How To Get Into Harvard (by a Harvard student)

<p>Just to give you a more concrete idea of what we’re talking about, the lowest non-recruited-athlete GPA to be accepted to Harvard from my top-twenty-in-the-nation high school in years was a little above 3.8 UW. Anything less than a 3.6 is going to be a hard sell, a hard sell in a process in which only 6% are finally accepted. (Obviously GPA is taken in context, and if you get a 3.6 at a school where most valedictorians go to Ivies with 3.3s, yes, you’re fine…but I’ve never actually heard of such a school.)</p>

<p>Let me help you see how the whole world does not attend the same, grade inflating school as you may have (even if it is one of the best). For example, the highest GPA at this school is a 4.75 this year: </p>

<p><a href=“http://kisdwebs.katyisd.org/campuses/CRHS/Counselors/Documents/007%20CRHS%20SCHOOL%20PROFILE%2011-12_spot.pdf[/url]”>http://kisdwebs.katyisd.org/campuses/CRHS/Counselors/Documents/007%20CRHS%20SCHOOL%20PROFILE%2011-12_spot.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>A couple of years ago it was a little bit higher. At that time, the number 10th student by GPA (in the top 1%) had a GPA of 4.66. It is probably lower now since the top gpa is 0.03 lower. At another school in the same district the 10th student had a GPA of 4.5. He happens to be attending Cal Tech. So top 1% is a 4.5 attending CalTech. Would you like to discourage people like him from applying to Harvard because their GPA is below 4.6 too?</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.katymagazine.com/articles/2009/summer/Top%2010%20Grads.pdf[/url]”>http://www.katymagazine.com/articles/2009/summer/Top%2010%20Grads.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Knowing this, what do you think the GPA cut off would be for the top 5% top 10% and top 15% at these schools? Does it look a little different than your school? Now do you see how wrong it looks to tell people on a board like this that a gpa below 4.6 is a hard sell, when there could be students who atttend these schools reading your posts? FYI, there are people getting accepted to the HYPSM all the time from schools like these and none of them have your athlete friend’s GPA.</p>

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<p>I stand corrected, the 10th student in the class had a GPA of 4.41. The student with the 4.5 who was accepted to CalTech was 4th in his class. My point is, some schools are grade deflationary. Therefore, it is possible Harvard Admissions may not want you discouraging people with GPAs below 4.6/ 3.6 the way you are doing.</p>

<p>^ I have to agree with the posts above. Your 3.4 UW GPA could be vastly different from his 3.4. Even more so for international applicants since some of them come from non-US schools (IB and A-Levels don’t count since they’re internationally recognized) where grade standards could be vastly different as well.</p>

<p>Please stop thinking about interntional applicant’s GPA in the context of US schools because frankly grade inflation is a serious issue there.</p>

<p>perazziman - the top GPA of 4.75 that you cited is a weighted GPA. There is nothing in what you presented to indicate that this is not a 4.0 unweighted GPA and therefore it does not support that this high school is more grade deflationary than exultationsy’s.</p>

<p>perazziman, what were the students’ unweighted GPA’s, converted to the standard 4.0 scale where A = 4.0 and there is no bonus for AP or honors courses? No one expects a student to take all AP classes starting freshman year.</p>

<p>QuantMech, Honors/ Pre AP and AP courses earn 5. Academic classes earn 4.</p>

<p>cltdad, a minimum of 52 courses (26 units) are required for graduation. Many accumulate about 54 or more by the time they graduate. About 7 or 8 courses (3.5 to 4 units) have to be academic level (on a 4.0 scale) to meet district graduation requirements (speech, Art, PE etc). Therefore, a straight A student earns a 4.85 to 4.86. Hence, a rigorous weighted and unweighted GPA will track each other closely on their respective 5.0 v 4.0 scale. A GPA lower than 4.85 means less than maximum rigor or less than all As on the transcript. There is absolutely no way that someone could have a straight A and a 4.5 or a 4.4 GPA with any serious rigor. (You should be able to do the calcuation to see how many academic classes would be needed by a straight A student to get a 4.4 or 4.5.)</p>

<p>I don’t know about Harvard specifically, but many universities will compute the student’s unweighted GPA on a 4.0 basis, and evaluate the course rigor separately; they will also consider class rank, if the high school provides that. The element of your school’s rating system that is not universal is that pre-AP classes earn 5’s as well as the AP classes. </p>

<p>A student taking all of the most rigorous choices that are available (considering the 7 or 8 that are academic level) who had 1 B for every 2 A’s would have an unweighted GPA of 3.67. On the weighted GPA scale, I don’t think that student would have a 4.67, due to the compulsory academic-level courses. I doubt that the student would be admitted to Harvard from your school, in the absence of unusual additional qualifications.</p>

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<p>A person with an uw 3.67 would have a w 4.52. So the kid who got into CalTech with his w 4.50 probably had an uw GPA of less than 3.67. The bigger point is that there are no uw 4.0s taking rigorous courses at schools in districts such as these. Infact, there are schools that do not even have anyone with uw GPAs above 3.85 taking the most rigorous course loads in this district.</p>

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<p>It is the same system used at schools such as Bellaire and Clements in Houston ISD and Fort Bend ISD:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.fortbendisd.com/docs/curriculum/high-school-program-guide.pdf[/url]”>http://www.fortbendisd.com/docs/curriculum/high-school-program-guide.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://www.houstonisd.org/FederalStateCompliance/Home/School%20Guidelines/Secondary%20Guidelines/SG%202011-12/Section16.pdf[/url]”>http://www.houstonisd.org/FederalStateCompliance/Home/School%20Guidelines/Secondary%20Guidelines/SG%202011-12/Section16.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I understand that a number of schools use that weighting. Some schools weight only the actual AP classes, where the student takes the AP exam. Some schools weight AP and honors, but differently. Some are on scales with 7 points possible (at least hypothetically) or more. Our local school does not weight at all.</p>

<p>@Perazziman, did you misread my post? I said 3.6 was a hard sell, not 4.6. The 3.8 UW corresponded to significantly less than a 4.6, given my high school’s weird weighting system. It had three tiers, limits on what level of weighted course you could take when, and a whole bunch of other peculiar (and often-changing) features that would make providing the weighted GPA that particular unweighted 3.8 corresponded with entirely unhelpful. You’re right, I can give no advice on what weighted GPA-rank pair probably means one shouldn’t apply. 4.6, obviously, is probably a great GPA. Given the data from my high school, however, the fully-qualified statement I’d stand by is: any unhooked person with below a 3.6 UW who is outside the top 10% at a school where most kids outside the top 10% don’t usually go to the top 10-15 colleges in the country is probably wasting time and money by applying.</p>

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<p>I think that is a very different view than what you presented here:</p>

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<p>All I tried to do is provide you examples of schools where the top 10% have unweighted weighted GPAs well below 3.6, where the top 2% have GPAs below unweighted 3.6.</p>

<p>In my country a GPA of 4.0 in a good school is literally impossible to get and from what I have read the high school teaching level is higher than in the U.S unlike the university teaching level which is pathetic. So in one of the top high schools in my country the highest GPA on a 4.0 scale was about 3.67 (its a IB program school)</p>

<p>Hi. I am a high school senior who is at his wits ends in ways of getting into Harvard. Background: I am just so above mediocre. I mean I made As most of my school life with a few Bs snuck in here and there. I am in IB but that appearantly doesn’t help me as much. I have issues with test taking, namely test anxiety, and so both my SATs scores are atrocious 1500-1900. I am in a lot of activities both in school and out, but I never really won anything, and I’m not popular enough to be voted into office in any of my clubs (God knows how many campaign speeches I gave). Getting into Harvard had always been one of my lifelong dream and I don’t have time to get into grad school because there are people who wants me to get in, but they are the ones with certain illness that can’t wait. I really really need to get in Harvard, or I feel like my world is collapsing. I really tried everything. I tried to get good test scores, failed. To be president of sometin, failed. To even makes connections with powerful pple, failed (I bet they secretly laugh at me for being a stupid school boy).Now I really am out of ideas and out of time. So that’s why i decided to ask anyones who have gone through a situation like mine to offer some advice or suggestion that can help me, although I’m sure most of you are all geniuses anyway. Make fun of how stupid I am all you want, i don’t mind, all i need is to get a way in. Please help me, you’re geniuses you can do it.</p>

<p>My advice, as lame and not-foolproof as it is, is to relax. You aren’t a failure. You didn’t even apply yet. You are where you are, and a LOT of schools would welcome you with open arms. You have a lot of perseverance and passion that will show in your activities and hopefully your essays and recommendations. But you have to realize that a college shouldn’t be the reason why you do things. It shouldn’t be something that you bring yourself to tears or beat yourself up over. I’m sure the people that you want to do this for just want to see you happy and successful, which you can be at any college.</p>

<p>You will never get into Harvard untill you bring a mindset that the other 100,000+ applicants don’t.</p>

<p>does the interview matters a lot. Can I still score if I do a really good interview? And how do you get an interview? (with alumni or harvard)</p>

<p>Drathic, have you considered Yale?</p>

<p>;)</p>

<p>I don’t think even with that they would accept me…my stupid gpa :(</p>