Harvard does not release statistics on candidates admitted from the REA deferred pool, but admissions officers have stated in the past that admission rates for deferred candidates are similar to rates for the applicants overall. The current official statement is, “For any individual student, the final decision likely would be comparable whether the student applies Restrictive Early Action or Regular Decision.”
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Which would be any typical Ivy position. Once deferred, you are compared to the larger pool of all students, which would also include REA from other peer Ivy or top schools. Chances of deferral become slim to none.
An assumption on my part and a big one. I have no experience with this.
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Most deferred applicants are already in the rejected pile. However, a small portion are in a more succint pile called « to be compared with the RD pool ». Those students might be admitted.
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If that’s the case why defer them and not reject them? My guess is they take the deferred candidates and shuffle their applications with the RD candidates (like cards) and start over.
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true that is my expectation as well. i.e. deferred students are the best of the rest. But will be in the RD pool. Typically everyone who ED/REA to other ivy - will RD to all ivy. In such cases - you will be compared to a larger pool of best of the rest.
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Not at all. It would be a waste of time. It is just a nasty technique Harvard uses to artificially increase its selectivity. By deferring 7000 applicants, it will add 6900ish applicants in RD that are going to be rejected. Harvard’s “real” acceptance rate would never be only 3%.
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Sadly, if you don’t get in, you have a small chances to get in RD. Not impossible at all, just small.
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Harvard’s ongoing practice is to defer a very large percentage of REA candidates, for better or worse. This year, that percentage is 78%. What are this basic attributes of this deferred group?
An REA candidate who has been deferred, rather than admitted or rejected, is very likely to be moving into the RD pool with an overall rating of 2, 3+, or 3 in Harvard’s 1 to 6 rating ladder (with a rating of 1 being “most likely to be admitted at 90%+ level,” in reality, 100%.) Harvard defines the ratings like so:
A 2 rating is “Strong credentials, but not quite tops (50-90% admission)”
A 3+ rating is “Someone for whom late information could easily lead to admission.”
A 3 rating is “Standard strong, but could be admitted if substantial new info elevates the case.”
Consider what this means, generally speaking (there are always exceptions, but exceptions do not characterize what’s normal.)
If a deferred candidate’s overall rating was 2, Harvard is not expecting or seeking any new information relevant to the rating. Such deferred REA candidates are likely to be compared to similar RD candidates, slotted according to class composition objectives, and then ranked during the RD lopping process.
How about the others?
If a deferred candidate’s overall rating was 3+ or 3 (3+ to 3- traditionally comprises by far the largest group of applicants, and probably of deferred REA applicants who were not rated high enough to be accepted and not low enough to be rejected) the only new information Harvard solicits for candidates who are deferred from REA will be the final first semester grades. That’s it, because the application in all other respects is already done. No other part of the application content changes substantially going into the RD round. If a candidate with extremely strong grades gets strong grades again, this is probably not going to be considered new information. On the other hand, a candidate who is strong enough to be deferred, but had some weakness in their grades which the final mid year grades address favorably, might be offering something new (stronger grades, harder classes, etc) that leads to a re-rating.
FWIW, during the period of analyses for the SFFA suit against Harvard (a period when admission rates were substantially higher than now, so keep that in mind), a white candidate with a rating of…
3 had a 1.93% chance of admission
3+ had a 7.67% chance of admission
2 had a 61.03% chance of admission
It’s possible that the equivalent percentages today are lower, but probably not by much because the explosion in applications has probably resulted in much higher numbers of candidates rated 3- or less and widened the base of the application pyramid.
In the end, the typical admitted Harvard student will have received an overall rating of 1 or 2. Some will be 3+ REAs bumped up to 2 during RD. And, as noted earlier in this thread, chances of being accepted from the REA deferred group are probably similar to that of all applicants aggregated as a whole (3.19% last year.)
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Is there a separate forum for Harvard RD applicants for this year? Thanks!
I just recived an interview and would appreciate any tips. Caught by surprise a bit since I thought they’d wait for the RD deadline but not complaining!
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They may ask you to tell them about a book you’ve recently read.
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Good to know, thank you!
Did you or your student interview recently :)?
Two yrs ago. Just google “suggest questions alumni interview harvard” and you’ll find a lot of hits and recommendations.
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Ahhh … ya’ll. We know someone who was accepted. Backdoor through a coach/obscure sports, would not be remotely competitive in a general pool from an academic standpoint, a scores standpoint, an accomplishments or contributions to the community standpoint and will likely struggle once they are there. I suspect at least a good handful of the REA admits were admitted under this scenario. Harvard is no MIT … just saying.
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It’s not only Harvard. My relative goes to an IVy and he said many students came through the back door. He was complaining of a group project and trying to get the kids to contribute. I said to him, aren’t these Ivy kids who are ambitious and have a lot of incentive to do well at school. His response, you would be surprised to see how many of these fellow students are kids that came through the Backdoor and so have no motivation and don’t care.
I don’t think that is a fair representation of most hooked ivy kids. Not to mention it took a lot of motivation and hard work to get there, even if it was in a different area.
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That may be true but do not know since I do not attend the school but heard the story from him last year while he was complaining in the middle of working through this painful group project. His major is CS and at an IVY with a pretty good CS program.
This hasn’t been my current sophomore’s experience at all. Their classmates are all incredible people - bright, interesting, very hard working, very high achievers. In fact, my kid would never have been admitted without their extreme spike in a performing arts field, but their subsequent high academic performance at Harvard proves that they belong there. All I’ve heard from them is how amazing the other people there are.
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I hear the same from my daughter. Everyone there is well qualified to be there - and works hard. Harvard is hard. Anyone who says otherwise hasn’t gone there. If by chance, someone unqualified gets in, they will struggle.
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My D was asked why she didn’t SCEA if Harvard was her top school (which it was). Her response is that she really wanted a “win” during ED/REA/SCEA and went with her #2 which was REA. While still a T20, it was about double the admit rate for Early (and overall). Fortunately, it worked out the way she planned
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Stop being salty and be happy for them.