To start off, I do not mean this to be snooty. What I mean by ‘not qualified’ are those people that apply more as a joke than anything. I’ve had a couple people at my school with very low rankings and GPA who knew they would be rejected but still applied regardless just to say “I got rejected from Harvard” (don’t ask me why they wanted to pay the $70 dollar app fee for a joke lol). This could also include individuals that just don’t recognize they aren’t as competitive as they may think, or have been disillusioned by their parents or unnecessarily pushed to apply. I’m asking more out of curiosity than anything. We all know that Harvard is a reach for everyone and most applicants are all incredibly qualified. But what about those who aren’t?
Maybe you could explain to us who is and who isn’t qualified to go to Harvard and why.
JustOneDad sorry! I didn’t even think about that. I guess that would be dependent on personal opinion. I would say 3.0 GPA or lower, very few rigorous courses, no really involved ECs, etc. I didn’t want to list specific stats because on the stats side I’m not sure what is a hard pass on Harvard’s end.
Oh, you mean really unqualified.
Harvard is on record as saying 80% of applicants could do the work on their campus. That would infer that 80% of applicants have the GPA and test scores to be admitted. So approximately 20% of students are not qualified.
Thanks gibby! What would you speculate the reasons that those 20% of unqualified applicants apply?
they want to hang their “rejected” letter on their HS’s “Wall of Shame” wall??
who knows?? who cares??
MOST students who apply to Harvard will be rejected…the “degree” of rejection is the same for all rejected applicants.
@menloparkmom is correct. Some unqualified students maybe throw in an application just to see what happens, others may have been pressured by their parents to do so, but what does it matter? For every 100 students who apply to Harvard, on average, 95 will be rejected including famous people like this: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=3201481
That’s interesting. Yeah I asked more out of curiosity than anything.
Our daughter is a student at Harvard and works in the Admissions office. Their standard reply is in line with what Gibby has indicated.
Saying 80% could be qualified to do the work is being gracious. It means little- after all, how hard is it to go to class and turn in work and squeak through?
They want more than kids who can do the class work. You need to translate that statement out of “adcom speak.” My guess, based on another situation, is roughly 50% won’t make it past first cut.
You have at least two kinds who suffer initially: those who don’t have the hs performance basis and those who may, but don’t have the rest of the picture, including the thinking skills at the level an elite can- and does- expect. And the ability to translate that on an app to a tippy top.
I believe Duke has stated that they do a rough initial pass through the applications and eliminate 50% right off the bat. If this applies to Harvard then about 17,000-18,000 are actually competitive applicants for the 1700 spots. I’ve always thought that about 6,000- 8,000 candidates are truly amazing in any given year, even though the number of applications has risen from 20,000 to 37,000 over the last decade. I feel that any one of these 6,000-8000 students could get one of the 2000 acceptances and sometimes it just boils down to serendipity. I’m leaving out the discussion of hooked students in this crude assessment.