<p>I wish CC had a “like” button so I could press it for the last 5 or so posts. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, it IS important to make your grades and test scores the best they can be. Just because the adcoms take the “whole person” approach doesn’t mean you should completely slack off and only rely on your essays and recommendations to get you in; they still want to see that you can really handle the work. esdienti, the person you described with a 540 M and 650 CR at Harvard might very well have been a recruited athlete, and the person with a 520 Lit SAT II may have taken other SAT II’s and done better on them, since Harvard only uses the top three SAT II scores. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, a good piece of advice for all aspiring Harvard applicants would be to encourage them to try their best. Sometimes, their best doesn’t mean a perfect 4.0, or a score of 2400 on the SAT. But the fact that they put in all their effort will certainly show up in their LOR’s and other parts of the application, and adcoms will quickly pick up on it. </p>
<p>Its more about the complete ‘package’. Admissions is like one of those action games where the armour/weapon etc. are all good things to have, but a particular set of equipment can make you really powerful. Ok, lame analogy lol.</p>
<p>I feel that it is also a matter of self belief and trust. We must believe and have faith in whatever we have achieved up to this juncture. It could be anything: rock-solid academics or jaw-dropping ECs or a blend of both! </p>
<p>The second thing is trust. We must trust the admissions committee to come up with the right decision (they are an experienced lot!), a decision that is the right one for both the applicant and the respective university. You don’t want to end up at a school where you will not be able to grow exponentially, right? Similarly, the school doesn’t want a kid that it knows will not be able to handle the stacks of pressure. </p>
<p>The second point can be especially difficult to digest. But it does more good than harm to have a positive frame of mind, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>on here, i think people obsess about their essays too much actually. obviously you can’t write a mediocre essay, but my essays were apparently far from perfect (although i like to think they were very good) and i got into yale EA. they have considerable influence, but there are other more influential factors.</p>
<p>Just for the record, all you doubters, I know someone who has received four likely letters–Harvard, Stanford, Duke, and Dartmouth. Cardsecret, I believe you, because I know the wording was the same on the Stanford letter and the same as on BigMakk’s Harvard letter. The person I know received a phone call from Harvard to tell him/her that a likely letter would arrive in the mail. </p>
<p>I know that many of you CC’ers will now accuse me of lying, and frankly, I don’t care. What you think or say doesn’t change the truth.</p>
<p>Cardsecret, College Confidential is not exactly a supportive community where you can expect people to give you a congrats and a pat on the back. You’ll find that from your family and friends who will rejoice with you. It is not surprising that some accused you of lying, because many here are anxious, hypercompetitive, and proud. I hope that some may apologize for falsely accusing you, but I won’t hold my breath.</p>
<p>^what you said is pretty true. CC has far more than its fair share of hypercompetitive people, and people here are rather skeptical. however, in the accusers’ defense, there are an awful lot of ■■■■■■ lurking around these forums, which casts everything said here into doubt.</p>
<p>that’s amazing about the four likelies. i know there are people who get them every year from multiple schools, no question!</p>
<p>Honestly I don’t really know what to believe.</p>
<p>I can definitely imagine a very strong applicant getting four likelies. Most of these schools have lots of cross-admits and I’m sure brilliant students who have done amazing things will be heavily recruited by all the top schools. The whole point of a likely is for schools to grab these people before other schools start accepting them and handing them likelies. So 4 likelies is defintely possible for a genius.</p>
<p>What makes me want to doubt cardsecret, are the reasons he stated for why he got likelies. Nothing he stated seemed any different from the other HYPSM applicants on CC, which makes me feel like even he’s not exactly sure why he got a likely. However that’s impossible, every person who gets a likely knows that there is something special about themselves that makes them the top 100-200 applicants out of 30,000+ apps. By saying high SAT scores, is just completely laughable.</p>
I disagree. That statement can be interpreted several ways: your interpretation, which is that a student would never think they would make it, or that the student might not have had Harvard at the top of his/her list, which would be more appropriate with the context directly before your quote:
Plus, the person in the article had a 2400, a 36, a big-scale EC, and had gotten into Yale early. I don’t think she thought Harvard was a pipedream.</p>
<p>Hi! I noticed some heated words a couple pages back in this thread, but I’d just like to say that I did get a non-athletic likely letter from Harvard a couple weeks ago, so if anyone is looking to clear up some myths about it or wondering about stats, feel free to ask :)</p>
<p>My two cents about admissions: I agree with the statements that test scores, rank, GPA, etc. are only a precursory factor in colleges’ consideration. Personally, I’ve had fairly outstanding academic achievements (2390 SAT, 5s on 7 AP tests), but nothing out of this world like USAMO or Intel. It’s definitely the overall picture they look at for those of us who aren’t incredible in one area. For me, outside of active involvement in the community and sports, I’d say the major hook was my volunteer trip working with the US Olympic Committee at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as well as my planned trip to volunteer again at these recent 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Besides the obvious uniqueness of these experiences, I think what colleges really liked to see was the process I took to get there – from putting together a resume to lobbying companies and organizations to fund my trip, the journey has definitely taught me more life lessons than the trips themselves.</p>
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