<p>Aw, I like Harvard a lot! Not that I have visited, but I’ve spent time on its website and it’s definitely great. </p>
<p>You know the books and music I like, GB. :)</p>
<p>I do Quasi! Great taste! 
</p>
<p>(I am still rather grumpy today, also in these posts. Haha.)</p>
<p>I can tell! What’s wrong, Kitkat?</p>
<p>Edit: Yes, I just called you Kitkat. <em>smacks head</em></p>
<p>Hahaha! You’re not the first to call me that! Me likes. Also because Kitkats are the best candybars. </p>
<p>I am a bit serious about the Harvard thing though, because no one in this whole thread said anything positive about the school, so why would they apply then? I guess I am just afraid that a lot of people there would only matriculate because it’s Harvard (in the unlikely case I do get in). Luckily I’ve visited, because I really, really liked the people there!</p>
<p>And sleep deprivation and application stress doesn’t help either!</p>
<p>Was there a lot of Harvard-bashing previously? I haven’t read through this thread. <em>blush</em> </p>
<p>Okay, Harvard is awesome. I think a lot of people are downplaying how much they like it just because they don’t want to be, you know, that person who likes Harvard. If you know what I mean?</p>
<p>Yeah true! I guess you are ‘allowed’ to be really enthusiastic about, say, Yale and Princeton and Stanford, because they don’t really have the same connotation Harvard has, although the differences between the schools are pretty minimal (except for maybe Stanford then)… Luckily, that doesn’t really apply once your there, because everyone’s a student then!</p>
<p>Edit: There wasn’t too much Harvard bashing before, but everyone here was listing for which schools they would turn a potential Harvard offer down… Nothing like the cool Amherst and Princeton and I’m sure other universities’ threads!</p>
<p>^Exaaaaaactly. Yay I’m so glad you got it, I was afraid nobody would. Haha.</p>
<p>Anyone here pumped to take Sandel’s Justice class next year?</p>
<p>@mifune: Did you just call Chicago a “back-up” school?</p>
<p>I’m late, but I love all of the music mentioned earlier by jokesbg779 and guiltybystander!
Animal Collective anyone? They’re my all-time favorite and weren’t mentioned yet!</p>
<p>Anyway, my most recent book was Dan Brown’s latest. Quite a guilty pleasure. There’s absolutely nothing redeeming about them, but they’re so enthralling! I read this one in two days, haha. I have problems with setting books down.</p>
<p>I completely agree! Dan Brown’s books are my biggest guilty pleasure. I realize the writing is completely awful in many places, but they’re so entertaining!</p>
<p>Any other modernist/postmodernist literature fans out there?</p>
<p>Hm, music… I think I’m pretty eclectic in my tastes My Zune has random stuff from Andrea Bocelli to Nirvana to random C-pop (guilty pleasure #1!) to Greenday/Yellowcard to oldies like Chicago… yeahhh :)</p>
<p>Oh and Dan Brown = <3. And Twilight (guilty pleasure #2!) Haha I realize those books are TERRIBLY written, but, they’re incredibly entertaining :)</p>
<p>Terribly written AND about an abusive, controlling boyfriend.
…and yet, terribly addicting!</p>
<p>Haha, I’m so glad that even people on the Harvard thread read Dan Brown and Twilight. I read intellectual books too, though, promise!</p>
<p>I was a RD Class of 2013 hopeful last year.</p>
<p>If I remember correctly, I submitted my application at around December 15th last year. My application’s greatest downfall (beyond my relatively low SAT scores and low GPA) was probably my essay. I wrote about how money I wanted to make one day (how generic is that?)</p>
<p>On March 31st, I learned that I had been rejected. I received an official rejection letter in early April, and that was the last school that I heard from.</p>
<p>Twenty-nine people from my high school applied to Harvard, including myself. There were twenty-seven rejections, one waitlist (which ultimately ended up as a rejection anyways), and one acceptance. The person accepted took Harvard’s offer and is there now.</p>
<p>This thread certainly brings back some nostalgia about the whole college application process. Oh, how I fondly remember my Harvard interview and left that wanting to work at Credit Suisse one day…</p>
<p>Good luck, Class of 2014 hopefuls. The year I applied, only 7.9% of all applicants were given a space in the Class of 2013; I doubt that the acceptance rate would be any higher this year.</p>
<p>I ONLY read intellectual books because I have no time to read for pleasure anymore. And no, it doesn’t count as reading for pleasure when you have to analyze everything… CURSES!!</p>
<p>@ XX5XX: thaaaaaanks. that was incredibly inspiring.</p>
<p>lol, I dont have as much time as before to read for pleasure, but, it CAN happen:)</p>
<p>I like Harvard, the fact that it’s in Cambridge and Boston and there is a lot to get involved with in the city essentially. I don’t really care much about the prestige and rank and all that, but it is a really nice school with fantastic financial aid. It’s just that people sort of expect you to walk on water if you get in/go. </p>
<p>But I don’t know, I hope I get in! </p>
<p>Someone mentioned music? Well, my favorite is Elliott Smith. Sort of to the point of odd obsession. My last.fm charts show him at 20,000+, and the next highest is The Beatles somewhere in the 2,000s haha. I’ve got a pretty eclectic playlist though, a lot of “Indie” and Underground Hip-Hop, 60s classic stuff, jazz, soul, rock, etc.</p>
<p>A few bands I’ve been into a lot lately:
Ron Sexsmith
The Velvet Underground
Aesop Rock
Midlake
Reflection Eternal
Vic Chesnutt (RIP :()
Colin Blunstone (from The Zombies)
Precious Fathers
Noah and the Whale
Blakroc
Simon & Garfunkel</p>
<p>Any others?</p>
<p>You are welcome, fuzzyfirebunny. Lots of people were rejected from elite schools, if I remember correctly. There was a girl who was accepted at Yale (EA actually!) but rejected at Harvard and was waitlisted at Princeton. The sole waitlistee eventually went off to Georgetown’s SFS.</p>
<p>The sole girl who was accepted at Harvard was rejected by Yale and Amherst before she got word that she had been accepted. Later she heard that she had been rejected at Cornell as well. She responded to this particular rejection by posting the following Facebook status: “Who the **** cares about Cornell? I am rocking the Crimson, baby!”</p>
<p>Ah, what a time.</p>
<p>While GPAs and SAT scores are certainly important, Harvard is looking for hints of passion when it comes time to evaluate a potential applicant. This girl that I spoke of demonstrated a passion for feminism and the classics. She founded and headed a “Girl’s Group” at our high school and was also very active in our school’s Classics Club, attending various national conventions at her own expense. It is perhaps too late to demonstrate passion now, so hopefully you did your best when you filled out your applications.</p>
<p>Passion… everyone has it, right? But unfortunately, for Harvard, only certain extremes of passion are deemed palatable by the admissions committee. For example, my passion in economics and business was weakly demonstrated in my application. My application essay discussed the economic recession in length, and only thinly veiled my desire to get out there and help the economy recover, while enriching myself in the process. My essay could not get anymore generic than that. (Who doesn’t want to get rich?) So obviously, the adcom decided that I did not possess the excessive amount of passion that most matriculated Harvard students should have.</p>
<p>Oh well. I was still accepted to one of the finest business schools this country could offer, so my ego was not that hurt by some petty rejection letter by the top university in the realm of New England, if not the world. Not to bash on Harvard, of course. They too have a fine business school, which I will attend in a few years… so I will get my revenge…</p>
<p>I believe that the sole purpose of my anecdotes is to tell all you Harvard hopefuls is that anything is possible. And, if it doesn’t happen, you will still be going to college, be it the local community college or a university that rivals even Harvard in terms of pure prestige. (The last bit was me indulging a bit, but you guys should get the point.)</p>
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<p>Since I was admitted under its EA program, yes. But I am not referring to Chicago in the “Podunk” sense. In fact, Chicago is one of my favorite universities and I would be very enthusiastic if that is my college destination. However, Harvard’s financial aid does cater to my family’s situation and its programs are absolutely outstanding.</p>
<p>Hey all, applying this year as well. Deferred from Yale and Princeton via QuestBridge, although it’s not like you can get rejected from that program haha.</p>