None of us outside of the admissions committee can know the degree of advantage any one applicant has with a special attribute even if there are generalized patterns. Every person is unique. Good luck to your daughter!
does anyone know the situation on sibling legacy??
There is no sibling legacy. The only legacy that matters to admissions is when a parent attended as an undergrad.
How would you get a 1 in personal, âlights up the roomâ except for the interview? I understand you could have an amazing essay, but âlights up the roomâ would really come from in person contact. Which would put the interview at a higher level of importance. A person could do all this amazing volunteer work, but be miserable but they got a $100K consultant that arranged it all. Just sayingâŠpersonal rating seems to be from the interview. My kid had an interview. Just wondering about all the applicants that did not.
Letters of recommendation could contribute to the personal rating, I would think.
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The plaintiffs in the Harvard litigation suggest that the Personal score is a fudge factor that Harvard uses to shape their class illegally. The plaintiffâs group was given lower personal scores on average even though there was not such a deviance in alumni interview reports.
From a Harvard website on the suithttps://admissionscase.harvard.edu/key-points in rebuttal to plaintiffâs claims:
Personal rating
The personal rating reflects a wide range of valuable information in the application, such as an applicantâs personal essays, responses to short answer questions, recommendations from teachers and guidance counselors, alumni interview reports, staff interviews, and any additional letters or information provided by the applicant. Harvard uses this information to understand the applicantâs full life story, for example, where the student grew up, what opportunities or challenges they faced in their families, communities, and secondary school, and what impact they might have both here at Harvard and after they graduate, as citizens and citizen-leaders of our society.
Alumni interviewer and admissions officer personal ratings, although similar in name, vary widely because they are based on different information. Thousands of Harvard alumni perform an extremely valuable service as volunteers interviewing applicants to Harvard College from their communities. The alumni interviewer personal rating reflects what the interviewer has learned about the applicant during the interview, while the admissions officer rating considers the full range of information in the application (listed above). Any alumni interviewer also sees only a tiny percentage of the applicants in the pool. They evaluate these applicants in comparison to those few other applicants they have interviewed, while the admissions committee has before it a much fuller range of the talented applicants Harvard is fortunate enough to attract.
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Ask yourself what would it take to be one of the 50 or fewer or applicants each year, out of 30,000 to 50,000, who get a Personal rating of 1?
Some are already regionally, nationally, or internationally known, covered widely by news media, as the young change-makers of their generation in politics, in the arts, and in the sciences. Often, they have life stories that are so compelling, documented in many public channels, that the application is almost superfluous except as a baseline academic check. And yes, there are young people like that, individuals whose presence and charisma are outside of the parameters typically discussed in this forum. These people exist and Harvard very much wants them as long as they have qualities that a will allow them to succeed in the Harvard environment. These candidates mostly definitely are not groomed to be so by consultants.
You either have it or you donât, and 99.98% of Harvard admits (admits, not applicants) donât.
And here I thought the kids were out of control with the âwhat does it take to get a 1.â 
It is what it is.
Itâs no surprise that there are past threads here already discussing the case ad infinitum, but one thing I would point out where the plaintiffs hit a wall is their contention that quantitative attributes of arguably superficial precision (e.g., SAT scores, which have 400 measurement points from 400 to 800, or typical GPAs which are often ridiculously computed to the hundredths place) could be used to show problems with Harvardâs intentionally coarse rating system (1, 2, 3, or 4.) The ratings are coarse precisely because the intent is to exercise a subjective, aka holistic, review of candidates. A Personal rating of 2+ to 3- encompass the majority of applicants and nearly all admits.
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So a David Hogg is a 1. It seems a steep drop to a 2.
It is, indeed, as it is from an Academic 1 to an Academic 2+, or from an EC 1 to an EC 2+.
I imagine âcharacterâ and âability to overcome obstaclesâ are part of the personal rating.
However it is decided this conversation is a great distraction from the stress of waiting.
With such a narrow rating band of 1-4, where you are an Olympian with a 1 and non athlete with a 4. Anyone with a 1 stands out, even if their total score is 17.
What is the difference then between a 2 and 3 in academics? SAT of 1520 or higher, 5.0 gpa, all 5s on a dozen APs, or some 4s OK? What takes you down to a 3 in academics? Below 1500? Or it has to be below 750 on math? I thought 750 math was a redline of sorts. I heard of someone last year who got in, only had 2 APs, both 4s. Canât remember the SAT, but OK. But had some really good EC. I didnât think it warranted a 1 â using David Hogg as an example, but highly commendable. Hence, why I am thinking there has to be some 1- or 2+ in the realm of ECs. And who is judging. That is the question. Who makes the decision on whether an EC is a 2 or a 2+, or a 3? Isnât that sometimes just based on where you are in the pile, who is reading and how it is presented?
This ramble is courtesy of the 6 days waiting.
Viewing threads like this more as an entertainment is wise.
To my knowledge, there is no such thing as a 1- rating, although that doesnât mean that such a rating sneaks into what a reader writes.
APs donât have the weight many on this board ascribe to them. If it helps to demonstrate that a candidate has pursued the most rigorous academic path available at their secondary school in the core subjects, and the candidate has received the highest grades in their courses, great. Not much attention is given to AP exam scores unless there is a wide discrepancy with the transcript. No one is going to total up AP exam scores and say, âAha, this one has all fives! Admit!â or âOh no, this one has all fours! Reject!â
In addition, having a great number of APs in secondary subjects, as in, âMy dear son had 17 APs and was still rejected,â doesnât carry much weight either. The College Board recently admitted as much by eliminating the National Scholar designation.
Perfect or near perfect grades in your schoolâs most rigorous program, and perfect or near perfect standardized test scores, net you an Academic 2. The vast number of nearly half of all applicants (at least before the test-optional surge) fall into this category because a lot of students with excellent grades and test scores apply. Itâs Harvard, after all. Thatâs what such students do.
Granularity beyond that 2+, 2, or 2- does not come from AP or other standardized test scores but from the quality and enthusiasm of a candidateâs teacher/school recommendations and an overall consistency in an applicationâs portrayal of academic ability and promise. Are an applicantâs teachers enthusiastic and convincing about the applicantâs quality of interactions in class, their sense of curiosity, their ability to surmount academic difficulty with success, do they stretch themselves, are they original yet serious? And, if they do all those things, are they exceptional for this year, or for many years, or the best of that a teacher has encountered in an entire career?
An yes, to many a parent or student who is convinced that incremental differences in quantitative measures must be important somehow, such a subjective, aka holistic, process might be hard to fathom.
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The best advice I can give to fellow parents is this:
The admissions people do not know your child. At best they can make a guess, based on what your child and others have written on papers, and maybe a zoom interview or something. Huge critical experiences of what makes your child unique and special simply do not transmit with anything like reasonable fidelity into the rigid format of the application.
Having served on admissions committee for selective educational programs, I can say that arbitrary and random things have deep sixed otherwise awesome candidates.
I saw a candidate rejected because he was from Florida. Incredible guy, but one of the committee members vetoed because the candidate was from Florida, and thatâs the mood the reviewer was in. This reviewer is a high power Rhodes scholar physician. But I guess he dislikes Florida.
Another candidate blocked because he nervously tapped his foot during the interview. Next!
This is why getting into one special college is not worth stressing over. What actually separates the 5% who get in from the too 50% of applicants? Essentially, nothing. we talk about athese 1-6 numbers etc - the truth is, these admissions people are just winging it. They have tens of thousands to whittle down and truly they are just exhausted.
When I applied to medical school, I got into the most academically competitive schools in the country. Except for the single one that was my first choice. I was disappointed but let it roll off me. I went on to graduate first in my class from a different school and had a superb experience. My career has been wonderful.
Your child is special and the application process is an extremely low bandwidth, noisy way of communicating that specialness. If your child attends Harvard, great. But if not, they are going to be just as successful and build a vibrant path to follow. So donât stress!
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I cannot agree more that the kids will do fine whether admitted or not, and parents should also take it easy, though its easier said than done. But to think someoneâs chance can be so easily derailed by petty things like a committee member having had a bad vacation in Florida certainly wouldnât help alleviate a sense of stress on the part of kids or parents. Fortunately, Harvardâs process seems to have enough safeguard against such randomness. Every admit has to get the majority of 40 votes on the committee; its unlikely all 40 are having a bad day.
From the lawsuit data and admitted files I had seen I would say that each candidate being presented to the full 40 people committee for a vote had a big stack of materials assembled by the two regional AOs, quite often ten pages long. They would include school report, LORs, interview reports, AOs deliberations and email exchanges, faculty evaluations. Its mind boggling a school would spend so much time and resources on a candidate. I imagine for each admitted and waitlisted applicant the admissions could have easily spent 4 person-hours.
Of course, besides the two or three people on the committeeâthe regional AOs and perhaps a facultyâthe other 37 or so people who would vote on the candidate probably wouldnât have had a chance to go thru all ten pages, but instead may rely on the presentation of AOs and that one page summary sheet which has been talked about and analyzed so much.
If you look at the link posted upstream you can see that table of numerical assignments is just a small portion of the summary sheet, which is one page out of many in a candidateâs file. There are two rows of the numerical assignments, completed by the two AOs, based on their assessment of various reports. Here are from the left to the right what those numbers are:
Overall, academic, EC, athletic, personal, SSR(secondary school report), AI(academic index), alum interview, faculty evaluation (if there is any), other evaluation (if there is any).
Those numbers seem to serve as indicators, not as components in a calculation. IMO, for non-RA the important ones are overall, academic, EC, personal and faculty evaluation.
1) Recruited Athletes (20% of admitted students)
Harvard has the most D1 sports teams of any college in the nation â 42 â which means there are a lot of spots to fill.
Recruited athletes have a 90% acceptance rate and comprise 10% of the incoming class. (Source: The Atlantic) .
For perspective, the overall Harvard acceptance rate is below 5%.
Walk-ons comprise another 10% of the incoming class, and also get in at a much higher rate since coaches will âsoft recruitâ them. Harvardâs athletic recruitment process is detailed below.
I didnât see any soft recruit explanation below. If there are over 10K applications and 4 hours spent on each one, that is 40,000 man hours. If alumni interview is considered the one, then still 30,000. I heard there were 10 AOs working on these. That is 3000 hours. Even if they pull 80 hour weeks, that is impossible. Though you said faculty review. I understand if you said you wanted to be a novelist. But what about all the undecided? Do they get a faculty review? So if they take an hour, you are down to 2000 man hours. I hope my kid is not near the bottom of the pile towards the end of some evening.
There are schools that get more students per capita than others. Hunter used to send 13% to Harvard, then 10%, not sure what it is now. Stuyvesant had about 25 kids every year going to Harvard. Then the usual suspects of private schools. There was the assumption that all things being equal, a kid from Stuy would be better prepared for the curriculum at Harvard than from some kid from the midwest, whose high school didnât have any AP subjects etc. Unless they were like David Hogg type.
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Itâs difficult to succinctly summarize the reading procedures. Generally speaking, a case that an experienced reader (there are more elaborate checks and procedures for new readers) codes as overall 3 or lower overall is âcoded outâ and is no longer in contention and will lead to a rejection. These cases are not reviewed further in detail, so no more time and energy is spent on them by anyone in the admissions office.
An overall 3+ is similar, but that rating is for candidates who potentially might have new information pending that could lead to a reassessment. These are not âcoded outâ immediately like 3s and lower. My impression is that very few make it out of this bucket.
A case the that reader codes overall 2- and above, which means that the reader has concluded the applicant should be considered for admission, is routed to the âthirdâ reader. Itâs really those candidates and above who get the hours of scrutiny and discussion as the process continues.
Sometimes, the reader will have a difficult time assigning an overall rating and these cases are discussed with the docket chair or the subcommittee before disposition.
There are also all sorts of complicated twists and turns that lead to different people at different levels reviewing a case, but what Iâve described above is the basic process.