<p>flyingtomato… I can’t even… respond to that.</p>
<p>@flyingtomato these schools practice holistic admissions. Harvard does not accept people just because they have high stats. There is much more that goes into the decision than that. Don’t complain that a school doesn’t admit students based only on stats, when said school states that it practices holistic admissions.</p>
<p>harvard still obviously actively look for minorities to gain diversity. The point of a likely is to increase yield and in other words steal an amazing applicant away from other possible top schools like yp. so, the chance is much greater that acadmic likelies are also minority applicants. They rent just willy nily giving you a likely because you are a minority. But it is quite possible that your ikely was sent out in a wave of other minority likelies. This assumption has merit especially because if all likelies were sent out, there would be many more people here on cc bragging… and we all know white kids love to brag (stereotype)</p>
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<p>Nobody ever claimed claimed your application lacked merit - to the contrary, you seem to be reasonably competitive even without minority status. My comment sorting your likely into the minority bin was based upon research and previous experience observing Harvard’s trends in issuing likely letters. Put simply, it appears that they issue likely letters for a handful of different reasons:</p>
<p>“academic” likelies; issued for extraordinary ability among the entire applicant pool</p>
<p>“international” likelies: issued to international students, often due to differing school calendars</p>
<p>“athletic” likelies: issued to recruited athletes to ensure the ivies can compete with D-I scholarship schools</p>
<p>“minority” likelies: issued to minority students at the top end of the minority pool</p>
<p>In order to evaluate this, I looked at the known standards for each type of letter and determined whether or not you fit the pattern for each one. You were neither an international student nor an athlete, so those two pools were excluded, leaving only the academic and minority classifications. Looking to previous decision threads, and based upon my personal experience with Harvard likely recipients, academic likely holders always have at least one of three characteristics in common:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>What might only be described as a holy ST hardship story.</p></li>
<li><p>Experience founding a major organization, either for-profit or non-profit, that brings in, at minimum, several hundred thousand dollars.</p></li>
<li><p>At least one major award (usually several), commonly IO medals, NFL top three awards, or ISEF/Siemens/STS placement (AKA top 10). </p></li>
</ol>
<p>You indicated possessing none of these characteristics in your post.</p>
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<p>The problem with this is that nobody has ever found an example of Harvard issuing likely letters to people they “just like”; likely letter holders without one of the above characteristics just don’t meet the usual standards. It’s possible you were the first person to ever receive an academic likely without one of these characteristics, but that seems unlikely.</p>
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<p>The first day “race” is removed from college application forms will be the last day the minority likely letter exists.</p>
<p>Knitswim, is it possible you received an academic likely? Sure. But the available evidence does not support that claim.</p>
<p>okay you guys, let’s calm down a bit.
you may be right, you may be wrong. but that doesn’t change anything. admissions will be the same, and to even be given a likely from harvard, regardless of minority status, is impressive in and of itself.
so let’s stop cutting knitswim down okay?
imagine if you were super excited about this, and then people are saying it’s only because of your race…</p>
<p>while im not a minority, one of my best friends is, and she got into one of the HYP schools early, and someone said something similar to her, and to see the pain it put her through…let’s just not do that to anyone.
we should congratulate those fortunate enough to get into schools like harvard, and just cross our fingers and hope that we’ll be joining them in celebration on march 29.</p>
<p>The criteria snipersas listed are not the criteria for likely letters. (FWIW I received three from HYPSM and couldn’t have met all or part of the criteria mentioned above.) Search the forum for likely letter topics, as well as in the YPSM subforums - you will find that there are a great many LL recipients who don’t fit the criteria set by snipersas. When it comes to LLs, it’s very hard to tell who will receive one for whatever reason, so there’s not much point in trying to differentiate.</p>
<p>Hey knitswim: congratulations, and don’t feel the need to defend yourself against the haters. There are lots of haters. And you need to save your voice for the real battles. Just wait 'till you come here, this is an incredibly awesome, supportive campus; just prepare to be humbled. </p>
<ul>
<li>current junior</li>
</ul>
<p>question…knitswim has received all these LL from amazing schools…why in the world is this person on the cc 24/7?
just wondering…</p>
<p>“How Affirmative Action Works”</p>
<p>-There are 10 candidates for a school.
-8 of them suck but there are 2 that really stand out and are identical in almost every way
-One is white and one is black
-The school can only accept one more person
-They then choose the black student over the white because there is nothing else to differentiate between the two stellar applicants
-The 9 rejected applicants (including the eight who were less qualified than the black student) then blame affirmative action and claim that’s why they didn’t get accepted</p>
<p>decided not to join the discussion.</p>
<p>soso20, we all have bad habits, this is mine 
the funny thing is, I didn’t post much before getting acceptances. I go on CC WAY more than I did before and you’re right, it is weird. I don’t know why I do it, maybe partly because I want to answer people’s questions because now I feel like I can give advice (and I love giving advice lol) and admittedly, partly to be able to tell someone about my acceptances- I’m not even going to pretend like I don’t enjoy posting here. After the Harvard likely, I stopped telling people at my school/I know in real life (besides family and very close friends) about other acceptances because I thought it was becoming insensitive and I (correctly) assumed that people would treat me differently-in a negative way- I also stopped because I wanted to minimize discussions of <em>why</em> I got in. I am not above wanting to share this kind of news however, which is probably why I do use CC!</p>
<p>To everyone else, thanks for the congratulations :)</p>
<p>Since there seems to be lots of confusion on both sides of this non productive argument, I thought I’d add in sharing how much influence each part of your application has on the committee for a ‘typical’ candidate. I think it will quickly settle the argument, minus the trolling.
This is my opinion, but I think it is a very accurate one.</p>
<p>== 30% teacher recommendations and high school officer recommendation
== 15% short answer
== 12% essay(s)
== 10% EC list
== 15% transcript, SSR
== 15% SAT/SATII/AP/ACT
== < 7% URM (bonus)
== < 5% legacy (bonus)
== < 3% GPA (uses transcript and SSR instead)
== 0% rank, except for val or sal</p>
<p>Anyone who is applying now is not allowed to rebut. </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>this is really cool! Thanks for posting it! :)</p>
<p>GordonTheGekko, what do you mean by “short answer”? And how much boost does Val or Sal give in your opinion? Also, if a deferred applicant were to have a school administrator send in a recommendation after having worked with a student closely for a major school club, would that help out the applicant at all? Thanks for posting your estimates!</p>
<p>@Gordon: Shouldn’t transcript be the most important?</p>
<p>@ detoidi -head to yale if you want that. Even with those officers’ delusions with picking good applicants from great applicants, teacher recs still have an extraordinary effect. There’s a reason why Harvard is #1 and Yale aint… ;):D:)</p>
<p>PS these are all my opinions only</p>
<p>Gordon</p>
<p>I can’t think of a school in the country that doesn’t view an applicant’s overall transcript as the most important part of an application. If an applicant hasn’t taken a challenging curriculum (based on what is available at her/her school) or done well in the majority of his/her classes or if he/she has a severe downward trend in grades, Harvard will not look favorably on the application.</p>
<p>And I disagree with most of your other percentages as well, but obviously you are entitled to your opinion.</p>
<p>^ Agree. I don’t know where you come up with your “opinions,” Mr. Gekko, which you state with an air of great authority, but you are mistaken. For every selective college (and probably for every non-selective college as well) curriculum and GPA are the two most important parts of an application. Full stop. If you can’t get past the institutional threshold with those two elements (whatever the threshold may be) your application will go in the deny pile. Sparkling recommendations, essays, and activities won’t make a bit of difference.</p>
<p>I would like to third the above two posters opinions.</p>
<p>Gordon says a lot of things that don’t sound right - all over the forum. Not sure if he is just mistaken or actually trying to screw with people. Unfortunately, people take him seriously.</p>
<p>Sooooo…likely letters. Anyone get one that hasn’t already posted (not that the heated debate isn’t exhilarating)?</p>