Letter from Harvard?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

<p>I am a high school junior. Today in the mail I received an envelope from Harvard College containing one pamphlet on the university, one on financial aid, and a letter reading:</p>

<p>"We are writing to ask you to consider applying to Harvard."</p>

<p>This was followed by a basic list of the reasons to visit and apply to Harvard (as if encouragement was needed.)</p>

<p>Has anyone else received a similar letter? What actual bearing does this have on applications? Does this display actual interest? It seemed a bit more weighty than the basic "personality test" letters that a lot of safety schools send out, but I wasn't sure if that's just the way Harvard does things.</p>

<p>Thanks for any help you can give me with this.</p>

2

<p>And so the marketing begins. If you don’t mind disclosing, what are your current stats. GL</p>

3

<p>Race/Ethnicity: White
Gender: Male
State of Residence: NJ
School Type: Public
School State Rank: 180-200/322
Class Size: ~400</p>

<p>NMSQT/PSAT: 221</p>

<p>SAT I Composite: 2260
SAT I Writing: 780
SAT I Mathematics: 780
SAT I Reading: 700
SAT I Essay: 9</p>

<p>ACT Composite: 35
ACT English: 35
ACT Mathematics: 33
ACT Reading: 36
ACT Science: 35
ACT Writing: 8</p>

<p>AP European History: 3</p>

<p>I will take SAT IIs on June 1st.</p>

<p>GPA (UW/W): 4.00/4.70+ (not including senior year schedule)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:

  • Student Government President†
  • Junior & Senior Class† Treasurer
  • Science Club Treasurer
  • Key Club Junior & Senior Class† Exec.
  • National Honor Society†
  • Science National Honor Society
  • Honorable Mention in local Science and Engineering Fair — Environmental Sciences Division
  • Student of the Month — September 2012
  • Peer Leadership
  • published sportswriter
  • published in local community college literary magazine
  • organizing Habitat for Humanity trip
  • two years of tennis in school
  • years of basketball and baseball outside school
  • certified as a Little League umpire
  • studied briefly in Paris, London, Germany, and Switzerland as part of European History class; I am hoping to additionally travel to Spain and Morocco for an educational trip in Spring 2014
  • volunteer tutoring for peers in need of assistance</p>

<p>Junior Year Schedule:

  • AP Biology
  • AP English Language and Composition
  • AP United States History
  • AP Computer Science
  • AP Calculus AB
  • Spanish III
  • Health/Physical Ed. (required)</p>

<p>I am maintaining an A in all of my junior classes (with the exception of a clerical mistake — on my Physical Education grade of all places — that gave me a B and is being petitioned)</p>

<p>Senior Year Schedule:

  • AP Chemistry
  • AP United States Government & Politics
  • AP Statistics
  • AP Spanish Language
  • AP English Literature and Composition
  • GALRE (Government And Law Related Experiences - Honors, non-GPA)
  • Health/Physical Ed. (required)</p>
4

<p>I got it today too. I have a 36 on my ACT but that’s from the most recent test date so I don’t know if they sent me the literature because of my 36 or because of my 33 I got in December.</p>

5

<p>When did you take the ACT? I just got my scores this week, so if it’s in response to that, they were pretty quick on the draw.</p>

6

<p>Your stats are very solid and I believe that you should apply. But be aware the competition will be intense. GL</p>

7

<p>I took it April 13 and got my scores back just this past Monday.</p>

8

<p>@sosomenza: That’s pretty much what I expect. It’s one of my three reaches.</p>

<p>@efeens44: Same here. I think they’re probably responding to the 36, then.</p>

9

<p>Has anyone else received a similar letter? Tens of thousands of others</p>

<p>**What actual bearing does this have on applications? ** None</p>

<p>does this display actual interest? Yes, they are interested in you along with another 100,000 others</p>

10

<p>Please read: [Ivy</a> League Colleges Solicit Students Rejected for Stake of Selectivity - Bloomberg](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>

<p>"The deluge of correspondence from even the most hard-to- get-into colleges is raising false expectations among thousands of students, swelling school coffers with application fees as high as $90 apiece and making colleges seem more selective by soliciting and then rejecting applicants.</p>

<p>Jon Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School, advises students to view e-mails and mailings skeptically, especially from Harvard University, the most selective college in the country. Reider called its mailings “not honorable” and “misleading.”</p>

<p>The overwhelming majority of students receiving these mailings will not be admitted in the end, and Harvard knows this well,” said Reider, a former admissions officer at Stanford University.</p>

<p>Consumer groups said that the nonprofit College Board, which owns the SAT college admission test, and its nonprofit rival, ACT Inc., are making money by selling personal details about teenagers. The companies collect information on millions of test takers and both sell names and information to colleges at 33 cents a name.</p>

<p>Harvard College, which accepted a record low 6.2 percent of applicants this year, markets to high school students because it wants to find the most talented class, said William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid. The school informs students “it’s a highly competitive process,” he said.</p>

<p>Yale University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology are scaling back their marketing, saying they don’t want to encourage kids who likely won’t be accepted. Yale, which admitted 7.4 percent of applicants this year, cut its mailings by a third since 2005 to 80,000."</p>

11

<p>Good post Gibby.</p>

<p>Colleges have people buy the names and addresses of students who may have reached a certain threshold on SAT/ACT/PSAT/AP testing. It may be as low as 60 or 600 in a section of SAT/ACT/PSAT. All it means at this point is you have made the threshold for their marketing.</p>

<p>I remember seeing a card from a top 5 school twice or thrice, each time D took a test and did well (SAT, PSAT, ACT). I was wondering why they did not have a common database but was told someone outside of school could be managing their marketing efforts.</p>

12

<p>My kid got this letter today, along with an e-mail this week entitled, “Nice job on the SAT, [kid’s name]!” from Northwestern.</p>

<p>I thought SAT (and presumably, ACT) scores were confidential. As no scores have been released from our household, I find it interesting that we received these 24 hours apart. Prior to the Northwestern e-mail, everything still said “PSAT” on it.</p>

<p>BTW, the marketing begins the moment you check yes on the freshman PSAT. ;)</p>

13

<p>i got a letter too and im actually not that smart like i would definitely not get into harvard.
2250 sat and 201 psat (eeeek!!) i’m one of those low gpa high sat score people hahaha</p>

14

<p>“I thought SAT (and presumably, ACT) scores were confidential.”</p>

<p>I believe they still are but once you flag your app saying you want to hear from colleges, they are free to supply the scores. However, from what I understood from MITChris was that the college subscription works like this - Give me names and addresses of people who scored above 600 in reading or writing or Math, whatever the school decides the thresholds to be in each area. So colleges don’t know your scores but they do know whether you crossed some magic number in a section. So this can lead to someone with 1700 or 170 getting a letter from Harvard or even MIT because the Math score was 700.</p>

15

<p>I got the letter too. Sorry I don’t think it means much of anything. They send it out to tens of thousands of kids, but the vast majority would be rejected if they actually applied. It doesn’t mean that these people aren’t qualified. It’s just the reality of ivy league admissions. If you love Harvard, still apply though.</p>

16

<p>It doesn’t mean much. Ironically, I received these sorts of letters (and quite a few of them) from every Ivy except Harvard. However, when I heard back from the five Ivy’s I had applied to, it was only Harvard and Penn that had accepted me. </p>

<p>My take: just because you don’t get these letters doesn’t mean you can’t get in and just because you get these letters certainly doesn’t mean you can get in.</p>

17

<p>I know 3 students who got this letter last year from Harvard. They all felt personally encouraged to apply, all had stellar stats and all 3 were rejected this year. Well one applied early, was deferred, then rejected.</p>

<p>You may have different results. Some kids get in. Just please be realistic and remember Harvard is always a reach for everyone.</p>

18

<p>I got one. My SATs are 1920, GPA 3.6, ACT 30. I am looking around and see that’s really lower than a lot of people have but I will still be applying. I have some other stuff going on and I figure let’s see how it works out.</p>

19

<p>condor: please develop a broad list of schools beyond the 8 Ivies. Your metrics put you WAY beyond the norm of even viable candidates.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1305027-official-harvard-university-2016-rd-results.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1305027-official-harvard-university-2016-rd-results.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

20

<p>I got spam mail from Harvard in my junior year as well, only to be rejected in the end. </p>

<p>That said, you look like a competitive candidate. Good luck!</p>