<p>I was just wondering, is it ok to brag in application essays? I am not talking about explicitly saying I am better than everyone else (i am far from that), but just mentioning all the things I have done through the years.</p>
<p>That's what your extracurricular resume and grades can proove. Show them something they can't see anywhere else.</p>
<p>I agree. The application has other ways to demonstrate your activities and accomplishments; some schools even have short-answer type essays about them. Don't go into those in your main essay, unless you're just referencing an activity to support a larger point or idea. </p>
<p>Try to give the admissions committee some sense of your passion, your personality, your life experience, etc.; i.e. those subjective qualities which are vitally important at more selective schools and which can make the difference between admission and rejection.</p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>go to <a href="http://www.julianhan.com%5B/url%5D">www.julianhan.com</a> and see what kind of people with what kind of essays get into harvard...</p>
<p>Re that Julianhan essay: I am just an alumni inteviewer for Harvard. However, I was not at all impressed by that essay. All it did was brag. The person who wrote it also seemed to assume that what would impress Harvard was taking the toughest courses and getting the highest scores possible.</p>
<p>Truth is, Harvard has thousands more of students with such attributes than Harvard can admit. I doubt that Harvard is hoping to see info in essays that simply highlights course difficulty and exam scores. My belief is that Harvard adcoms are looking for character and personality in the essays -- character and personality that has more going for it than conceit and pride about high scores.</p>
<p>When I have asked other alumni interviewers about what kinds of 1600 SAT, 4.0 gpa students get rejected, I have heard that it appears to be that students whose only claim to fame is grades and test scores.</p>
<p>yes, but he got in...</p>
<p>Despite his getting in, I don't think that the kind of self promotion he did in his essay is typical of successful applicants or is something to emulate.
Meanwhile, I ran a Google on him and notice he's been elected as a representative to the Chinese student association at Harvard. Interesting.</p>
<p>wow, I wouldn't want to spend much time with that person....he comes across as really self-absorbed/self-promoting...</p>
<p>"Meanwhile, I ran a Google on him and notice he's been elected as a representative to the Chinese student association at Harvard."</p>
<p>not only that, he's also the UC rep for Ivy Yard. He got elected with ads like this: "What his friends and roommates have to say about Julian Han" I don't remember the actual lines but it was something to the effect of "i can't believe how smart he is", "he really is a genius", well you get the idea...
so, apparently bragging CAN indeed get you very far.</p>
<p>"wow, I wouldn't want to spend much time with that person....he comes across as really self-absorbed/self-promoting..."</p>
<p>well, the essay is quite funny, particularly the bit were he brags about his english and then uses phrases like "most people thought my candidacy was a whim that would never materialize"</p>
<p>NSM said, </p>
<p>"Re that Julianhan essay: I am just an alumni inteviewer for Harvard. However, I was not at all impressed by that essay. All it did was brag. The person who wrote it also seemed to assume that what would impress Harvard was taking the toughest courses and getting the highest scores possible."</p>
<p>I agree with you, but apparently, Julian Han, admitted as an International Student from China, under an allotment for foreign students at Harvard, had other factors for admission that Harvard wanted, which you were not privy to as just an interviewer, his pure genuis. He is in the mode of Prof. John Nash, of "Beautiful Mind" fame, a math genius and the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics. Nash revolutionize Economics, despite his shortcomings with his diagnosis of paronoid schizophrenia, which he overcame. He not only benefited his alma mater Princeton where he received his PhD (he rejected Harvard' PhD program because of money) and remains as Professor, but he benefited all of mankind with his research. </p>
<p>Julian Han, apparently has the same potential to win a Nobel Prize because of his genius, in spite of his "bragging" on a single essay. You cannot deny pure genius, not even Harvard. </p>
<p>BTW, Julian Han is a foreign Chinese student, not an American of Chinese descent Foreign students are admitted under a different category, International Students, who are distinctly different from American students. Don't confuse Asian Americans with International Students who come from China, Africa, or Europe. You cannot lump "Asians" into one group and sterotype all Asian Americans by generalizing. There are Asian Americans and there are foreign Asians, and they are distinctly different and are reviewed under separate categories by the adcom as well as the financial aid committee.</p>
<p>Check out Harvard Fact Book, Distribution of Students by Race and Ethnicity for Harvard College and each of its graduate schools.</p>
<p>Check out Harvard's International Students Enrollment</p>