<p>Is it true that anyone can get into harvard if they work hard enough?</p>
<p>lol
i hope its not true, i work hard and i dont want to go to harvard at all</p>
<p>and yeah, I do believe that with a certain amount of luck and pushing by parents from a young age, hard work can get you to harvard. i mean, if you're a poor kid from the inner city in a single-parent household and you never got a good education/had role models to motivate you, all the hard work you could ever do probably couldn't get you into harvard.
but i know a girl whose parents push her a LOT, she took the SAT 5 times and got a score of 2190 eventually, she is terribly stupid (i've had classes with her and she is infuriatingly slow, and it wouldn't matter if she didn't act like she was a genius). she works really hard though and took 2399378 APs and is a perfectionist, so, it worked for her. i aint bitter though. shes not in my year and i am not even interested in the same field as she.</p>
<p>No, it's not true. One still needs a certain level of intelligence and abilities in order to achieve the kind of gpa, course load, scores and extracurriculars and leadership that entrance to Harvard requires. In addition, one needs a certain amount of good luck since (according to Harvard admissions officers) 90% of the 20,000 or so applicants have what it takes to be accepted, but Harvard has space to accept only about one in ten.</p>
<p>BTW -- the girl may need to study more than the last poster does, but she couldn't be stupid to be able to achieve those kind of scores.</p>
<p>true shes not "stupid."
and i'm not calling people with SAT scores lower than 2190 stupid either. just to clarify :)</p>
<p>Yeah. I think that if you score anywhere in the 2000s, you have the smarts to understand and do well in ANY COLLEGE. (the average SAT is somewhere around the 1600s)
I don't think working your butt off will get you into harvard. Sorry. I honestly do believe the students who deserve to get into harvard are bright, intelligent, self-motivated students who have big goals and dream and who have goals in life that are bigger than harvard. I mean if your only goal in life is to get into harvard, i think college admissions can see through that.
And seriously, what's the deal with harvard? Why is Harvard... harvard? It's like a noun now for anyone super smart. Like she's "harvard-material". We don't hear, she's "yale material", "Stanfod material" or "Duke material"... it's HARVARD. gahh.</p>
<p>im not referring to my earlier post when i say this:
college admissions officers make "mistakes" when they make decisions. obviously, admissions officers dont go to school with applicants and can't figure out stuff that's not on apps/recs. for example, the senior class pres at my school who got into penn ED was known to be a cheater, but teachers never found out. he was popular, friendly, and hosted tons of parties at his mansion, and he WAS pretty smart--but he cheated on tests. i personally witnessed him cheating once in math. but he got into Penn. does he deserve to be there? i don't have a right to judge my classmates. but would an admissions officer who knew he cheated have accepted him? doubtful.</p>
<p>No. Study all you want, you have to have <em>some</em> basic intelligence to handle the work.</p>
<p>Not at all. You also need a good amount of inherent intelligence and luck.</p>