<p>I don’t think you’ll know for sure until decisions come out, starktony.</p>
<p>@starktony826 That means you got rejected…sorry :/</p>
<p>Ha! That is so cruel for them to send an email like that out.</p>
<p>@starktony I heard they did that for applicants that were borderline qualified. Like waitlisting, almost</p>
<p>With all the confusion about Stanford and Princeton decisions, do you think there is any chance Harvard will end up not releasing decisions as planned on the 13th?</p>
<p>Also how come some applicants last year did not get their decisions until several hours after 5 PM? Was it some problem with their emails?</p>
<p>@Foundered no, Harvard said it’ll release on the 13th, the other colleges didn’t. </p>
<p>Email lagging? idk…I’m curious about this too. Is there a specific time for the accepted/deferred/rejected ppl?</p>
<p>Yeah, I think there was a problem with email lagging. Many people still got them at 5 though.</p>
<p>I would imagine it’s lag as well. They must send all the 4000+ emails at once at 5pm. Those emails do take time to get sent, thus causing the delay</p>
<p>I’m pretty sure the reason people didn’t start posting decisions last year until around 10:00 was that CC crashed, not that the decisions were delayed.</p>
<p>Why are teacher recs given so much weight in the process? Certainly not all teachers are good at writing recs. My school gives each teacher a senior “brag sheet” with all of my ECs. So what one of my teachers ended up doing was talking about my ECs in a really generic way (ex. "runnerxc demonstrates his passion for helping others by volunteering at a local animal shelter). There was nothing specific or anecdotal. It was mostly platitudes. She spoke highly of me (top 1% of students) but the problem is that she just doesn’t know how to write an amazing rec. </p>
<p>Why are recs so heavily weighted then? I tried telling my teachers that I need my recs to be very personal but they didn’t understand. I go to a school where nobody goes to Ivies and teachers are just used to writing generic recs so their students can go to a nearby state school 
</p>
<p>Ahhh the stress is killing me</p>
<p>^RunnerXC I wouldn’t worry so much. If they really want you, they’ll find a reason to accept you. Hopefully your stats, ECs and essays are good enough and genuine enough to eclipse a somewhat generic rec.</p>
<p>I’m facing the same stresses as well. But hey, decisions are done and are being sent in less than a week, so it’s time to just have faith in the process and pray that they liked you enough to accept you.</p>
<p>Teacher recs are given sooo much weight because these are the people who have known you for at least a year; these recs are the only way colleges learn how others think about you-aka your personality (interviews aren’t valued much because interviewers have only met you for like an hour so they don’t get to know you at all). </p>
<p>I’m sorry about your teachers’ recs, but colleges can understand that some teachers simply don’t know how to write letters, espeically in large average public schools. Don’t stress too much over what you can’t control. Keep calm, and may the odds of college admission be ever in your favor!</p>
<p>Plus, Harvard is more holistic than some Ivies. It doesn’t stop looking at one aspect of your app, may it be stats, ECs, recommendations, and so on. Although some might be valued more than others, and it is important to at least not have any bad ones, all will be considered in the admissions process, so not all need to be spectacular (only most).</p>
<p>Random thought: have you guys ever felt that attending Harvard, regardless of the concentration you pick, would enable you to think and speak in a much more complex, thorough manner? I mean, more so than other universities (going to College in general should do this, but I’ve always felt Harvard would take me the extra mile).</p>
<p>To my knowledge, email lag should only be a few minutes at the most (4,000 emails is actually not a lot). So anyone that truly got their email late last year was probably due to logistical rather than technical issues.</p>
<p>But if you look, the first post on the 2016 SCEA thread was at 9:49 PM EST…</p>
<p>I looked in the 2016 SCEA Discussion Thread: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1218885-official-harvard-scea-2016-applicants-discussion-thread-117.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1218885-official-harvard-scea-2016-applicants-discussion-thread-117.html</a>
And at 10:04, someone posted “CC is back after crashing.” So, I think the problem may have also been with the CC website, maybe even more so than with the delay of emails.</p>
<p>@jomi</p>
<p>Probably not the best word, I meant something like last minute changes or clerical issues</p>
<p>Hey guys, really urgent question:</p>
<p>In the Harvard application portal, when it says All required documents have been received. Thank you.</p>
<p>WHAT documents is it talking about… think i messed up something.</p>
<p>It means recs and school reports and all things like that. They have all of them, so you’re alright. Good luck with admissions.</p>
<p>Are you sure? My common app itself only says its received one. but the other was a complicated situation because shes not a teacher anymore but my guidance counselour said hed take care of it and i thought he did but im confused ahh HELP ME.</p>
<p>i think youre probably (hopefully) right. thanks for replying :)</p>