This is the official thread for those applying EA to Harvard University.
List your unweighted GPA, any SAT /ACT scores, and ECs. What majors are you going into?
Ask your questions, the CC community is here to help!
Ok, I’ll go first. 
- Son
- Public high school
- Great academics: 4.0uw/5.0w, 4 APs - all 5s, another 4 this year; SAT: 1560
- Not so great ECs: enthusiastic and committed speech/debate. Some competitive semis / finals; decent musician but not competitive; written unpublished research
- Good writer
- Engineering – most likely electrical
He is trying to decide between ED at a very selective (non-Ivy) school where he is a legacy or take a crack at Harvard REA. If Harvard is close to zero shot, then ED makes more sense. Trying to advise him.
Great candidate, but his odds at harvard rea or rd are very low.
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How is the potential ED school for engineering?
Any idea how similar students from your HS have done when applying to these colleges?
Other schools is excellent. Top 10 in engineering.
It’s strange. It’s a rigorous suburban high school but maybe sends one kid, max two, sometimes zero, to each Ivy each year with 20-30 applicants each.
I guess that answers my own question. Only unknown is the SCOTUS ruling. What the impact of that will be right out of the gate this year is anyone’s guess.
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Yeah, normally my preference is to suggest to people they should only ED/REA wherever is their true (affordable) top choice, and not try to overthink it. Because I think a lot of applicants get no ED/REA boost at all.
But in this case, everything is lining up to suggest you may well get a real benefit from applying ED to the engineering school. And I personally think for engineering, a top 10 engineering college is just as “good” as Harvard. So, this does look like an unusually strong case for a strategic use of ED.
The official Harvard line is that for any individual candidate, REA provides no advantage over RD and that differing admissions rates between the two pools reflect divergences in the applicant types (varsity athletic recruits, for example, typically receive their offers in REA, contributing to skewing the admission rate average upward for REA compared to RD.) Harvard’s admissions yield overall has been running 85%/83%/84% in the last three years, so it does not need REA for yield management. It would be atypical for a candidate who would be waitlisted or declined RD to be admitted just because they applied REA instead.
It seems to me that Harvard’s 3%-4% overall admission rate poses a precarious alternative to applying ED in one’s favored subject as a hooked candidate to a T10 school in that subject.
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We have come to the same conclusion. However, now he is considering ED to another (unhooked) school. Sigh.
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Firstly, I understand Harvard is a lottery for anyone, but I would like to understand if my son even stands a chance. My son has a 4.0 GPA unweighted, has 10 AP’s, 4 & 5’s in AP exam, he is currently taking 4 in his senior year( 6 AP’s completed so far). He goes to a uber competetive SoCal public school. He did not test - SAT or ACT. He has a few EC’s - has scaled a non profit teaching kids coding, is working on a patent pending medical device - but not launched as a product yet, has completed research. He is also part of speech & debate, model UN but no leadership positions there. He is an athlete & currently is in conversation with multiple D3 coaches & likely to be recruited. The D3 schools are in T20. He is not meeting the Ivy marks for recruitment yet, slightly shy of the marks, but a couple of ivy coaches have promised him a roster spot on the team if he is admitted.
He does not want to waste his chance to REA by applying to Harvard & also that he might not get into the team even if he is admitted. I would like him to try & take a chance. He is aware that he will not continue to be a sports person as a professional athlete after college & thus he really wants to be an athlete while in college.
Given his profile do you think he stand a chance if he applies?
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As an unhooked, “average excellent” applicant with no test score, he has a small chance of admission to Harvard. My opinion: If he really wants college athletics, he should pursue the D3 schools where he is being recruited. I am assuming that he has been offered coach support with admissions at these schools?
Thank you!