<p>My daughter is Jr and yesterday got a letter from Harvard saying that based on her grades and SAT they would like her to apply to Harvard. It also said they will send her an application. As we had not visited Harvard or even gone on the web site it was a bit of a surprise. Does this letter mean anything or do they send it to a ton of people to boost their applicant pool? She has great SATs , grades and ECs but so does everyone in that applicant pool. Thanks!</p>
<p>My D got one too.
Harvard buys lists from the College Board and based on those, sends letters to students who may have the stats to be appropriate candidates. If they can convince us to apply, their application numbers increase.
The letter also advertises their increased generosity with financial aid for the poorest students.</p>
<p>Similar letters go out to thousands of students who are selected based on having SAT scores within the range that Harvard accepts. Getting a letter doesn't mean that one has extra chances of getting into Harvard.</p>
<p>Sending the letters is Harvard's way of attracting applications from students who may help diversify Harvard's admissions pool. Consequently many of the letters tend to go to people like: students with decent scores who live in underrepresented states or regions (such as being in rural areas), who may be first generation college, underrepresented minorities, low income or have interests in academic fields that relatively few Harvard applicants seem interested in.</p>
<p>Since about 80% of Harvard's applicants qualify (based on scores, courses, gpa) for admission at Harvard, and Harvard has space for only about 1 in 10 applicants, never view such a letter as a ticket to Harvard admissions.</p>
<p>If your D is interested in Harvard, she should do a careful application (and certainly should use the various tips on CC about how to make her application stand out). She also should make sure that she does careful applications to safety and match schools that she'd love to attend. Harvard is a longshot for anyone.</p>
<p>My daughter got that letter, too. We strongly suspect that it was sent to the entire top-50,000 list from the PSAT/NMSQT and that therefore it is no more meaningful than the endless mail from WUSTL.</p>
<p>Nice stationery, though. ;)</p>
<p>css22, I bet your daughter is thrilled that Harvard is writing to her! As others have pointed out, though, this is just part of a mass-marketing campaign and has no more meaning than the credit card apps you get in the mail. Harvard's letter is probably tamer than most, a lot of them use every euphemism they can squeeze in to imply that a kid is a shoo-in without ever making any actual promises of admission (eg "the admissions committee is impressed by your accomplishments so far", "you'll be one of our top applicants", etc). BTW get a box ready for the WUSTL mail, if past experience is any guide you'll easily fill it.</p>
<p>As always thanks for the great (and fast) replies. It's auctually a relief the letter is bogus as she can now concentrate on the schools she really loves. Thanks!</p>
<p>The letter isn't bogus. More than likely your D is among the thousands of students whose stats are in the range of students who get accepted by Harvard. Since, however, for space reasons, there are thousands of students in that range who can't get accepted, it would be a mistake to think the letter is any kind of guarantee of admission.</p>
<p>If your D is interested in Harvard, she should throw her hat in the ring by doing a careful application. If she's not interested, then there probably are plenty of colleges in the country where she'd be happy and where she could be accepted, including some colleges that would offer her merit aid.</p>
<p>.</p>