If Harvard offered a lottery spot w/o academic requirements, would your encourage your kid to apply?

Parent Cafe
1

Let’s say Harvard opened up a lottery spot as an experiment, no strings attached (I.e. kids apply without listing their GPA, test scores, race, gender, citizenship, etc), and no application fees to pay, would you encourage your kid to apply? What if there was a fee of say $50? What if the application included 10 essay questions of up to 650 words each?

For our family, the answer would be no, no, no - D wants to stay in sunny CA, so wouldn’t be interested in applying even if it was free and effortless.

My question is directed at parents who’d answer yes to all three, especially to the last one. Would you encourage your kid to play this lottery with abysmal odds even if it meant spending who knows how many hours on the essays? In essence, this would turn to be an essay contest with a Harvard admission as a reward as opposed to some monetary compensation or award/trophy.

Which then brings me to the next question - do you encourage your kid to apply to national scholarship or program with sub-3 percent admission/recognition rate? It’s probably an easy choice when your kid wants to do it, but what if s/he is tired of all the coursework, EC’s, college apps, etc., and rather just relax, but you are still wondering “what if” - what if s/he wins a full ride scholarship for undergrad and all the money you saved could go towards grad school so your kid could have no college loans whatsoever?

Personally, I encouraged my junior-year daughter to apply to 1 competitive summer program (multiple essays), and 1 full-ride college scholarship (three long-ish essays) in addition to a summer program she wanted to apply herself (again, multiple essays). Today she mentioned she doesn’t want to “play the scholarship lottery” next year since school, EC’s, and college apps will be more than enough and she just wants a break. Of course, she might change her mind if she gets admitted into that competitive summer program (I.e. winning a lottery once), but if not, I need to understand where I stand re senior year scholarships.

Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

2

No, I would not have my kid apply to Harvard if it was pure lottery because I do not think my kid would be challenged at a school where other students may not be at the same academic level as her. Even if Harvard had the best professors in the world, they would have to teach to a common denominator level.

Both of my kids applied and auditioned for many summer programs. My kids have always done what they had to do.

3

Students have the ABSOLUTE BEST chance of winning scholarship $$ from the colleges that they apply to.
Making her try to apply to EXTREMELY difficult nation scholarship competitions, where she is virtually guarenteed to lose, is a waste of her time. So dont ask her to do something that she has no interest in doing.
You would be BEST focused to post her stats- GPA, PSAT score/ SAT/ ACT scores, EC’s, interests , etc, etc on the Financial Aid and Scholarships forum on CC.
The parents their can direct you/ and your DD to colleges/ U’s that offer large scholarships to top applicants.
Be aware-Many DO require EARLY applications in order to be eligible for scholarship consideration.
good luck.

4

No.

One of my kids went to school in Boston, but Harvard didn’t have his major.

The other kid went to school where the climate was “pleasing” (no snow) and that wasn’t Boston.

Plus…what would be the point of this lottery admission?

5

@oldfort:
“Even if Harvard had the best professors in the world, they would have to teach to a common denominator level.”

No they wouldn’t. Programs like EE/ECE/CS at UIUC weren’t terribly hard to get in to 2 decades ago. Yet grads of those programs were still top-notch. Those who couldn’t handle the rigor were simply weeded out.

6

If they do weed out students then that’s a different scenario.

7

No, I wouldn’t make my kid apply to a school they weren’t interested in, but I did insist on her apply to a national scholarship that had single digit admit rate. It paid off, free UG.

8

Some courses/majors at Harvard need to be at the level that the academically weakest development and VIP admits and athletes can pass (e.g. Math Ma and Mb). But that does not mean that students who got into Harvard on their own merits without any special non-academic preferences will necessarily choose those same courses/majors.

The OP mentioned “a lottery spot”, so there would presumably be just one admit for such a theoretical lottery, presumably fewer than the number of development and/or VIP and/or athlete admits who are significantly below the typical level of high school academic achievement of admitted students.

Presumably, Harvard gives good academic support to ensure that development and VIP admits who started far below typical academic standards graduate, in order to keep the donors and VIPs happy. That is quite different from an ABET accredited engineering program that gives lots of students a chance, but many cannot handle the rigor and get weeded out.

9

Yes I would because it’s not that much to give for a shot. Yes I did make my kid jump through hoops for tiny fractions of a chance at national scholarships- but she won, so for us it was worth it.

10

You have to evaluate each case, some individual kids may have 0.0003% chance of winning, and some have 30%.

11

Just to confirm, yes, I meant only one lottery spot as opposed to the entire student body selected by a lottery.

12

No, I would not have my child apply for a lottery spot at Harvard because even if my child got in, we are a full pay family and would not spend $70k per year on any undergrad school.

We also wouldn’t have our child apply for a national scholarship with low odds. I’d rather my child spend his time and effort on gaining acceptances and scholarships at schools that fit into our price range where he had a reasonable chance of admittance.

Our son did apply to 5 summer programs and was admitted to 3 and rejected from 2.

13

Powerball is currently $625 million. Win that and you can buy your kids into Harvard - no problem.

14

Only if she wanted to - which she did. Getting into Harvard has felt like a lottery all along. My child is qualified and could do the course work. The essays were not that much extra - a drop in the bucket of 17 apps. You never know.

We’re doing the scholarship apps this weekend and probably next. At this point she’s burnt out on essays, and I would not encourage a sub-3 percent app unless the judging criteria was a good fit. If it is a writing contest, no - since she isn’t a top essay writer. Service? No - she’s done her share but there are thousands with a better resume. Economic Need? No - there are many more families in greater need. You get my point. Better to put the extra time into local ones that have a real chance of reaping $500 or $1000.

15

My kid had absolutely no interest in Harvard initially, and, after a campus tour, she had even less interest than that. She found the students to be way to impressed with themselves. It may have been a bad tour guide as well - when she inquired about minors in dance and art, the guide looked down his nose, and then went on yet another long-winded speech about how great the business school was at Harvard.

So, no.

16

Let’s turn the opening question around – if your child won a no-strings-attached lottery admission spot to Harvard, would they accept it and choose to go there?

If my son had wanted to apply to Harvard, I would have encouraged him to apply. But I would not have pushed him to apply if he wasn’t interested, even if there were a free “nsa” lottery spot.

17

I would certainly have S apply but not D (nothing sexist here). S could do the work and would benefit from all that Harvard offers, including the network (have seen that play out in real life many times). D, a performing artist, would be far better served at a top BFA program as working on her craft is her only desire. She would, however, like to go across the river and enroll at the Boston Conservatory. Anyone offering lottery tix for that?

18

No. I don’t think it would be a good fit for S19 and don’t think they have the focus of the major he plans to study. He does not want a high pressure environment and prefers a big fish in a small pond setting.

19

Why would one push their kid to apply to a school they dont want to attend? Bragging rights? As for a summer program, if the kid wants to attend and is a viable candidate, then they should apply, regardless of the demands of the application process

20

No. For us, fit was more important than prestige and D prefers to be the big fish.