<p>^outlier. and slightly above average can be quite broad ;p</p>
<p>I’ve come to realize Harvard is less influenced by the near perfect stat applicants. They like that, but they want more. They want to see depth in an applicant, and I think my application was lacking that. Yale and MIT on the other hand, are more willing to go for the high test scores. That probably explains my acceptances there. </p>
<p>Oh well, it’s only Harvard. Academically I did as much as I could possibly do. Time to move on I guess.</p>
<p>
I’m just trying to wrap my head around these statements (well, the last one, anyway). Who are you to determine which metric a private entity should use to accept applicants? These are esteemed institutions–do you not trust their judgment? Just wonderin’…</p>
<p>I’m not insisting these institutions change their admissions processes simply because I think it makes more sense. I’m just giving my opinion, hence the “I think.”</p>
<p>To be honest, you don’t really have any EC’s besides band, and while academically overqualified you’re not a total “academic stud” as you don’t have THAT many AP’s and don’t have perfect scores on tests, and your GPA isn’t THAT high. Yes, if you were black, you’d probably have gotten in and that’s unfair, but I’m not really surprised that you didn’t get into Harvard as you are now. That said, I wouldn’t be really surprised if you had.</p>
<p>However, if you were Asian or Indian you would have had a much smaller chance, so you don’t have too much to complain about</p>
<p>OP, your character, as evident in your original post and subsequent posts in this thread, must have shown through to the admissions committee at Harvard. That some other admissions committees missed it is unfortunate.</p>
<p>^I really hope you don’t jump to such biased and unsubstantiated conclusions on SAT…</p>
<p>You got great stats, but to be honest, nothing but stats.
Here’s a little advice: stop complaining about race. The truth is, Harvard wants to create their own dream class. They have choice, they have the freedom. And apparently, that class isn’t all middle class white males. They can choose using any factor they want.
I have no problem with feeling resentful that top colleges make admissions a crapshoot. I completely agree there. But why apply to Harvard if you feel so strongly? If you know race is going to be a factor, don’t come here and ***** about it, suck it up. I think you’re qualified, and you definitely agree, but you’re not what Harvard wants this year. I know middle class white males who’ve gone to Harvard, so it’s not like you had no shot.
To everyone: “unqualified” and “not as qualified” is subjective. Adcoms don’t necessarily share your definition of qualified. No one knows an applicant’s full application, except the applicant and the adcom.
Honestly, there’s no reason to complain. I’ll be going to Yale this fall after I turned down Harvard and Stanford. Trust me, you got the better school.
And for reference, I’m not a URM. I’m 30% Asian, 30% white, 20% black, 10%latino, and 10% other.</p>
<p>I second Nikkor’s statement. I’m also an asian with a 2210 (yes, I’m going to place a stereotypical belief that many asians tend to get in with 2300-2400 SAT scores), along with no perfect scores in SAT II’s, and I still got into Harvard. I personally believe that it is the passion/future potential (as someone previously stated) that really sets one person apart from the majority of the crowd. My essays are definitely the thing that helped Harvard decide to give me a second interview, and eventually an acceptance (thus when I read the assistant admission officer’s letter who interviewed me the second time, she wrote a personal note that she loved how passionate and dedicated I was at everything I do)</p>
<p>jsungoh…but… but…u r SiBliNg lEgAcY!!!</p>
<p>^lol. Looks like you’re cracking up :P</p>
<p>Shut up about the OP’s character and his admissions being a mistake. This person is clearly extremely bright. And to answer the quote “And I’m sure there are many African-Americans with higher stats than you too,” that is utter BS. I can’t find 10 blacks with 4.0/2390’s on this world if I tried for the rest of my life.</p>
<p>The OP certainly has a right to be upset. I know many with 2400’s that got lackluster results in this college process.</p>
<p>^There is no question that OP is bright. His integrity, though, is what seems questionable, at least from this thread. Yours does too.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are you serious? You’re telling us to shut up. Then you make a snarky racist comment, and imply that a 2400 SAT score is what HYP should be looking for. </p>
<p>We get it. College admissions are toughening up. But that doesn’t mean we should start pointing fingers at people of different races. That’s called scapegoating. This defense mechanism is already responsible for a lot of hate and stupidity in this world. Why don’t you grow up before babbling and spewing your nonsense all over these boards.</p>
<p>uhmm idk what to say except admissions are not random at all like many think they are. I know three people who all got into harvard, princeton, yale, and stanford. Yes, all three got into all four top colleges, so I do not suspect that each school “randomly” picked them because those odds are astronomical. </p>
<p>But in another example, admissions are also unfair in a way because I also know someone who got into some ivies with a likely letter by completely faking all of her “amazing” ec’s… e.g varsity captain when they never played that sport… sci oly founder/captain and the list goes on.</p>
<p>“I understand it is to create a more diverse school. I just think race should play no factor in the decision. It shouldn’t matter if you are black, white, asian, or indian. It should instead be based strictly on the talent, character and caliber of the applicant.”</p>
<p>There ARE schools that admit solely based on the numbers. Yet they aren’t the schools you guys are all just dying to attend, are they? </p>
<p>Part of the draw of the Ivies and similar schools is that they have a rich and diverse student body, not just a university of 4.0 / 2400’s. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say that you want to be part of their club because it’s so appealing, yet you don’t like how they form the club. If you think all these URM’s, legacies, athletes, etc. are just dragging down the whole caliber of the student body and you’re soooo much more qualified, then why would you want to attend these schools and hang around such loser?</p>
<p>If you want to go to a great school that admits based on the numbers, go to Caltech.</p>
<p>Dean Fitzsimmons once talked about how the Committee’s principles on which the decision-making process is based aren’t very difficult to understand. He said to imagine if you were picking people in your graduating class to be with for the next four years. You wouldn’t pick just the highest scorers on the SAT – I don’t know about you, but at my school, that would be drab. You’d make sure they were smart, but you’d treasure their personal qualities above all in your decisions. And you’d want people from different backgrounds: talent, ethnicity, etc.</p>
<p>Dean Fitzsimmons, during an interview available on youtube, said that the harvard accepted about 300-400 amazing applicants a year, meaning recruited athletes, intel winners, and such and he went on to say that the rest of the class is composed of the staple crop that all ivies run on… 2300+ sat’s and 4.0 g.p.a’s…</p>
<p>Those high-scoring applicants may be more well-rounded, but they’re still incredibly impressive. Nobody gets in with just scores any more. That “stable crop” is full of varsity athletes, even if they never place at the state level, community service organizers, even if they don’t make the national news, poets who write darn good essays and have solid extracurriculars and were published a couple times in a local literary magazines. I promise you, that “stable crop” is still pretty amazing. Yes, sometimes I feel like a few of my classmates are lumps. More often, I discover that that dumb athlete is a frickin’ brilliant modern artist, or that my nondescript, Santa’s-elf-y blockmate ran a charity fundraising campaign whose goal was $1,000 and ended up with $60,000, nbd. Just to provide some perspective on that interview. (I bet the applicant pool is so very impressive, even the WL’d/high rejects, that his view of what a “normal applicant” is is on the high side.)</p>
<p>@felixfelicis: I lol’d when I saw that 
yes I am, but supposedly majority of CC believes that sibling legacy doesn’t help (even though it may have helped me get another “look” on my app) lmao, since my second interviewee did know about the fact/mentioned about my bro going to harvard</p>
<p>A friend had both her and her sister get admitted today.</p>
<p>Agreed, Fitzsimmons said first hand that the personal level is by far the most important with admits.</p>