How to Get Accepted As a Transfer Student at Harvard?

[carrotstealer]

Okay, so I’m aware of how extremely difficult it is to get accepted as a transfer at Harvard so no need to remind me. It’s only about 12 student’s out of 1,400 transfer applicants. How can I get accepted? How can I make myself stand out more? Is there a backdoor method into getting into the school? Should I have connections? Should I keep nagging admissions? Tips anyone?

FYI: GPA is 3.9 and I have a perfect SAT score and I am involved in several activities in and outside school. (I attend Penn State University) I am also interested in Yale and Columbia.

[gibby]

Yes, there is a backdoor – it’s being an athletic recruit. My guess is that about half of Harvard’s accepted transfer applicants are athletic recruits.

Successful academic transfer applicant’s must identify what Harvard or Yale offers them that they cannot get at their current school. I happen to like Yale’s wording

Wanting to leave one’s current school is not a sufficient argument for admission to Yale. Transfer candidates should explain in their application essays how studying at Yale would give them an educational opportunity particular to their interests that could be experienced nowhere else.

Here’s what Harvard says

Each year, we welcome a very small number of transfer students to Harvard College. We look for:

• A clearly defined academic need to transfer
• A proven record of achievement at your current college level
• Strong faculty recommendations.

So, what does Harvard or Yale offer you that you cannot find at Penn State?

[masskid28]

In response to Gibby’s “athletic recruit as a backdoor” response, if you have the talent to play at a highly competative division 1 program while still maintaining a very high quality of academics, I don’t think its much of a back door as it is an incredible feat to accomplish and takes a tremendous amount of hard work. I’m not sure if Gibby ever played varsity college sports but the reason why such a small percentage of high schoolers go on to play at a D1 level is because the time commitment, training and skill level needed are absurd. I bet most of the college students with 2400s and 4.0s would see a sharp decline in their academic levels if they were on a D1 sports team because they would simply crack under the pressure of having such a demanding schedule.

[gibby]

@Masskid28: Any transfer applicant who wanted to avail themselves of the “recruited athlete backdoor” would, in actuality, already need to be playing a college level D1 sport (or a college level D3 sport with the ability to play at a D1 level), AND they would have already demonstrated they can do so while maintaining a high GPA at their current college. Yes, that’s a tremendous feat, but many successful transfer applicants have been admitted to Harvard and other schools as recruited athletes. And that’s the only backdoor I know to transfer admissions. See: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/12/4/transfer-students-at-harvard/

Ali A. Farag ’14, a squash player who transferred from the American University in Cairo, found that living in Quincy alongside several members of his team eased his transition, and Katherine M. Fair ’14 said walking onto the lightweight crew team helped her after she came from the University of California, Berkeley.

Not only has Farag won a national title in squash his first year at Harvard, but he has also become interested in researching solar energy.

[JHS]

Farag was pretty clearly an athletic recruit. Fair, who spent her college crew career in the second or third boat of lightweight crew, pretty clearly wasn’t.

[gibby]

^^ I agree!