clock is ticking – I don’t think you have enough time left to develop yet another EC to Ivy-League standards.</p>

<p>You do realize that 13 applicants to Harvard are rejected for each one that is accepted? And that your most serious competition is already well ahead of you AND running hard? If you are going to have a chance, you will need to focus on taking very hard classes and getting all A’s; acing the ACT or SAT; and going further with the ECs you have already established. Save your exploration of new ECs until after you get accepted to a good college – you have a lifetime still ahead of you.</p>

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<p>Kal, you seriously underestimate your competition for openings at Harvard. With a 3.75 GPA, a ACT Plan of about 26-27, minimal leadership roles in your ECs so far, and only 3 AP classes behind you when you apply to college, you’re not even in the running yet. Maybe, if you take the advice from your three posted Chances treads seriously and work your behind off to prove yourself this coming year, you’ll have an outside chance when the time comes to apply.</p>

<p>Harvard accepted 6.9% of its applicants this year. Take away the athletes, the legacies, the URMs and the famous or exceptionally talented and you’re down to perhaps 3-4%. You may be smart, but much of your remaining competition is truly brilliant. One of your potential competitors is my son, who also just finished his sophomore year. He’s ranked 1st in a class of over 400, got a perfect 36 on his ACT, took 8 AP exams this May, is captain of his Scholastic Bowl team, won a couple of citywide ribbons in math and history (in one of the 5 largest cities in the US) and is working on a couple of significant self-designed volunteer projects. There are others posting here on CC with even better credentials and better odds of being accepted. THIS is your competition, not the kid sitting next to you in AP US History; the sooner you wise up, get humble and put your nose to the grindstone, the better your chances of acceptance will be.</p>

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<p>^ Why do I have trouble believing that you’re an adult?</p>