My daughter was also asked about a recent book she’d read.
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I don’t know if they are not ambitious and don’t care. My daughter has also had group projects at Harvard where 2 of 4 group members contributed nothing but they were athletes with morning and evening athletic commitments (weight room and team practices) so they were never available. She has no idea if their contribution, if they had had time, would have been worthwhile, but she was glad they just bowed out and let the people who were able to commit time do their thing. That does not mean these athletes are not driven or academically capable but that during their competition season, academics takes a back seat.
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My kid’s concentrations don’t usually require group projects, so they wouldn’t be able to comment on that. But the kid is very heavily involved in time-intensive group ECs, plus must spend at least an hour a day on individual work to maintain proficiency in that EC. And yet, they say that their individual schoolwork is often done in socially supportive group settings. But of course, that’s parallel play, not the same as a mandatory group project.
That’s really disturbing that those who are athletes would have such heavy, inflexible time commitments that they don’t have time for academics! Group project participants usually are asked to rate the others’ participation, and are told at the beginning to notify the prof if any member drops the ball entirely. Certainly, Harvard students likely have a history of having carried the group on a project in high school, but is it a violation in spirit to simply lie on the post-project evaluation? The coaches must realize that such a practice schedule doesn’t leave time for academics, even if practices are not scheduled during class time.
They didn’t have post-project evaluations of contributions…
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Oh … I’m not salty. Just honest. Of course wishing them the best and hope that they make the most the opportunity and find their way in the world. Good luck to you too.
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The Secret of the Backdoor to Harvard Admissions is finally out, everyone!
It’s on James St. rather than on Brattle.
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Looking for the delete my post button but not finding one?
Perhaps the users who want to regale us with their kid’s experiences with recruited athletes, group projects, etc can start their own thread and let this thread focus on the class of 2027.
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I actually tried to delete my post as soon as I made it but to no avail 
Don’t know if there is a function I am not seeing?
I flagged it for a moderator to remove
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Hello GM Everyone,
By when are we supposed to submit the extra materials like an extra recommendation or activities? Am not seeing deadline clearly stated in the deferred letter.
Please advise at the earliest. Thanks!
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The only additional information Harvard requests for candidates deferred from REA are an updated midyear report (if any) by a school official and a final midyear transcript. Those are due no later than the end of February:
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It is just a nasty technique Harvard uses to artificially increase its selectivity.
If you think about this more carefully, you would see that this is false. School selectivity is most usually expressed as the percentage accepted out of a candidate pool (3.19% overall in Harvard’s case last year), so whether Harvard or any other school rejects, defers, or waitlists applicants in any relative proportion, the percentage accepted—selectivity—remains unchanged.
No explanation has ever been given publicly why Harvard defers a significant majority of REA applicants into the RD round. A logical conjecture is that the REA group includes a large number of marginal admit cases, and Harvard has made a process decision not to use up a corresponding number of review cycles, particularly at full committee, during the time-compressed REA evaluation period. But that is just logical conjecture.
I don’t think we agree on the numbers here. If Harvard had deferred less students last year, the admit rate for RD would have been much, much higher. Of course, this does not change the number of applicants between RD+REA, but there are many duplicates between RD/REA.
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Since Harvard does not talk about RD acceptance rates, the denominator does not matter. It’s only those that like to perform analysis paralysis that talk about it.
Whatever Harvard’s motivation, it’s likely not to pump up the numbers.
Oh, and the correct word is “fewer,” not “less.” 
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No one, to my knowledge, compares schools according to what you are calling an “RD” admission rate. While this can be calculated, I suppose, for schools that release relevant data (few do), the standard metric for comparing institutional selectivity is total admitted vs. total who applied. So, for the class of 2026, the number one will see in the press is 3.19% or 3.13% (depending on the date of the article.) That is not the “RD” admission rate, it is the overall admission rate inclusive of both selection rounds.
The idea that Harvard’s reason to defer a different percentage of REA students than some similar schools is to massage an “RD” admission rate no one uses for comparison seems rather implausible, especially since there are reasonable alternatives for why Harvard might choose to defer the number it chooses.
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You are right. Then I wonder why they do this. Thanks for the grammatical correction.
Well, no one from Harvard admissions have ever explained publicly why. Consider, however, that between November 1st and mid-December (seven weeks with Thanksgiving break in the middle), Harvard has to review/process ~9500 REA applicants. Harvard’s admissions procedures are elaborate, divided at the top level into the reading (evaluative) and decision (case presentation and committee discussion) stages, and some cases can consume a lot of time.
It would be a reasonable approach to concentrate REA effort on candidates with clear overall ratings of 1 and the strongest 2s at the reading stage while pushing off those with less obviously strong ratings into the future. RD allows a lot more time to weigh the pros and cons of marginal cases. So many strong candidates who are nonetheless imperfect fits to what the college seeks apply to Harvard that there is a big bulge of applicants who fit this latter category. I rather doubt (speculation on my part) that many applicants deferred in REA got to full committee yet…and probably will not get there even in RD, but the possibility is not zero.
Other similar schools may do it differently. There’s no reason to speculate that the reasons for different practices are nefarious when it is far more plausible such differences stem from each school’s peculiar local administrative cultures and internal histories.
What was your time frame from applying Regular action to getting an interview?