Lowest Accepted Applicants to Harvard

<p>Does anyone know of someone who got into Harvard with a low gpa (3.8<) for harvard? Also include SAT or ACT scores and extracurriculars (if you know what they did).</p>

<p>i know people who got in with gpa’s bigger than 3.8</p>

<p>^haha no kidding</p>

<p>How about giving us your stats and we’ll do it that way ;)</p>

<p>There was some guy I saw on the Yale SCEA 2015 thread that got accepted with an 1800 SAT…or actually a 29ACT. But VERY good other stuff.</p>

<p>[Post</a> #191](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1043318-official-yale-class-2015-scea-results-thread-13.html]Post”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/yale-university/1043318-official-yale-class-2015-scea-results-thread-13.html)</p>

<p>So to answer your question, no it was not Harvard, but Yale.
Don’t know of any others yet…</p>

<p>Most of them are URMs.</p>

<p>It really depends on the school. You need to be more specific. A 3.8 at a competitive school is really not that bad. </p>

<p>Example: At my (large) school, a 3.8, percentile wise, is equivalent to above 2200 (~2225) on SAT. Many students have gotten into the Ivies with 3.6s and 3.7s. One student got into Stanford with a 2.9/2360 and strong extracurriculars.</p>

<p>Also a 3.8 from Exeter or Andover (actually Exeter does it on an 11 scale) is not the same as a 3.8 from Mount St Elsewhere High. Harvard knows that too…they don’t have a quantitative converter but it is more a qualitative recognition when they review applications.</p>

<p>International schools such as in England have no way of creating a GPA anyway-nor rank in class. And of course home schoolers/progressive schoolers have nothing of the kind either. </p>

<p>This is a long way of saying that while one can examine quantitative data it is very hard to draw any conclusions–standardized tests maybe, but grades–no way.</p>

<p>Yes, my son is a senior at Harvard (applied Math concentrator) and he was accepted with a less than 3.8 GPA from an average suburban public high school where maybe one kid every two years gets accepted to an Ivy. His SAT’s were strong (2300+) - he’s a good test taker. He’s not a sports kids, never did a summer program, never even bothered to visit Harvard because it seemed like such a stretch.There is no family connection to Harvard. He was rejected by 6 schools but surprisingly got into Harvard - go figure. But just because one can get into Harvard doesn’t mean you should go there. It is a tough place in many ways. Google " adams house harvard ilya "</p>

<p>I feel sad for him. Do you have any idea how that happened? </p>

<p>I think its a murder (“Police is investigating” & “University has not released the cause of his death yet”).</p>

<p>It’s definitely not a murder. Harvard had a murder two years ago involving an outside drug dealer delivering drugs to a Harvard house (aka dorm). Murders are very public. In this most recent case the death must have been voluntarily or an accident. There was a similar death at Harvard Law the week before.</p>

<p>Also, related to the above comment “Most of them are URMs”, which I assume means “under represented minorities”, my kid is pure “white bread” - caucasian, brown hair, brown eyes, no disabilities</p>

<p>OneDown - that is truly awesome! Congratulations to your son!! </p>

<p>Do you have any tips for applications & such? I’m a current jr, struggling to bring up my SATs. But I’m also an over represented minority, huge public school, small town, with lots of ECs, IB diploma & AP tests.</p>

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<p>I don’t know how this comes into picture. I know your are a proud parent of a high achieving kid and why you shouldn’t be, but I was trying to answer the OP’s question. I never said all the students who get in with low scores are URMs, I said most. </p>

<p>BTW you must be a happy and proud parent, right? It feels good to talk to parents like you and learn more about their kids. I wish one day I even make my parents feel like you. <em>looks in the sky thinking of future and gets daunted by the admission process and again looks into books for back-up admission in a university of home country</em> LOL haha :)</p>

<p>One of my friend here got in with 1850. English is his third language though.</p>

<p>This question is so cliched…</p>

<p>What I have gathered over the years is that yes there ARE people who get in with low scores. However, such cases are very rare among unhooked students. (even more so with ORMs). </p>

<p>EC’s count a lot in the admissions though. I’ve seen a lot of low-scorers get in but no one seems to have below average EC’s. (kinda takes away all hopes for me)</p>

<p>An athlete with a 3.6 (uw I think) with above average ecs was accepted. He was a rower and worked with composites in rowing.</p>