<p>I visited Harvard on Monday and was absolutely blown away, so I decided that next year I will apply there. What kinds of things does Harvard value? For instance, are grades more or less important than courses taken? How does initiative in academics and ECs figure in?</p>
<p>I had a one on one with a man who runs the MA boy’s state program. he’s a harvard alum and knows people who work on the admissions board, are alums etc.</p>
<p>he basically told me that academics are important to an extent, but extra curriculars are also very important. he said there are enough 4.0, 2400 students to fill any given class, but then the school would be 2/3 asian with no athletics or other special programs. they like to see committment as well; jumping into 8 different extra-curricular programs in 2 years doesn’t show dedication, it shows that someone is floating around.</p>
<p>the bottom line of what he said was that even if you have stellar grads and plenty of varied extracurriculars, it still really is a crap shoot.</p>
<p>Makes sense, which is good for me. How heavily do they weigh your freshmen year grades? I got straight Bs that year and have gotten a B in one class since then, will that hurt me significantly?</p>
<p>i have no idea about a year by year weighting of grades, if it brings down your overall GPA it might hurt a little, but i honestly cant say for sure how they weigh grades by the year</p>
<p>Ok, well thanks for your answers. Bumb.</p>