<p>Oops, my bad then.</p>
<p>The LORD forgives you. For Hannah Montana once said:</p>
<p>“Everybody makes mistakes! Everybody has those days!”</p>
<p>LOL. 10 char</p>
<p>But just in general will something like those competitions (i.e. USABO semifinalist, qualifying for AIME, Intel STS semifinalist, etc. - basically a low level of achievement in a big competition) help “significantly” if you do them senior year? For me, I only have three years at my current high school because I moved in the middle, not sure if that is going to make a difference though.</p>
<p>I’ve recently heard a lot about having to have one particular spike that comes through your application in order to get into an Ivy League university. I am currently studying at a School in South Africa and am in grade 10. My average here is 90% (which on the American system converts to about 96.5%). I am in my schools orchestra, A choir, wind band, flute ensemble and a capella singing group (all of which have an application progress). By the time I leave school I will have a diploma on the piano, grade 8 on flute and grade 8 on organ. I recently attended the World Individual Debating and Public Speaking Championships in Brisbane, Australia - and placed 3rd overall for persuasive speaking, placing 28th for all events combined out of 108 participants. I am the president of my schools Public Speaking society, have nationals colors for Public Speaking and debating. I am the vice-president of an academic group called historical bench, the president of my schools Global Issues Network and on my schools debate team. I did IGCSE exams in secret, as I felt they were a better syllabus, when I was 15 years old. I got 100% for physics and 97% for english. All of my other results were A’s. I did this by waking up at 5AM for days a week to teach myself the work using textbooks I bought with my birthday money. I am the president of a charity organisation called M4K which partners with a disadvantaged-youth care home by donating money, clothing, textbooks, easter eggs, christmas presents, old toys… Anything that can be used to brighten the lives of the children within them. I am a member of Equal Education, which strives for the right to education in South Africa and for the next 3 years will be in charge of organizing live entertainment and sponsorship for a charity run that raises about R80 000 for various charities every year (about $16 000). I captained my sports team for 6 years, untill I had to swap to social squash and surfing due to weak knees. I participate in music and art eisteddfods on a regular basis. I have never got less than a diploma for a work I have submitted or performed. I take Maths, Science, Biology, History, Music, English, Afrikaans (2nd language), Life Orientation and AP Maths (my school only offers one advanced placement course and I am currently getting 97% for it - which would be a 5 on the American system) I am the major scholarship holder at my school. Top 5 national public speakers. I am currently co-authoring and creating an investigation into shack fires in Africa which includes distributing home-made fire extinguishers to people living in shacks and several other initiatives for keeping them safe. I will attend the World Individual and Debating Championships another 2 times, am hoping to tour Greece next year with my a Capella group and attend my country’s national science expo. I have received distinction honors from my school 3 times, and about 15 other honors awards such as ties, badges and colors. The way things are now, I should graduate (in terms of academics) in the top 0.00005% of all grade 12’s in South Africa. I am still too young to campaign for a leadership position in my school, though I am already the president of several societies and movements and play a big part in organizing events within my school house (like the houses in Harry Potter) I am also in the process of creating an organization which raises fund for AIDS orphans. I write articles for a national magazine called Simply Green (which looks at how you can green your lifestyle) and have been featured in several local newspapers for achievements in music and speech. I am also in charge of my school’s environmental affairs portfolio. So there’s all this and a couple other small things, but as far as I can see, I don’t have one ‘spike’ or a really compelling story. I’m passionate about everything I do. There’s nothing in my day to day activities that I don’t enjoy. I come from a divorced background within which both of my parents have psychological disorders and had to fight to stay at the school I loved as my father refused to pay for it (so I got a scholarship) but still it seems that I don’t have that one big thing. And I’m an international student who would need to get a full financial aid package to one of the big universities. Plus I can’t exactly go for campus visits or have an interview. One thing is that I plan to write my SAT’s next year. I’ve bought the book and am reading through it in my free time. But other than that I don’t know what to do. Does anyone have any advice they could give me? And an opinion on what my chances are? Thanks so much, and sorry for the really long message!</p>
<p>I don’t think that a single award like AIME qualification is really going to tip you over the edge, especially since they could have already looked at your file in January and made a decision then.</p>
<p>But I wouldn’t equate Intel STS semi with AIME. AIME requires maybe studying for six weeks before or doing practice AMCs. Intel STS requires hundreds of hours of work on the research project and paper, and then another 20 hours of work on the application. I’m not looking up the percentage of AIME I think it’s top 5%? and yes, Intel is 17% semi, but the applicant pool quality is much, much higher than it is for the AMCs.</p>
<p>A soldier who won the Medal of Honor will not be admitted to Harvard with a 1000 SAT Score.</p>
<p>My point is that extraordinary things you in life will not make up the difference on intellectual quality. The admission officer of any great institution usually assets a potential student by: their likelihood of “will they complete the program", and how likely “they will contribute their learning, for the future of mankind”.</p>
<p>These are evaluated by your reasoning skills and your desire to do volunteer works.
Reasoning involve your ability to make connection with idea in politics, science, and philosophy (sorry if I sound like I am insulting your intelligence), but we spot good student achieve this through the type of books they have read. </p>
<p>Reading is a key to be good in reasoning in liberal art, and that’s why good scholars usually have strong vocabulary, which reflected in there SAT verbal section. But just by reading many books will not help, if you are reading garbage like “harry potter, da vici code”, these books are great books, but are for entertainment, not for intelligent enlightenment.</p>
<p>Great schools expect students to read “the paradigms of human thoughts”, such as Plato, Confucius, Swift, Hugo……….etc. A student should be able to relate something like:
“The idea of free 12 years education could be related to the idea of Lilliputian’s belief that education is too important of a responsibility to be placed in parent’s shoulder, that’s why the government must take over the responsibility of education” in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travel, and people are innately good, guilt is often more server punishment than public punishment which mentioned in the Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne.</p>
<p>Dr. Elliot have put together the Harvard Classics about hundred years ago, and it was (and still is) the paradigm of reasoning thinking. </p>
<p>Bottom line…. </p>
<p>Weather you agree with me or not, I encourage you to cough up some money for these three things, before the age of Six (school age) to encourage them on reasoning:</p>
<p>-A set of: “Harvard classics” by Collier or “great books of the western world” by University of Chicago. </p>
<p>-A good quality 8in Newtonian telescope or a good quality microscope: I know not all kids like astronomy or want to be a doctor, but these items feed a child’s thought of wonder</p>
<ul>
<li>A good dictionary</li>
</ul>
<p>There is really no other secret to get into a ivy school other than donating couple of millions to help building their next library.</p>
<p>I think I said this before I got sidetracked by felix but again:
AIME and USABO semi is not prestigious enough to give a substantial advantage.
It’s better than nothing, sure, but it won’t quite cut it.</p>
<p>I got confused when there was a conversation about updating your application, that’s why I posted my question again for clarification. I also was wondering if moving in the middle of high school made a difference or not, but I guess not. But thanks for the help, everyone.</p>
<p>This summer I will be attending Harvard’s Summer School for highschool students. I will be taking Introduction to Psychology and Introduction to Philosophy. Does anyone know what books, not textbooks, these classes read?</p>
<p>Hello Lowellbelle,
I am not already studying in Harvard, but I dream to.
I read your post and I saw so many interesting things there.
Can you explain me somethings?
- What kind of people do you think fit at Harvard?
- How is the interview? Do the interviewers ask you questions or do you have to tell about you, without questions to answer?
- What’s a low and what’s a high SAT score?
- Do they think study a language like English is a very good thing or it’s too average to them?
I read that it’s good to do volunteer work and lots of extra activities to get into Harvard, and to love what the things you do, like you wrote.
As you got into Harvard I would like to know, if you don’t mind answering, if you did volunteer works, what kind of extra activities you did, if you had always the best scores in your tests at school, and please if you can add me some great tips (beyond the ones you already gave), I’ll be so glad.
Please answer my questions, I’ll be really grateful.
Congratulations because you got into Harvard,
If other people know the answers for my questions I’ll be so grateful too,
Thank you so much,
BrunaHarvard.</p>
<p>Bruna - This thread is five years old and Lowellbelle graduated from Harvard two years ago. I doubt that she participates on CC anymore. There is another thread on the Harvard board entitled “Current Harvard student taking questions” - I think you could find answers there to many of your questions.</p>
<p>c’est la vie</p>
<p>First step to this tutorial should be: find out if you actually like Harvard, i.e. learn about the school beyond its name. It’s a great school, but some aspects of Harvard College might not live up to your expectations, just FYI.</p>
<p>chrome16 – as a parent of a possible Harvard applicant, I’d be interested in knowing what aspects of the Harvard experience that you have in mind?</p>
<p>^I’d rather not go into too many specifics (what I find good and bad about the school is not necessarily the same for everyone). In some cases, the school might simply not fit an applicant’s personality. For example, one might feel uncomfortable with the student body. Harvard has a lot of amazing kids, but some H students’ personalities might not be especially attractive. Another issue is the infamous hard-to-reach-ness of Harvard professors. Some students might feel it’s very important to get one-on-one face time with professors, something that is more difficult at Harvard than at other top tier universities. On the other hand, the school does offer some of the best educational opportunities around, so by all means take what I say with a grain of salt. If your S/D is thinking about applying to Harvard, I would highly reccomend s/he visit the school sometime to get a feel for it.</p>
<p>Hey everyone, I am a 20 year old student finishing my last year in high school in Norway. I want to get your opinions on whether or not I would be eligible to get into an ivy league college in the US. I am from Iceland and I learned Norwegian in 4 months in 2009 and then the first half of 2010 I lived in Iceland. In 2010 i went to high school in Norway and started second year there. I got the highest average in my class which consists of ethnic Norwegians despite the fact that I did not master the language so well and had only known it for a short time. I had around 80% average last year and I believe i can get my grades up to 90-95% average this year(note: it is extremely difficult to get 100% average and almost no student ever gets that in any school). I am the CFO of the graduation board at my school and a part of the student council. Im also a part of a political right wing party in my city. I moved to Norway in 2009 because my country almost went bankrupt and my family lost most of its money and there jobs. Do I stand a chance? Im thinking about a bachelor/masters in the US. </p>
<p>Thanks in advance to those who bother to read this and reply.</p>
<p>I’m not sure there is any clear & cut method. You can check out this thread: [Is</a> there a secret for getting into Harvard?](<a href=“http://campussplash.com/questions/is-there-a-secret-for-getting-into-harvard]Is”>http://campussplash.com/questions/is-there-a-secret-for-getting-into-harvard) and see if there is anything helpful there?</p>
<p>Okay, So, I am now a junior in high school. I’m a public school student in Georgia, and let’s be honest, we know the bad rap for Georgian education. I visited Harvard, Boston, and Cambridge this past summer for fun and fell in LOVE with all things Harvard. I’m obsessed. I am very bright (not trying to seem arrogant or anything), but I’m not the abstractly-genius-perfect-SAT type of bright. I dream of literature, history, and all things law. I have a 4.2 GPA at the moment. I passed the AP US History exam with a 3, which I understand will not exempt me at a college like Harvard. However, my school offers very limited AP courses. I take only gifted/honors/accelerated classes. I am taking AP Lit/Comp and an online AP European History. I plan on taking AP Calculus, AP Biology, and a few college classes from the college in my town. My SAT scores are nothing to be proud of. I made only a 1700 my sophomore year (I absolutely hate the SAT). My practice SAT scores were much more impressive for some reason. I like the ACT a lot more than the SAT and made a 32 on the reading portion. I plan on taking it again so I can raise my unimpressive 25 to hopefully a 30-32. I am the VP of my class, VP of my school’s FBLA chapter, an NHS member (I plan on running for VP or Pres), a Key Club Member (I plan on running for an office in that as well), the number one singles tennis player on my tennis team (although I am not good enough for tough college play), and I intern at a lawyer’s office in my town. I am a good writer and very sociable. Do I HONESTLY have what it takes to get into Harvard? I am passionate about Harvard and will most likely end up in the top 5 of my class, if not valedictorian or salutatorian. I don’t exactly enjoy school, but I do aspire to become a very learned person.</p>
<p>Forum rules: don’t hijack threads that are not really about your question. Most especially don’t do it if nobody has posted on the thread in the last five days.</p>
<p>However, short answer, it seems unlikely; your test scores are very low. How low were you getting on the other sections of the ACT that a 32 left you with a 25 total? Is a 30-32 a reasonable goal? And even a 32 is at the low end of normal for accepted Harvard students. They do sometimes overlook test scores in favor of applicants they think are special, but just from your post I don’t really see what would set you apart from the tens of thousands of other applications they get enough that they’d admit you. Of course, however, everything’s possible and more so as your test scores improve.</p>