I am currently a freshman in high school involved in varsity weightlifting and Habitat for Humanity. I currently have a 3.825 unweighted GPA and I am involved in very rigorous courses. My courses for next year are as follows:
English 2 pre ap
Ap environmental science
Ap physics
Ap Calculus ab
Ap Art History
German 3
Ap world history
I am a first generation American with both of my parents from Germany. None of my parents have graduated from a 4 year college and I would be the first to do so.
I know Harvard is a long shot, along with the other Ivy league schools, but I was wondering if there is anything else that I can do to improve my chances of getting in to Harvard or any other Ivy league school. Thank you in advance.
Practice your essay writing. You may find keeping a journal is a good way to do this, or you may find some other way. Make sure to build good relationships with your teachers/coaches, who will be important for providing LORs later on. Have fun.
In a recent survey, 54% of incoming Harvard freshman had an unweighted 4.0 GPA in high school, with the average being a 3.9 – and that includes recruited athletes, URM’s, legacy applicants and developmental students (students who’s parents have given millions to the school). And all those kids are thought to have lower grades and test scores than the average academic applicant.
So, the first thing you need to do is crack the books, get a tutor and ace all your classes for the next two years. Seriously! You really need to have all A’s for the next two years – not one B. FWIW: Both my kids (D at Harvard, S at Yale) had straight A’s in high school from freshman to senior year – daughter graduated from an ultra competitive high school with an unweight 97.8 (on a 1-100 scale) with 8 AP’s under her belt, and my son did the same at the same HS with an unweighted 96.7. And yet, my daughter was rejected at Yale and Princeton, and my son was rejected at Harvard. Those kind of students are your competition, so you need to really up your game.
After your transcript, the next most important element of your file are your teacher recommendations. So, if I really wanted to be proactive, and a little bit conniving, I would look at teachers who teach courses to juniors AND who help advise an EC that I was interested in. I would then sign up for that EC sophomore year, so by the time I was a junior, the teacher would know me as a student both inside and outside of the classroom, and then I would ask them for a recommendation.
@gibby - I hope you didn’t mean what you wrote, that “all” hooked kids “are thought to have lower grades and test scores than the average academic applicant.”
There are many athletes, legacies, URMs, and development kids whose grades and scores surpass not just the average academic applicant’s but, in fact, exceed those of the average admitted “academic” student, whatever that means. By virtue of being a recruited athlete, was my DS, who graduated magna cum laude in physics from Princeton, a “nonacademic student”?
^^ In hindsight, I should have said “some” not “all,” because let’s face it: I haven’t heard of one football or basketball player from HYP ever graduating magna cum laude.
A quick google search turns up many HYP football and basketball players graduating magna (or summa) cum laude. The reason you haven’t heard of them is probably that there’s nothing particularly notable about an athlete also being a good student. But there are at least a few I expect you know of.
Have you heard of Tommie Lee Jones, the actor? He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard and was an offensive lineman on their football team.
Or Bill Bradley, the basketball player and politician? He played for Princeton’s basketball team and, while I haven’t been able to confirm Latin honors, he was also a Rhodes Scholar.
I feel like a lot of people on this board try to scare perspective applicants from applying by saying their GPA is not high enough. The truth is, once you reach a minimum academic level-- which 3.84 GPA certainly does-- Harvard considers other factors beyond academics. Your extracurricular activities, your essays etc. There is a lot of luck in the process, so work your hardest, and if you are still interested in Harvard down the road-- apply.
Some of you people sound crazy… If the average is a 3.9 there are people with 4.33’s and there are people with 3.5.
If you are mature, involved, and working Hard in school… (And sad but true your test scores must be nothing short of excellent). You sound like a good candidate to me. Especially since you’re first generation.
I finished with a 3.8.
The 3.9 is on a 4.0 scale; Harvard has no A+, and it is not universally used in HS, so the max GPA is 4.0. You can be certain that the 3.5’s have huge hooks.