<p>Get into a solid college, do highly distinguished work and apply as a transfer student. Alternately, do excellent college work and apply to one of Harvard's excellent graduate/professional schools.</p>
<p>Even a school as well funded as Harvard has limited resources.Why should they invest a portion of their large but finite resources in you? Admission is competitive. Why do you deserve admission over better qualified applicants? </p>
<p>College admission to a particular, elite school is a "zero sum game". For you to win, someone else has to lose. College admission to some good school is not a zero sum game. Excellent but marginally less qualified applicants are displaced to excellent but slightly less distinguished institutions. Repeat this process several times. Expansion of enrollment at institutions with unused capacity provides opportunity for almost everyone. Then the whole thing repeats for graduate or professional school.</p>
<p>Some people from very un-distinguished colleges are going to get into the Harvard B-school if they can show a record of distinguished achievement. </p>
<p>If you do not achieve, do not expect rewards.</p>
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Get into a solid college, do highly distinguished work and apply as a transfer student.
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<p>You seem to be unaware of the issue mentioned in this very thread: Harvard is not admitting undergraduate transfer students this year, and may never do that again.</p>
<p>Basically, for all of you telling this kid to "just apply," he would be the ONLY student in the ENTIRE college with a rank lower than 25%. Think about that.</p>
<p>hookem168, you have a point, but when was it a crime to dream? Should we be telling him not to apply? Although, I must say, I'll be shocked the day a top 45% makes it into Harvard... Maybe they went to some insane school or something, hahaha.</p>
<p>NONE OF THESE COMMENTS WAS USEFUL...listen to me,you are not going to get into Harvard...i would highly suggest,though,that you apply to any other ivy(other than yale and dartmouth)...you have 0% chance of getting accepted at Harvard.not because you suck but because your school does and so does your class rank.apply to Cornell,penn or Brown...ammmmmmmmazzzzzinnnng essay and you juuuuust might get accepted.Trust me</p>
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[quote]
NONE OF THESE COMMENTS WAS USEFUL...listen to me,you are not going to get into Harvard...i would highly suggest,though,that you apply to any other ivy(other than yale and dartmouth)...you have 0% chance of getting accepted at Harvard.not because you suck but because your school does and so does your class rank.apply to Cornell,penn or Brown...ammmmmmmmazzzzzinnnng essay and you juuuuust might get accepted.Trust me
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<p>Are you suggesting that Dartmouth is more competitive than, say, Princeton?</p>
<p>If it's any consolation, I am also applying to Harvard- although as an obvious REACH SCHOOL. I already have a repertoire of schools that love me; in fact, the only reason I'm applying to Harvard is because they bothered to call me last October through their Multicultural outreach program to ask if I intended to apply... which was strange. Surreal, even.</p>
<p>A brief overview of my stats:</p>
<p>My SAT was 2200, my three SAT II's are in the low 700's. My GPA is only 3.4 because of some drastic events in my Junior year, but I've taken 5 AP tests (and 3 more AP tests this year, and not a single test has fallen below a 4) and I'm an IB student; I've got AA on my side, and I'm essentially the Thomas Jefferson of essays. I'm a National Achievement Semifinalist so far, and I was elected "Most Likely To Succeed" for my class despite being just out of the top quartile- I was voted more for my brilliance than my academic standing. Too bad I couldn't apply myself where it counted on GPA/class ranking.</p>
<p>I intend to go to University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Oxford at Emory, (or perhaps even Carnegie Mellon) and reload for an Ivy Grad school. That would be wonderful. </p>
<p>Regardless, the bulk of the papers that go to Harvard are NOT even in the academic range. That doesn't mean the rejected applicants aren't intelligent people with futures, it just means that Harvard wants certain students, and they often choose the very cream of the crop. The best of the best. That's a small number of people, anyway, so even great students get rejected at Harvard.</p>
<p>This thread has been debated far too long. To put it simply, the odds aren't in your favor. Basically, it comes down to how much you value the money and time you'll be spending on the application. If you're willing to spend the money and time on the application, then keep in mind your low chances of getting into Harvard. Since you're a junior, you've still got a chance to raise the GPA; try and get straight A's from here on out. Also, I would recommend preparing for the SAT and if you get anything lower than a 2230, retake it until you're able to score above that benchmark. Your ec's sound fine as they are right now, as long as they show dedication. There's not much else you can do; try doing something really unique that very few or no other applicants do. Also, write killer essays. As long as your mind isn't set on Harvard, you'll do fine wherever you go in life. Good luck and god bless! :)</p>
<p>Try it, there is nothing you can lose. That is what my friends and I argue about. They say, i'll be sad and cry if i'm rejected... but what if you're accepted? Small downside, tremendous upside. Yea, its $60, but how much is tuition? Just do it</p>
<p>Guiltybystander, yes i am. Princeton might be a better school but Dartmouth, Yale and Harvard are(non-respectively) the most selective.... essays and recs dont mean sh** to Dartmouth, its all about the numbers.... lets see how many 3.5s/2000s get in with those.Thank you</p>
<p>Hey man, i would say that you should definitely apply because ya ur gpa and sats are too low for harvard's standards BUT you only get to apply to these kinds of places once in ur lifetime, so i would say go apply and good luck =)
u never know what might happen , maybe the admission people will see something in you that they have never seen in anyone else or maybe ur essay brings tears to the reader's eye. idk wat will happen but hey NO MATTER WAT ATLEAST U WILL KNOW THAT U TRIED. </p>
<p>The harsh, ignorant, and unworldly comments in this thread are merely functions of the posters' insular, upper-middle-class academic cultures, so I wouldn't give much credence to them. Those who say that you don't stand a chance at gaining admission to a decent school simply don't know much about post-secondary education. </p>
<p>I'm from Canada, and I assure you that with your stats and ECs, you could gain entry into McGill University or the University of Toronto, both of which are ranked among the top 40 schools in international league tables. Some of these posters have really skewed perceptions of what constitutes a "decent" school because they read US News or Newsweek rankings and think they are experts about tertiary education. Ignore them.</p>
<p>Apply to Harvard. Explain your extenuating circumstances in the optional supplemental essay. Take some hope in the fact that Harvard is not interested in admitting a monolithic body of CC-type overachievers from super-competitive schools. You don't need to be sure that Harvard is a fit for you yet; just apply and don't be afraid to "waste" a small spec of your life so that you might unlock a golden opportunity. But be realistic, and apply to some less selective schools that you'd love to go to. </p>
<p>By the way, with that last post, I was not overlooking some of the very mature and thoughtful posts in this thread. I was just expressing my outrage at comments along the lines of "you will not get into a decent school."</p>
<p>And I like amby262roy's philosophy: you will have only one opportunity in your life to apply to the most prestigious undergraduate school in the world, so you might as well do it if you have any hope. Go ahead and "waste your time" by writing an extra essay for Harvard. Big deal. At the least, you will benefit from the incentive to write a stellar Common App so that Harvard might accept you (and there is indeed a chance of that).</p>
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Guiltybystander, yes i am. Princeton might be a better school but Dartmouth, Yale and Harvard are(non-respectively) the most selective.... essays and recs dont mean sh** to Dartmouth, its all about the numbers.... lets see how many 3.5s/2000s get in with those.Thank you
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I'm looking at the scattergrams for Dartmoth and Princeton and you're just plain wrong.</p>