My public school sends 7 to Harvard every year, and this year 9 got in and about 7 got waitlisted
That’s a lot for one school! Where are you located? We are in California and every year there is <1 kid get in. Also a high ranked public school 
@onlyonceCC, Harvard/Stanford have reduced a great deal of cross-admit over the past four years.The yield rate is the only advantage Harvard has over Stanford at this point, and will lose it by not winning the cross-admit war.
As a result, IMO, they don’t take people who they consider more likely to go to the other.
@summercicada a large wealthy suburb of Boston. Although 3-4 of those yearly are strong connections to the school, as being located very close to the school tends to do
@bostonc Yes cross-admit reduction has been a theory. The school counselor (interesting enough he is also from Boston) said the same thing however it’s still hard to believe this is true given the fact Harvard wait listed so many at D’s high school while giving none an admission. Harvard is great, but in my daughter’s case it guessed wrong where the kid truly wanted to go and my opinion no school should have the right to make the decision FOR a kid as long as he/she is qualified. As a matter of fact, the counselor bashed Stanford a lot, so much so that my daughter almost missed Stanford deadline if we had not pushed her (so how does Harvard know who is Stanford likely or vise versa?) Anyway as a parent I’m secretly more than happy to keep my 17 year old girl nearby.
@summercicada My D’s high school has 364 students, and at least 6 got wait listed. Truly sorry I’m not an expert regarding admission, so I really can’t tell what’s the chance in other schools. At my D’s school, I almost want to say wait list status is a courtesy treatment to EA applicants (no outright rejection even though for those who had a less stellar resume).
I guess in most cases it doesn’t hurt to commit to the top choice and remain on the wait list. But keeping an unreal dream may not be very healthy since life would go on in reality.
Did you contact your AO? We have heard conflicting info. Some say absolutely not, some say you should let your AO know how much you want to attend.
Best song for when I get released from the waitlist https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WezusURMbY
^^ We weren’t supposed to make it past March Thirty-One
But jokes on you stayed till May, son
Thanks for sharing!
Does anyone know when z-listers are notified? I’m a legacy, and a Harvard professor (family friend) wrote me a rec letter after I was wait listed. He stressed that I very much wanted to take a gap year (planning on taking one no matter what Harvard says)
A kid I know said he got in as a Z-lister with the 1 year deferral. I believe he found out a few days ago. Did anyone else hear back?
@SWeLLT He heard back already? o___o
Yeah but he said he was taking a gap year, so I assumed Z-List.
@SWeLLT Was he legacy? Because I would have thought that they would have at least considered him for regular before automatically Z-listing.
He heard back before May 1?
Did he get in regular and just defer admission for a year?
It seems unusual/unlikely that he would have gotten in off the wait list as a z-list before May 1 because the committee doesn’t have any reason to look at the waitlist before their official yield is calculated
Newsflash. Kids have been known to lie.
Where is everyone else going if they don’t get off the waitlist? I committed to Tufts