<p>I've always heard from other people that Harvard places limits on the number of people they take per school. Is this true? For example, can they only take, lets say, 4 people at most from schools that are good (i.e. top-rated suburban public) but not super-stellar, like Phillips Exeter? I know from friends that schools like Yale and Stanford do that...perhaps after accepting the third person from your school they won't look at others? On the other hand, MIT and Princeton, it seems are different and have no such quotas per school. And I've also heard that they have regional geographic quotas for Harvard, but not school quotas (i.e. take only 22 ppl from Southern Georgia at most total or something)
The reason I ask is because there are some top-notch (siemens, intel....lots of accomplishments) applicants, but because there are several kids that are super-shoo-ins at their schools, they would DEFINITELY not get in. </p>
<p>@dashboard: I mean, there’s really no way to prove your theory definitively…at least via CC. Any data you get from this board will be anecdotal, and hardly representative. So honestly, there’s really no point.</p>
<p>I think they do have some guidelines, but I can hardly imagine that Harvard or any college really would reject a third stellar applicant just because they already have 2.</p>
<p>Well, I’d love to believe their website, but even college counselors have been telling some of my friends (although not at my school, but places like Phillips) to not get there hopes up if there are dozens of other applicants.
Honestly, I’d love it if there were no “school quotas”…guess its sort of like an urban legend. At my school, there are 3-4 kids that are complete shoo-ins (connections, super-awards…you know the rest…In other words, they are completely “hooked”). My concern would be they’d just take these “hooked” kids and overlook everybody else no matter how great the other kids were.</p>
<p>Top schools evaluate applicants in context. If you go to a school that has several competitive applicants to Harvard, you likely have the same level of opportunities that they do. If you aren’t performing on the same level as the top applicants at your school, Harvard will see little reason to admit you.</p>
<p>It’s not as if they put a cap of 10 students from Exeter, 10 from Andover, 2 from George Washington High School in Philadelphia, and 1 from Frog Spawn High. They pick the students who have been able to do the most with the hand they’ve been dealt.</p>
<p>^27? That’s…wow…I heard Phillips Exeter took like 50 or something.</p>
<p>In terms of “doing the most with what you’re given” I feel like I’m good. I took the most AP classes, right now have highest weighted GPA, and got great SATs and have many leadership roles and extracurriculars, plus siemens semis. At the same time, I have none of the official “hooks” that people in cc talk about, like winning international prizes, having connections, or like going to RSI and winning siemens nations, and three people in my school have the equivalent of such statuses or awards. </p>
<p>But it’s good to know that there’s no official cap like a lot of people have been telling me (including ppl accepted to HYP), like 4 people from willis high school or something…</p>
<p>Come on now. You’re applying to Harvard and apparently are the valedictorian at your (from the sounds of it) pretty competitive high school. Use some of the reasoning skills that allowed you to do/become both of those things. </p>
<p>Given that Harvard aims to achieve the ideal of a well-rounded student body for their next freshmen class, then can you necessarily say that in order to achieve that they can only pick up X kids from Y school? If so, why? What would happen if they were to take X+1 kids from the school? Would the freshmen class no longer be well-rounded? Instead of taking that ‘+1’ kid, would they have to take an applicant from another school that is not as impressive, though still impressive, and would not add as much to the Harvard student body as the ‘+1’ kid simply by virtue of the fact that they had already taken X kids from Y school? Would that not simply be irrational on Harvard’s part and, in the end, do more harm than good than if they simply would accept X+1 kids from Y school? As well, the Harvard admissions committee attempts to have a reasonable amount of geographical diversity in a class, but, given the number of acceptees from a certain school/city, one does not know the background (where the people were born, where they’ve lived, where else they’ve gone to school, etc.) of the people accepted and, therefore, cannot deduce much, given that one piece of information, about how those acceptees contribute to diversity at Harvard. </p>
<p>I’m sure they wouldn’t accept an abundance of students from a certain school unless they were all extraordinary, but one must remember that acceptance/rejection at universities like Harvard cannot be understood if one is only given one factor (unless that factor is somewhat of an outlier - either extraordinary or completely abysmal), especially one such as the school one attends. </p>
<p>P.S. Congrats on having the highest GPA at your school, I wish I could say I had the same thing lol (my GPA is gonna kill me :().</p>
<p>Yes, I totally agree that they would probably not take like 10 of us - unless we were all intel finalists or some sort. But I definitely hope I don’t get in simply because others had privileges (some they were born with…)
I am in immigrant to the U.S. (still not citizen), and I’ve gone through a lot, so I do hope they take those into consideration.
Would taking 5-6 people from a suburban hs (good, near a good public uni) be considered an overabundance?</p>
<p>People have already said that you never know. it would depend on how strong the applicants were which honestly no one can tell besides the adcom officers who have your essays/ recs/ whole package. From my school there are always the top 10 or so kids who apply out of 100. About 2 get in on a good year. Sometimes noone does and sometimes 4 people do. It really is based on how strong you are.</p>
<p>My school is pretty competitive with a class of 780 kids. People talk about applying to Yale, Princeton, a few to Stanford, but not Harvard. At my school, it seems taboo to mention the name. So if anyone else is applying to Harvard, I wouldn’t know… although I’m pretty sure there has to be at least 5-6 other kids who might be. lol.</p>
<p>@Seeme25…why is it taboo? I don’t see any meaningful difference between Harvard and the others (Yale, Princeton, Stanford etc.)…at least in terms of general quality…</p>
<p>Same with my school! I live in CA where everyone applies to Stanford. But everyone who applies to top schools always mention Yale or Brown but never Harvard. I’ve always thought that Harvard was always on another level compared to the other schools. Both the prestige and name-recognition automatically sets it apart.</p>