Hello,
I am a rising senior in high school visiting Harvard next week. I was wondering if anyone has visited and knows if they track interest. If you went on a tour as well, I would love to know if you enjoyed it and if it is worthwhile to go.
Harvard is my top choice school and I know I would be a good fit there. I will do anything to get in.
Thanks!
They do not track interest and interest is not considered in the admissions decision.
My son (a recruited athlete) and I visited, sat through the admission presentation, and went on a tour. The experience convinced him to focus on Princeton.
Our visit convinced us to focus on Yale lol
What evidence do you have that they don’t track interest? Seems very unlikely
Also, if you don’t mind me asking, what was bad about your visit? I only have one day in Boston and don’t know if I should go to MIT instead. I have very high SAT scores, so I’m fairly positive I will get into both.
@ivyleaguebound4224: Welcome! As a new member to College Confidential, you should start checking the number of posts someone has before questioning the advice given. In general, if the post number is over 1000 there’s a good chance the comments made are true and well founded. And FWIW: You just questioned one of CC’s Super Moderators with over 23,000 posts, who also happens to be a Harvard student.
At any rate, here’s the evidence you seek: Harvard Common Data Set, C7 Data Point: http://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_cds_2014-15.pdf
Also, as Harvard and MIT are one T-stop away from each other, you can easily tour Harvard in the morning and MIT in the afternoon. Or, vice-versa.
@ivyleaguebound4224 Welcome to CC. Please be mindful that many many hopefuls with “very high SAT scores” such as yourself are not admitted to many top schools, not because they are not qualified, but simply because there are not enough seats for the many qualified students who apply. This post is not meant to discourage you in your application process…only hopeful that you will apply broadly to many schools both in reach, and out. Good luck and have fun in Boston.
^^ To add to @ThinkOn’s excellent post, be very mindful that William Fitzsimmons, Harvard’s Dean of Admissions, is on record as saying that 80% of applicants can do the work on their campus, and fully 40% of them are top students with exemplarily credentials.
Now, last year almost 40,000 students applied to Harvard. If 40% of them have exemplarily credentials, that means about 16,000 students are the best-of-the-best from across the country and around the world – truly stellar students with top grades, test scores, recommendations and essays. However, Harvard only has room for 1660 students in their freshman class, which means over 14,000 terrifically qualified students are rejected every year! And, everyone of the those rejected students thought they would also be a good fit. So, please apply to a broad range of target and reach schools, as well as reach schools such as Harvard.
I visited Harvard and found it super boring. I could hardly finish the tour. The MIT tour was way better. If you have an entire day, view both campuses. They are only two miles apart.
So I shouldn’t tour harvard. Good to know. Thanks for the help
No one said that. Their tour isn’t as good as other school’s but it’s still worth the time if you are applying.
Visit a school because you are interested in applying. Not because it will get you in.
I’m aware, but I have a flight at 2:00 and therefore can only visit one school. So MIT is the way to go if it has the better tour.
Don’t pick “the better tour”-- that will depend on what you’re looking for as well as what tour guide you happen to get. Visit the schools you’re most interested in to see if you feel like it’s a “fit.” Last year my son visited a fair number of schools, sometimes crossing a school he liked on paper off the list after the visit. He visited Harvard fairly late in his travels (fall senior year), thinking at the time he might apply to Yale EA. The Harvard tour convinced him to apply to Harvard EA, which he did, got in, and will be attending in September. Was it the best tour ever? Not particularly, although it was a perfectly fine tour (like many other schools)-- but it convinced him he would fit, in part because of what the tour guide said about the particular academic programs he’s especially interested in, in part because of how she described social life on campus (given his particular interests), and in part because he liked Cambridge mich better than New Haven. A friend of his decided the exact opposite, and will be starting at Yale in September. Go on tour to try and picture yourself at the schools that interest you the most.
If you still can’t decide which tour, take a simplistic approach. If you plan to major in humanities, tour Harvard. If you plan to major in science, math or engineering, tour MIT. Enjoy the visit to Cambridge. It’s a wonderful city, especially for college students.
It could be economical and practical to postpone visiting
some reach schools until after you have been accepted.
Visitas provides much more substance than a regular tour. It sold my kids, both of whom were initially predisposed to go elsewhere.
Judging by this year’s yield it is still a strong calling card
for prospective students.
Thanks for all the help. As someone who will most likely apply to Harvard EA (and, hopefully, will get in), I am going on a Harvard tour. I have been recruited for water polo, and I scored a 35 on my ACT!
Harvard 2022 here I come! I will let all of you guys, my new friends, know about the tour.
@ivyleaguebound4224 Enjoy!
@Questar I agree that visiting matches is more important than reaches but if a visit is possible, then do it. We visited Harvard early when we were in the area. Visitas wasn’t possible for us given short notice, cross country flights, and other committments. We watched what we could online and D had a friend there but having visited earlier helped with lay of the land and feel of Cambridge at least.
Alright! The tour was AWESOME! I’m so excited to go to Harvard.
I asked the person in charge about interest. They said they do track interest. Don’t know what the truth is!!!