Harvard Waitlist 2015 **discuss here**

Colleges & Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>For all the people who are on the waiting list this year..let's start the discussion! I found it hard to discuss things on the other thread with everyone adding on to the name list. So if you guys think it's a good idea, let's move the discussion stuff here. :)</p>

<p>For instance, I wanted to know if it's a good idea to call the adm office and ask for some type of reflection on my application...this was suggested by some online articles but I am not sure if it is a good idea.</p>

<p>Also, did anyone email his or her regional officer yet? Or did anyone send a letter of interest/update to Harvard yet? For the regional officer, I tried emailing Harvard to ask for it, but got no reply..and as to the letter, I'm thinking it might be good to send it closer to May since awards etc may still be coming, and whatever info we send will be fresher on adcom's minds.</p>

<p>Thoughts?</p>

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<p>Hello, fellow waitlistee! I’m glad you made the thread. :)</p>

<p>I actually called the admissions office yesterday for my regional rep’s contact info (and they were very happy to give it to me), but I didn’t ask about any deficiencies in my application so I can’t shed light there.</p>

<p>I was looking through the old waitlist threads, and people were still sending their letter of intent/update through mid-April apparently, so it seems to be fine if you send it a little late…</p>

<p>I personally haven’t emailed my rep yet, but I’m probably sending it tomorrow. My question is, is it alright to send the letter of interest (with updates included) to only the regional rep, or would it look better to send a letter of interest to the rep and an official snail mail letter to the admissions office in Cambridge?</p>

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<p>Hey. :D</p>

<p>I’ve seen that most people suggest to send to both, so I guess that what I’ll do :).</p>

<p>I didn’t want to call since I am an international…but I guess I will D:. When you called them, did they ask for your verification and stuff to identify you?</p>

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<p>I’m an international and I recently called the admissions office. they gave me the name of my rep but couldn’t shed any light on my application. As for snail mail, they have repeatedly told me that emailing information to my rep is fine, and there is absolutely no need to send it via regular post. I really thought I should send it snail mail too (just to show the effort etc) but they were really adamant that it’s not important.
Hope that helps.</p>

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<p>“but they were really adamant that it’s not important.” Why? Because they don’t want to be burdened with opening your letter and either physically putting it in your file or scanning it. Don’t burden them – doesn’t make friends.</p>

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<p>When I called the admissions office they gave me the name of my reginal rep along with a general e-mail address to contact her. I mean, it’s not her personal e-mail but a general one for the admissions office. Did anyone get a rep’s personal e-mail?</p>

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<p>I just called for my rep’s contact information and they said that e-mailing new updates to the the general e-mail would be fine. Didn’t even get the name of my regional rep.</p>

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<p>ahh I see. Guess I’ll just send an electronic copy then. :)</p>

<p>1a2b3c4d (<-wow took me 3 tries to type that name right), that’s really weird…I feel like updating the regional officer is more personal, and after all, it was he/she who advocated for us to the adcom…I’d hate to be told to just email to the general one.</p>

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<p>push a bit harder for the name and phone number at least of the Regional rep–the email will usually be first inital last <a href=“mailto:name@fas.harvard.edu…if”>name@fas.harvard.edu…if</a> it isn’t it will bounce back. I would send the email to Dean Fitzsimmons, Director McGrath-Lewis and the regional rep. Probably only your regional rep will read it, but ya never know…</p>

<p>remember the most critical part of the letter is your undying love for Harvard and that you will accept immediately if offered a place. If you CAN’T in good conscience write that then you should think very seriously about remaining on the wait list as without that it will become very very difficult to be selected–and if you are accepted you will be taking–or at least delaying–a spot from someone who IS dying to get into Harvard.</p>

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<p>Hello everybooooody! </p>

<p>I’m planning on calling the admissions office tomorrow. My IB coordinator/de facto college counselor suggested that I ask where I am on the waitlist…even though Harvard claims there isn’t a ranking system in place. </p>

<p>I’m not sure if asking where I am would necessarily be advantageous…(“Didn’t you read the website?”)</p>

<p>But then again, I remember my older brother, who was waitlisted at Dartmouth (which also vehemently claims that there is no ranking), called the admissions office to see where he was…and apparently he was told that he was at the “top” of the waitlist…And now he’s happily attending D. </p>

<p>Any thoughts?</p>

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<p>etondad, what great advice!
micha3l, that’s is really interesting. I’ve not done that but please let us know what happens!</p>

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<p>So I was reading this article which had some interesting points about waitlists.
[Undergraduate</a> Waitlists](<a href=“http://www.ivyleagueadmission.com/waitug.html]Undergraduate”>http://www.ivyleagueadmission.com/waitug.html)

</p>

<p>I think I’m probably in the number 3 category, and my low numbers probably hindered an acceptance. Thoughts on these possible reasons? Which scenario do you think will have an advantage in the waiting list?</p>

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<p>You will drive yourself crazy trying to both discern which if any of these categories you ight be and to rank order them. I would dare say that in Harvard’s case none of the above are the case. Summas come from wait listed kids, president of the UCC was a “z-lister”-- there is no discernible difference between the large majority of wait list kids and those with the “fat letters.” It could be that your regional rep had a couple of schools that had never had a candidate before and Harvard wanted to encourage more candiates, or that someone who is from a URM or first generation family or legacy (but that counts very little these days–much less than URM/first generation) from your region-- or your essay just didn’t strike a chord, or the Regional Rep was having a headache when your file was reviewed, or…or…or…</p>

<p>Get the point? Who knows why–and frankly–who cares why. If you get it --it doesn’t matter a damn and if you don’t --it doesn’t matter a damn. </p>

<p>Sorry to be so frank, but come on’ you gotta get over the “why” and get to both how can I improve my chances (win a major award would be nice) and to fall in love with the school you would attend if Harvard does not occur.</p>

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<p>^^ God, that list is depressing.</p>

<p>I mean honestly, I’m amazed they didn’t just flat-out reject me, considering my 580 math score. I’m convinced that that and my class rank are the reasons I didn’t get into my top choice and dream school for the past two years. To be fair, I was really naive, and thought that that school would be able to see past the ways in which I am numerically inferior. When they didn’t, I was really angry and hurt, and would in all likelihood have been simply and summarily rejected by Harvard if my dad hadn’t convinced me to write my supplemental essay on why they should look past the numbers, and do it a pretty daring way. Still. This is a hard game to play. Suffice it to say that I’m not like most of you - I don’t have an acceptance to Stanford or Yale in hand. Luckily, I have been accepted to a school I really want to go to, but I still feel bitter about this whole thing. I know I shouldn’t take rejection personally, but it’s hard not to feel jaded when you want to go to college just to get your ass kicked intellectually and then you find out your uneven brand of intelligence just isn’t quite good enough.</p>

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<p>francisvdahlmann, </p>

<p>1) You don’t even know if your numbers were keeping you from being accepted. </p>

<p>2) Let’s assume your numbers did keep you from being accepted. You say that you encouraged the adcoms to look past your numbers, so let’s assume you convinced your reader to pause before tossing your application in the reject pile. Let’s say your reader must either keep his admit pile the way it is (thereby wait-listing/rejecting you), or accept you at the expense of another application in the admit pile (Candidate X). Candidate X has great numbers. What makes you think that your EC’s or personal qualities are more worthy of acceptance than Candidate X’s? Great numbers and great ECs/personal qualities are not mutually exclusive. Many candidates – certainly more than the 2200 admits – have both.</p>

<p>The cause of your frustration, I think, has more to do with the competitiveness of candidates in recent years. It is already difficult enough to discern the difference in potential among great candidates with perfect or near-perfect test scores. Missing that score hurdle spells disaster for candidates who are not URM/legacy/1st-gen/etc, even if the rest of your application looked very much like those that were admitted. </p>

<p>If I were you, I would find comfort in being fairly sure why you were not admitted. I, on the other hand, felt that my application was strong on every count I could think of, and still received a wait-list letter in the mail. I have to deal with the fact that I probably couldn’t do anything more with my capabilities to get accepted, and that my wait-listing had more to do with Harvard shaping its class.</p>

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<p>felixfelicis - What makes you think you’re so much more worthy than me just because you had near-perfect test scores? A Saturday morning shouldn’t determine the rest of someone’s life. You were probably waitlisted because the admissions office picked up on your arrogant, entitled attitude. If a miracle occurs and I’m admitted to Harvard, the only thing that will give me pause is the thought of spending four years with people like you.</p>

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<p>Forgive me if I came off as arrogant. I’m just saying that there are great people with great test scores, and there are great people with poor test scores. If I were the Committee and had to pick between two people who, besides test scores, are top-notch and indiscernible, I’d go with the candidate with better test scores. </p>

<p>Admissions committees have to pick very few admits out of an extremely competitive pool. There are always candidates that the Committee would love to have, but have no room for. In a process this competitive, the adcoms are forced to split hairs with respect to both objective and subjective stats. I’m not saying that you aren’t “worthy” of acceptance. I’m just saying that when two applicants are placed head-to-head and have similar applications outside of test scores, the difference in test scores is going to matter, especially with a math score like yours (580 is well beneath one standard deviation of the norm of Harvard students. Even athletes have to have academic indices within one standard deviation of the mean). So I’m not talking about comparing a 780 to an 800; with your case, there is a clear difference between your score and the scores of the thousands of other outstanding applicants. After all, the university is an academic institution, and has publicly stated the importance of academic credentials in its admissions process.</p>

<p>By the way, get used to the importance of “Saturday mornings.” You aren’t suited for college – never mind Harvard – if you think that you should get a pass every time you blew a test. I’m sure you’re aware of what college grading looks like. Try getting an A after failing a midterm.</p>

<p>Also, with your equating of a test score to a Saturday morning, you are implying that your test score varies widely between sittings of the SAT. This is not the case if you were testing under normal conditions (i.e., you were not drunk, falling asleep, etc.), as the reliability of the SAT, like the reliability of any widely used test, is demonstrated to be actually very high. Even if you took the SAT as many times as you’d like, I doubt your math score would be in the ballpark of Harvard admissions. Even if I were drunk, I’d find it difficult myself to get below a 600 on the math portion of the SAT I. </p>

<p>Obviously, the disparity in numbers is not going to matter as much if your application is truly outstanding. For example, if you grew up in a family that passionately serves the Westboro Baptist Church, ran away based on your personal moral convictions, and graduated from high school as an academic beggar, you’d be accepted in a heartbeat. You could also be a high-achieving URM relative to other URM applicants. You could also be a 5th generation Harvard legacy, etc.</p>

<p>I have no idea what your application looks like, but chances are, you don’t fit the profiles I just provided. You are probably a great applicant – but not truly outstanding – and a poor test-taker. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t take arrogance for me to say that I’m a great applicant and a great test-taker. Whereas you have no reason to assert that your application is better than mine, I have every reason based on the information given by your posts to believe that I am worthier of acceptance than you are.</p>

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<p>By the way, I’ve taken myself off the waiting list. That’s one less applicant you have to worry about, francisvdahlmann! Just 1,499 other applicants with great ECs/personal qualities and higher test scores than you to go!</p>

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<p>I got a 780 on Critical Reading and an 800 on the Writing. So say what you want about my math score, but I’m clearly not a poor test-taker.</p>

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<p>felix, did you legitimately take yourself off?</p>