"In the coming months, tens of thousands of Harvard hopefuls around the globe will grit their teeth, cross their fingers, and hit “Submit” on applications to attend the world’s top-ranked university.
The vast majority will fail. Harvard — the second-most selective four-year college in the United States — typically sees an acceptance rate of about 5 percent.
But this year’s crop of high school dreamers have an advantage their predecessors did not: an inside understanding of how the College decides who qualifies as Harvard material." …
“Harvard’s super-secret admissions process is secret no longer.” Lol. They recruit. Athletes get a boost. They
interview. They read and rate. They decide.
Where’s the info that gives, say, those CC kids with Harvard level stats “an inside understanding of how the College decides who qualifies as Harvard material?” What helps kids now understand what’s H level; what clarifies what needs to come through besides those stats?
And how many of these now supposedly clued-in kids are still fussing over their club titles, small businesses or blogs, whether to retake their 1540, asking how many LoRs, whether they can avoid AP stem and the myriad other questions? How are they different than last year’s applicants?
I must say that I think that the information that is “secret no longer” was largely known or presumed. We all knew that legacies, URMS, super wealthy, talented recruits (athletes etc), first gen were getting prioritized. We all knew that the admission rate was about 5% or less. Did anyone ever think that Harvard etc only wanted top grades and scores? No. Harvard is a trophy hunter: they want real trophy winners, Class Presidents, National Team Hockey players, published authors and to fulfill the virtue signaling mission that despite letting in Richie Rich and Football stud du jour etc they have the appropriate amount of special populations.
Well, every time a tippy top chance thread starts with stats, stats, more stats and a list of every course, followed by some club titles, I suspect the kid hasn’t even tried to piece this together. It says something about his/her thinking. I can’t fault the college for that.
No. Titles, publications, etc, are not “it.” That’s the popular hs view, I know.
I think this myriad of information about H admission might persuade some kids not to apply for H as they come to grab the reality of competition. I guess H will see 5-7% less applicants this year.
Well it looks like they don’t value individual extracurricular activities at all unless it has some international recognition. So were they lying when they said that they value any extracurricular activity, regardless of the type, as long as it’s meaningful to me and I’m passionate about it?
I’m not sure how you came to that erroneous conclusion. The documents show that EC’s are one of several areas that are rated. True, one will not get the top EC rating without them being truly exceptional, but it’s also not a mathematical formula that results in an admissions decision.
Of course they value ECs. But the individual “play guitar” by myself is not enough. Nor do you need international awards. You do have to have done something beyond sit around.
Who’s lying? Who said, as long as you’re "passionate?" You could be “passionate” about playing with your little brother or collecting Hummel figurines…and it’s not what they look for.
There is a small number of kids admitted based on extraordinary accomplishments. That’s not the baseline.