I am a high school freshman (rising sophomore) who has been dreaming of attending Harvard–or other Ivy league school/ school of same caliber–since as early as I can remember. Being in the early stages of high school, I want to know how I can best tailor my high school career so that my chances of getting into a top school are maximized.
A little bit about me:
-Attend a small, humanities-only private school
-Parents are immigrants from Ukraine, so URM?
SAT: Took PSAT in 9th grade and scored a 700 on reading and writing and 620 on math. Total (on new PSAT, 1560 scale) 1320.
GPA: 4.0
School does not offer APs, but I take all honors.
Extracurriculars:
-Started clothing and book drive at church for war refugees in Clarkston Ga, amassing over 1500 clothing items and 300+ books.
-Teaching English to war refugee children in Ukraine between freshman and sophomore years. (over 1500 service hours)
-Founded school publication (over 100+ hours)
-Speech and Debate: 2nd place at statewide tournament; national qualifier (spent over 200+ hours researching)
-Cross Country: Ran Varsity freshman year and Varsity lettered. Team got 2nd at state (spent over 400+ hours training)
-2nd grade Sunday school teacher at church (spent over 100+ hours)
-1st grade choir teacher (over 100+ hours)
-5th and 7th grade math teacher assistant (over 50 hours)
-tutored 7th graders in math
-choreographed 1st and 2nd grade kids dance at my church; over 80 kids participated
-Member of school’s science team. Helped in science classes with dissections
-Member of servant leader program at school. Volunteered at week-long science expedition for kids, team leader for a group of 10 8th graders and assisted with dissections (over 400 hours)
-Involved with Volunteen at local hospital. Playing with cancer patients and kids with disabilities, and shadowing technical staff at hospital.
I received over 1500 community service hours during my freshman year. I absolutely love altruism.
Besides staying fully committed to everything that I have done, what would you recommend that I do to increase my chances of getting into an Ivy League?
Harvard accepts fewer than one student for every three high schools in the US (if you don’t consider the fact that Harvard also accepts students from other countries). Consider your school and, say, 2 others that you know. Are you the top scholar compared to all the students in your grade at your school and compared to those you imagine at those two other schools? (I don’t mean just GPA but overall achievements and brain power). Have you always been that kid who, since early grades, your teachers and other teachers who didn’t even have you, knew you as having that special something that suggests you are really a very special scholar? If so, you might have a chance!
My son will be attending Brown this fall. His scores didn’t get him in, his ECs, didn’t get him in, his GPA helped but I’m convinced his unique life story sealed the deal. Sounds like you have one too. I don’t know how many essays Harvard requires, but Brown had about 5 and he used each one to highlight his uniqueness.
Don’t listen to anyone who says you’re a shoe-in for the most selective colleges and don’t listen to anyone who says you don’t have a shot because you aren’t piling on the APs.
On a different note. We visited rural western Ukraine about 5 years ago and lived with the most generous family for a week. Your experience during the summers there should be considered as a topic for one of you essays.
If I understand correctly you’re counting 1500 hours just for the summer between 9th and 10th grade while in the Ukraine? If I were reviewing an app it would be a red flag to me that you’re counting sleep hours and who knows what other activities as community service hours. Be sure that in your attempt to convey your passion for service that you don’t count time that’s not actually service time… with your breadth of service it’s just not necessary to exaggerate.
@Eagledad33 I said, “I received over 1500 community service hours during my freshman year,” which means that I accrued roughly 1500 service hours during my freshman year. I have not factored in the amount of hours I will receive while in Ukraine; my trip to Ukraine will be 24 days long.
It’s always sad to me when I see these threads. You’re a freshman, so what, 14/15 years old? While college should be something you’re thinking about, I don’t agree with all of this pressure put on kids to cater their schedules to what they think a certain college wants to see. Take classes that are interesting to you at levels that challenge you. Participate in activities that you enjoy and are passionate about. Don’t waste all of highschool trying to get into an Ivy- they deny ~90% of applicants anyways! These years are invaluable. Make sure to ENJOY them! There are tons of great colleges that will be lucky to have you, it doesn’t have to be Harvard!
If you’re saying you perform 30 hrs/week comm svc as a HS freshman, I’d say your def’n of an hour needs adjustment.
Secondly, you’re mistaken if you think you need ANY comm svc hours to get into selective schools. My friend, who interviews for my Ivy alma mater is a judge. He bemoans the fact that kids are so gleamingly proud of their comm svc hours as if that alone, elevates them. He says: “I sentence people to perform community service!”
“I sentence people to community service.” That was about my kids’ attitudes. They’d freely lent a hand when needed, but when they got to high school, and someone started counting the hours, they began to treat it as a sentence, performing the bare minimum.
@tim1250 - each of my sons performed 40 hours of service in 4 years of high school. They still made it to Harvard. Community service doesn’t get you in to Harvard.
That is exactly how my son and daughter felt. When they applied to college, they had absolutely no community service on their application – zero, zilch, none – and that didn’t stop them from being accepted to a dozen top colleges including HYP.
And FWIW: If you put down 1500 community service hours on your college application ALONG with everything else you have done – speech & debate, cross country, science team, founder of school publication, tutoring – an Admissions Officer is NOT going to believe there was enough time in the day for you to accomplish all of that and get stellar grades. Watch how this ex-Admissions Officer from Stanford pokes holes in the extracurricular section of this student’s application: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96XL8vBBB7o.
In Crimea there are Tatars, I believe. It is interesting though, would colleges look at anyone from a former Soviet Republic (assuming US citizenship) differently than being white?
“has been dreaming of attending Harvard–or other Ivy league school/ school of same caliber–since as early as I can remember.”
Tell us about those dreams. Was your room as a young child decorated with Harvard banners? Was your Halloween costume as a child a Harvard student? Did you come home from the hospital In a Harvard outfit? Did you tour the campus while in elementary school? Did you write letters to the President asking for a signed photo?
No. For the purposes of college admissions, underrepresented minority (URM) consists of students who are African-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Native Americans (that is, American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians), and mainland Puerto Ricans.
If I add up all those hours (ignoring the ‘plusses’), my arithmetic yields 4350 hours. 4350 hours divided by 8 hours of service per day, equals 544 days.
Now let’s say you did community service EVERY day including weekends-- working harder than God (God rested on Sunday)-- but only resting on New Years Day, Columbus Day, 2 days for Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, that’s 360 days a year. 544 days divided by 360 work days/year equals 1.5 years.
OP- you do state that you are putting in 1500 volunteer hours this summer in the Ukraine, so that would be in addition to what you’ve accrued in HS so far. 24 days with 1500 hours means 62 hours a day spent volunteering. Your math is off or you’re not explaining correctly…
Admissions Officers expect students taking a rigorous curriculum need to do about 3 to 4 hours of home work per night. Assuming school goes from 8:00am to 3:00pm, that leaves about 2 to 3 hours a day for extracurricular activities Monday to Friday. For the sake of discussion, let’s call it 3 hours a day for EC’s times 5 days = 15 hours. Then, let’s assume you also spend about 5 to 10 hours on either a Saturday or Sunday doing an extracurricular activity. That’s a maximum of 25 hours per week during the school year to be devoted to EVERYTHING! An Admissions Officer will question how it’s possible to spend 1500 hours on volunteering while a student was also heavily involved in other activities, such as Speech & Debate, Cross Country, Science Team, Publications etc. An AO will take one look at 1500 hours and say to themselves “Liar, liar pants on fire!”