<p>^ true, I was hoping for a 10% at least but it does not look that way. Harvard has just become too hard to get into. They tried to increase this pool by admitting far fewer candidates in the regular round last year because Fitzsimmons was not happy to see much lower numbers than stanford last year and wanted the SCEA pool to be bigger.</p>
<p>Well, I suppose that’s one way to look at it. Fitzsimmons was convinced last year that 90-100% of SCEA admitted students would matriculate, which us why Harvard admitted fewer candidates in the RD round. As it turned out, Fitzsimmons was correct, as Harvard only admitted 46 from the waitlist last year.</p>
<p>This was a year when MIT, Caltech, Princeton, and Stanford took no one from the waitlist because people oversubscribed. So Harvard under admitted.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I think gibby was meaningfully high on the number of legacies and URMs admitted EA, and somewhat low on the number of overlaps (but maybe my view is skewed by the fact that I know two kids who were admitted as athletic recruits who were also URMs and double-legacies). January-February likely letters are probably more important in the URM recruitment derby than SCEA admissions. On the other hand, I’m sure that athletic recruits are admitted at a rate well above 90%, and probably approaching 100%. And deflating the legacy and URM admissions numbers would also deflate the estimated applications in those groups.</p>
<p>Still, I am pretty certain that when the dust clears the admit rate for unhooked SCEA applicants is north of 10%.</p>
<p>“two kids who were admitted as athletic recruits who were also URMs and double-legacies”</p>
<p>That is so cool - Harvard checked off 3 boxes in one!</p>
<p>“I’m sure that athletic recruits are admitted at a rate well above 90%, and probably approaching 100%” - Aren’t there sports where the coaches can’t give out likelies but encourage the students to apply early anyway to see if they can get in?</p>
<p>when evaluating legacies, keep in mind that the acceptance rate is only relevant for big donors. just because someone’s parent(s) attended Harvard, does not mean that they will have a preference.</p>
<p>So the projected early admit rates would be:</p>
<p>1.) MIT
2.) Stanford
3.) Yale: 675/4504=14.98%
4.) Harvard: 772/4857 =15.89%</p>
<p>@mohcoh: Someone with inside or firsthand knowledge re Harvard may want to jump in here, but our experience (and what we’ve seen with legacy applicants we know) suggests that legacy status typically helps garner some degree of “preference” and, no, you don’t have to be a development case or billion-dollar donor. It probably won’t help the applicant whose stats aren’t in the Zone, but in terms of “preference,” it can certainly operate as a tipping factor or, at the very least, help secure a closer read from the adcoms. Controversial to some and Harvard is obviously very careful/thoughtful about how it structures its public commentary on the issue (e.g. Dean Fitzsimmons in the NYTimes), but I thought this was pretty well-acknowledged and understood.</p>
<p>harvard says it is 30-35% for legacy. If they rank their legacy admits based on how much their families contributed and admit top 150 candidates, someone should have figured that out by now. :p</p>
<p>I don’t recall the URM/SCEA acceptance rate, but I’m pretty certain that the AA/SCEA rate was about 19% last year (I believe it was about 75 out of 390 applicants). Thus, I doubt the URM/SCEA rate is 30%–probably closer to 20%. I won’t even attempt to make any of the calculations on this thread! Pretty impressive…</p>
<p>Where’d you get those percentages for last year’s URM/SCEA admit rate?</p>
<p>@bcisaidso I attended a Harvard info session in the spring and the admissions officer leading it said the SCEA admit rate was 17% (including hooks, obviously)</p>
<p>@chico94–again, I’m not positive of the URM/SCEA rate. I just remember that it was very close to the overall SCEA rate. My vague recollection is that it was 18-19%. As for the AA/SCEA rate, I remember the article indicating the number of AA/SCEA applications, and the 12/15 article indicating the percentage of AAs accepted, which equaled about 75. I certainly remember the text from my D that morning that read “crap–only 75 accepted!”</p>
<p>@mohcoh–that sounds right. </p>
<p>Good luck to both of you.</p>
<p>What does AA stand for in this context?</p>
<p>^African-American</p>
<p>What is URM?</p>
<p>“URM” stands for Under-Represented Minority. In the context of university admissions, that’s a term of art, actually, which means people of (black) African descent, people of (Western Hemisphere) Hispanic descent, people of indigenous American Indian descent, and people descended from the indigenous populations of Hawaii, Guam, and some other Pacific islands (but not Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc.).</p>
<p>Applying as an international (with solely Irish nationality) do I count as an URM?</p>
<p>International students from any country do not get a classification other than international.</p>
<p>Hmmm, if the AA rate is so high, what is the rate for Hispanics? Don’t Hispanic and Latino applicants have a large pull as well?</p>