<p>I received a request to apply letter from Harvard this week. Does that mean my chances are good for acceptance, or are they doing this to increase the applicant pool?</p>
<p>Without going into too much detail, my SAT scores are 730 CR / 780 Math / 760 Writing. I have a fairly decent gpa, take all honors/AP courses, and have some interesting ec's.</p>
<p>Am I a competitive candidate?</p>
<p>My impression is that many, many people get the letter.</p>
<p>Where do you live?</p>
<p>My child received the letter too. Does Harvard send this kind letter every year? Or this is something new?</p>
<p>My understanding is that they pretty much send this letter based on an SAT cutoff. Nothing much else.</p>
<p>or PSAT cutoff.</p>
<p>everyone and their mom gets this letter.</p>
<p>wow and people talk crap a/b WashU. Why would Harvard need to send requests to apply?</p>
<p>Harvard doesn't <em>need</em> to, but it's rather circular. The more people they get to apply, the less they need to ask people to apply, and the higher their rankings and prestige get (or stay) because people think that a lot of applications = a very desirable school.</p>
<p>but that's exactly my point. people on CC bash other schools (washU and Gtown in particular) for promoting themselves yet even the great Harvard sends out requests to apply to many people.</p>
<p>Harvard recruits aggressively just as every top college recruits aggressively. Be happy you got the letter, apply to Harvard if you are interested in Harvard, and be sure to apply to a "safety" school if you are applying to any highly selective school. Good luck.</p>
<p>Tens of thousands of people get that letter. Most "qualify" for admission based on their SAT scores and gpa. However, at least 90% of Harvard's 20,000 + applicants qualify for admission, but for space reasons, most will be rejected.</p>
<p>Do a careful application to Harvard if it interests you, but make sure that you have safety schools that you'd love to attend. Also check the CC archives to see the stats on accepted/rejected students.</p>
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Harvard recruits aggressively just as every top college recruits aggressively.
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<p>Harvard recruits, that much we know. Aggressively? Probably not, except perhaps where Harvard is not an obvious or preferred choice, such as for elite athletes, musicians, and engineers. Even there Harvard has Ivy-imposed as well as self-imposed limitations on its ability to offer perks and discounts as compared to Duke and Stanford (or even BU and BC as it concerns hockey, for example). Harvard recruits as aggressively as every top college? Also probably not true; Harvard has natural marketing advantages that other schools don't.</p>
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<p>Harvard intends to use the time and capacity freed up by the move to a single admissions cycle to focus more energetically on outreach and recruiting. Fitzsimmons and his admissions staff will travel more widely to make presentations in key cities and other areas to educate students, families, and college counselors about Harvard and the college admissions process more generally. The University will also work with secondary schools in a renewed effort to make applying to college less complicated and less stressful than it is today.</p>
<p>According to Fitzsimmons, this effort is particularly important in light of disparities in access to, and the quality of, college counseling. The average ratio of students to college counselors in the United States is 500/1. In some states, such as California, the ratio is 1000/1, and many high schools have eliminated college counseling altogether.</p>
<p>Some affluent schools, however, have student to counselor ratios as low as 50/1, in addition to parents who are more knowledgeable about college admissions and more likely to be able to supplement school counseling with outside help.</p>
<p>"As a person who has worked in college admissions for over 30 years, I am particularly grateful to Dean Knowles, President Bok, and the Harvard Corporation for supporting this move away from early admission," said Fitzsimmons. "I hope and expect that this change will sharpen the focus of the admissions process on its most important goal helping students find the right college match."
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"Once again recruitment was crucial in attracting outstanding students to Harvard," said Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of admissions. About 70 percent of all admitted students and more than 90 percent of minority students were on the original College Board Search List that helped launch Harvard's outreach program for the Class of 2011 last spring. "In addition, our 9,000 alumni/ae volunteers will be calling newly admitted students and hosting local gatherings in April. Simultaneously they will be preparing to assist our staff visits to nearly 70 cities this spring, targeting the high school juniors who will eventually comprise the Class of 2012," said Lewis. "In addition to recruiting at local high schools and college fairs, our alumni/ae conduct interviews that are critical to our decision-making process," she added.</p>
<p>"Recruitment requires real dedication on the part of large numbers of undergraduates," said Roger Banks, director of undergraduate recruitment. "We are enormously grateful to members of the Undergraduate Minority Recruiting Program (UMRP) and the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative (HFAI) for their crucial role in attracting this extraordinary group of admitted students." Members of both organizations made countless telephone calls and sent e-mails and letters to prospective applicants. They also met with visiting middle school and high school student groups and traveled to various parts of the country to recruit talented students.</p>
<p>"We are delighted to set yet another record for economic diversity and we have exciting plans for expanded recruitment next year," said Melanie Brennand Mueller, director of HFAI. Patrick Griffin, HFAI assistant director, added, "We are grateful to the many undergraduates and alumni/ae who work with our office to reach out to talented students from all backgrounds."</p>
<p>Fitzsimmons and Lewis lauded the efforts of the Undergraduate Admissions Council (UAC) and the undergraduate tour guides and greeters who work throughout the year with visitors to Cambridge, leading tours, hosting overnight visits, and visiting high schools. David Evans, co-director of UAC, noted that "students involved in the UAC give generously of their time to help prospective students get a realistic view of undergraduate life." Added Talhia Tuck, the other co-director, "We get numerous compliments from students about their visits to Harvard and the hospitality extended to them by UAC members." And James Pautz, director of the Undergraduate Tour Program, observed that "our tour guides and greeters enthusiastically welcome prospective students to campus throughout the year, infusing their presentations with their own anecdotes about life at Harvard. They're often the first Harvard student a prospective student meets, and they introduce campus life with grace and humor - all while walking backwards on Harvard Square's brick sidewalks in all kinds of weather."
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<p>Note that the online article is comparing Harvard 2007 recruiting to Harvard 2006, not to other schools.</p>
<p>Harvard does not exactly have yield problems, but with the elimination of EA one expects that it will step up the recruitment (alumni phone calls, welcome events) of admitted students.</p>
<p>William Fitzsimmons '67, Harvard College's Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, has cared about recruiting for more just the last year, perhaps because of his own background. </p>
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"'If you build it, they will come' - that's rubbish," Fitzsimmons said, explaining that serious work must be done in light of the fact that 90 percent of students choose a school within 500 miles of home.</p>
<p>Furthermore, the is the issue of creating a more socioeconomically balanced Harvard is complicated due to the need to convince both students and parents in low-income backgrounds that an Ivy League education is even in the cards.
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<p><a href="http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9455%5B/url%5D">http://www.harvardindependent.com/ViewArticle.aspx?ArticleID=9455</a> </p>
<p>One of the things Fitzsimmons wants to influence is the socioeconomic diversity of the entering class. </p>
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"The dumbest rich students go to college at exactly the same rate as the poorest bright students," he said. "Sixteen percent, that's not so bloody hot."</p>
<p>A conscious effort in combating socioeconomic stratification at Harvard is especially significant as such separation is actually getting worse nationally.</p>
<p>"We are resegregating into have and have-nots," Fitzsimmons said. "It's sure as hell harder if you're at the bottom."
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<p>Fascinating article. I have volunteered at the national level with Harvard admissions and never realized before that Fitz came from a blue collar background. He must have been far more brilliant and hard working than the average Harvard student in order to have gotten accepted back in the early 60s when Harvard was far more a bastion of the rich and privilege than a place seeking economic diversity.</p>
<p>More from the Independent article:</p>
<p>"Harvard has come a long way since spring 1964, when nuns at a Catholic high school told the graduating senior William Fitzsimmons to avoid Harvard, a school of "communists, atheists, and rich snobs" where he would "lose [his] soul." </p>
<p>Those descriptions were probably true, quipped Fitzsimmons '67, Harvard College's Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, as he spoke last Tuesday in Pforzheimer House to a small crowd of about fifteen. Titled "Socioeconomic Diversity at Harvard: The Financial Aid Initiative" and organized by the Pforzheimer House Committee of the Race, Culture and Diversity Initiative, the event offered students the chance to discuss both the financial aid initiative as well as other concerns they had concerning admissions. </p>
<p>Reflecting upon his experiences as an undergraduate coming from a blue-collar Massachusetts background, and later as a member of the admissions staff since 1972, Fitzsimmons marveled at how far Harvard has come in four decades.
When I started, the ratio of males to females was four to one," Fitzsimmons said. Although no records of ethnic minority status were kept at the time, he cited a classmate's figure of eight total "students of color" within his class. </p>
<p>"We had a terrific faculty, but the student body wasn't up to it," he noted. </p>
<p>Even as an admissions officer in 1974, Fitzsimmons recalled a clear lack of diversity within the Harvard institution. </p>
<p>"There were the Harvard admissions committee and the Radcliffe admissions committee," he said. "We couldn't pick them out of a police lineup."</p>
<p>You may like this article too. </p>
<p>“The recruiting program for the Class of 2012 is already under way,” said Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of admissions. More than 70,000 letters will be sent to high school students, and Harvard admissions officers will visit 60 cities this month in conjunction with four other colleges and will travel to additional locales on their own. Thousands of prospective students and their families have already visited Cambridge over the past few months, attending group information sessions and tours. “We have also communicated with thousands of prospective students through electronic media of various kinds,” noted McGrath Lewis. “Our outreach efforts are more multifaceted than ever before, and recruitment ‘season’ truly never ceases.” </p>
<p>This is from: <a href="http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/05.17/03-admissions.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/05.17/03-admissions.html</a></p>
<p>As you can see, about 70,000 kids get this letter, way more than the ~2,000 that will actually get in.</p>
<p>I applied in 2006 and I have to say I was surprised by how little recruiting material came from Harvard as compared to other schools. Such material is pretty standard... Harvard sent only a couple of letters, as did Yale and Princeton. Chicago sent postcards almost every week, WashU sent newsletters and circulars... (these were all schools I'd expressed preliminary interest in applying to as of early fall).... it doesn't mean anything either way.</p>