No.
I went through the entire thread. Very useful and interesting information. Wish I had read earlier. What about likely letters for the RD applicants? I heard/read that likely letters go out mid-Feb to mid-Mar. Are they typically reserved for athletes only?
Likely letters are not something worth thinking about. Very few applicants get them.
Before Harvard resumed its REA program back in 2011, it would send out about 300 likely letters, about 200 to athletes and about 100 to others. With the reinstatement of REA, however, athletic recruiting moved almost entirely to the early round, so most recruited athletes will have gotten their letters in the Fall, although there can be a few stragglers into the RD round.
Itās publicly unknown to what extent Harvard still sends likely letters to non-athletes today, particularly since the resumption of REA already gives many of the most desirable candidates early assurance of admission anyway. If one assumes Harvard still sends out 100 in the RD round (I would think it would be fewer these days, but who knows?) that is 100 for about 55,000 applicants in the RD pool (using last yearās RD application pool as a base.)*
In other words, if one is not a recruited athlete, a likely letter is very unlikelyā¦so unlikely that it is less likely than admission.
*For the class of 2025, Harvard admitted 1,223 applicants during the RD round out a total pool of 55,282 (47,259 RD applicants plus 8,023 deferred from the REA round), or 2.2%. If Harvard had sent out 100 likely letters, an applicant in that round would have had a 0.2% chance of getting one.
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@tamenund Thank you for the detailed response.
In countries where no interviews are offered is it possible Harvard could offer virtual interviews by alums in other countries? Was it done last year?
Yes and yes
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Are Harvard interviews done or are people still getting them?
theyāre still ongoing! i have mines on sunday
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Has the SCEA deferred status update from December been taken off for deferred applicants? Mineās still thereā¦
Good luck to all the deferred REA and Regular Decision applicants to the Harvard Class of 2026 this eveningā¦and to any anxious parent!
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Thanks for your all your advice!
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Just thought I would post an update here:
DD won a significant STEM award in Jan (regeneron STS), which we updated all the colleges at the end of January (not sure if it was too late though, as most colleges did not respond). She applied to 18 colleges with only 6 acceptances (incl. MIT and 1 other Ivy), 4 rejections (by HYP and UCB), waitlisted at the rest (incl. northwestern, duke, uchicago, Cornell, Dartmouth, cmu CS, Ucla). The whole process still feels so random (as Iāve seen kids, even some from the same school, with lower stats and lesser ECs and awards got into the same schools that she was rejected or waitlisted. Ivy day at her school felt like a blood bath, only 2 ivy acceptances (this is from a school that usually sends 9% to HYPSM and 20% to Ivys). The valedictorian at her school, a boy, did not get in any top school, which is the 2nd time in more than 10 yrs that a valedictorian at her school did not land a HYPSM. The other time was last year. College admission in the test-optional era became this senseless affair. The way this is going, I donāt even know how to put together a college list for my younger child as I donāt know which are targets which are safeties any more. We consider DD still fortunate to have a couple of good options at the end of this maddening college admission cycle! We told her itās Harvardās loss, MITās gainš
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Sounds like your daughter has great stats. Maybe her essays were the issue if anything was lacking. However, it is so random. Tons of kids with perfect scores were declined by Harvard. There loss is MITās gain like you stated.
There are fewer students each year with perfect SAT scores than one might thinkā¦typically 400 to 600 nationally. Moreover, there are only 300 Regeneron Scholars announced at the January stage of the national contest. When one overlaps both achievements, the result is an even smaller pool, quite a rarified group in my opinion, but perhaps (incredible, I know!) still short of a Harvard Academic 1 rating.
Students this strong will tend to apply to the most selective schools, and today, not just one or two like in the past, but five or ten, or fifteen or twenty. With so many applications floating around per student, it creates a randomizing assignment situation for many who donāt fit precisely into a schoolās categories of special interest, which in turn leads to the current conventional wisdom of thinking of not aiming for a specific school, but categories of schools (reach, match, likely, etc.)
MIT is very fortunate to get kv2002ās daughter, she is obviously an incredible talent and will thrive there (congratulations!) The system worked, cumbersome as it is.
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Just for others: I donāt think there is an advantage in getting perfect scores versus high scores. In this period of test-optional admissions, some are obviously still submitting scores, and after you meet a benchmark, it is really about other things.
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I do not know how the Ivy Academic Index is calculated now, but before all the rapid changes of the last two years (elimination of the SAT II, test optional, etc.), a perfect SAT score vs, say, a 1580, was weighted the same as the difference between an A+ GPA vs an A GPA.
An SAT of 1600 was worth 80 points (divide by 20 for the scores on down.) A concordance-adjusted GPA of 4.3 (A+) and higher was worth 80 points, while an A was worth between 73 and 79.
I canāt remember what all the elements of the admission committee summary sheets are, but iirc, for academic data, they donāt present SAT scores or GPAs, just the Academic Index (240 point scale) and the Academic Rating (4 point scale with 1 highest.)
While I think that the conventional wisdom that once an applicant passes a certain threshold, their chances are no longer zero is true and perhaps all are on somewhat equal footing, if what a candidate has to offer is primarily academic excellence, there are going to be lots of close comparisons in committee and a higher AI is more helpful than a lower AI.
Again, not sure how the AI is done now, maybe theyāve ditched it and replaced it with something else to govern athletic recruitment, etc.
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Interesting. The idea of ābenchmarkā is indeed conventional wisdom. Perhaps it still holds regarding scores,- that is, if the difference in āpointsā between, say, an 800 and a 750, has a negligible effect overall. In the light of GPA, rigor etc. as well. (And as you have informed us before, academics is just one category on the summary sheet.)
I would really like to be accurate on this in posting! Appreciate the info. Still relevant despite test optional changes.
My main concern was those kids who get 750 and keep retaking with the idea that an 800 will boost their chances.
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In a way, Harvardās coarse rating (1 to 4, with 5 and 6 as special ratings) system is very consonant with the point you are making.
On the input side, you have all these variants of GPAs out to the second decimal point and test scores that go from 800 to 1600 by single points, both implying some high degree of measurement precision.
But, on the output side for Harvard at least, all these āstatsā get boiled down and then combined with recommendation letters into a simple Academic 1 (about 0.4% of all applicants pre-COVID), a 2 (about 40% of all applicants), a 3 (about 40% of all applicants), and a 4 (about 20%.) And about 80% of all who are admitted are a 2 (and its variants 2+ and 2-) and most of the rest are 3+s.
Is there much difference in outcome among all those 2s based solely on the academic rating? Probably not, so thatās in keeping with your observation.
I do think, however, that if an applicantās PRIMARY attribute to offer Harvard is academic excellence, but the applicantās rating does not rise to the level of a 1 (about 100 applicants a year, give or take, rate a 1ā¦so very, very few rate that highly), THEN itās going to be a tough slog with fierce competition. If such a case makes it to full committee (not all do!), small marginal differences could make a difference in the comparative discussion as each docket argues for their candidates. I mean, one out of three Academic 1s are not admitted (and nine out of ten Academic 2s)!
The advice to avoid relentlessly pursuing higher test scores still seems sound strategy because time is probably better spent on other aspects of a candidacy or just enjoying being a teenager.
Good conclusion!
Thanks for all the info. Helps us be more accurate. (Makes me wonder how many are admitted on the academic score alone.)
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Congratulations to your daughter! I think that MIT is a very good outcome for her, although with her stats, if admissions were not test-optional, and were blind to race/legacy/sex/need/wealth/geography/athletics, she would have probably been admitted to every school to which sheād applied.
Iām happy for her. She had a good outcome, although not her first choice school. - but honestly, she sounds as if MIT is just as good for her, if not better, than her first choice school. I feel worse for the ones who also had incredibly high academic achievement, and didnāt get into any top schools. Iām wondering how much this system will change if the Supreme Court overturns affirmative action in June, 2023. But of course that wouldnāt affect all the other special categories.