<p>Hypothetical situation:</p>
<p>You come rolling in with:
2400 SAT
four SAT II, all 800s
4.0 UW and valedictorian
36 ACT every section
Great Essay and Recs</p>
<p>Can you get in with all of the above and mediocre ECs? I'd just like to see how big a factor academics is.</p>
<p>Yes of course you can get in.</p>
<p>yes. yes, you can. that is basically me, since i don't have too many national/international ECs and i didn't found a charity. define mediocre though</p>
<p>Not necessarily.</p>
<br>
<p>Great Essay and Recs</p>
<br>
<p>Harvard does not consider these "academic" criteria -- it considers them as part of the "personal qualities" portion of the application, along with the interview. A "great" essay and "great" recs will, by definition, give the admissions office information about your personality, kindness, curiosity, creativity, enthusiasm, and all the other non-academic qualities that make them want to admit a student.</p>
<p>Barring real problems in other areas of the application, like indicators that you're dishonest or cruel, it's possible to get in on academics alone, but in that case, it's not the essay and recs that will do it -- it's the research you've published, the Intel project you designed, the math medals you've won, etc.</p>
<p>Job, school clubs, etc.</p>
<p>I saw a site that said that the REJECTION rate is a mere 2.5% for candidates who have been ranked in the TOP FOR ALL PERSONAL QUALITIES. I bet SAT scores mean less and less than we think...</p>
<p>An elaboration:</p>
<p>In fashioning each incoming class, the Harvard Admissions Committee carefuly reviews each student's admissions materials. Those materials include: 1) the common application, including essays, and the required parts of the Harvard supplement, 2) the high school transcript, school report, and mi-year school report - all submitted by a student's guidance counselor, 3) standardized test scores - submitted by the College Board, 4) teacher and guidance counselor recommendations, 5) optional on-campus and/or off-campus interviewer evaluation, 6) optional personal statements (found on the Harvard Supplement) in addition to the required essays, and 7) optional music tapes, artwork slides, or samples of academic work. As your admissions materials are received at teh admissions office, they are stamped dated, sorted, and organized in a folder, called your "file," along with a scorecard, called your "reading sheet," that is used to evaluate your eligbility for admissions.</p>
<p>Here's how the admissions office reads your file. Each Harvard admissions officer is assigned to geographic regions of the world, called "dockets," where they travel each year to recruit prospective applicants and become familiar with the local high schools in the area. The first admissions officer who reads your file is the officer assigned to your docket. After the docket reader has looked through and graded your file on the reading sheet, the folder is passed on to two more readers, who examine and evaluate all materials on separate reading sheets. The information from your three reading sheets is compiled onto a single sheet of paper. Once a final reading sheet has been prepared for all applicants, the admissions committee convenes to discuss the eligibility of all applicants from your docket. Finally, there are 10 days of committee sessions, claled "rerun," during which your file is reviewed once more, taking into account any late-breaking admissions information you've submitted. After rerun, a final decision is made to either accept, reject, wait-list or offer one-year deferred admission. </p>
<p>....</p>
<p>How does Harvard decide whom to accept? The admissions committee evaluates each applicant's file on the basis of two broad categories: academics and extracurricular/personal qualities. Academics are weighed about three times more heavily in the admissions evaluation than are extracurricular personal qualities. Aout three-quarters of your evaluation hinges on the academic rating, which is based principally on the high school transcript and the standardized test scores. The remaining quarter of the evaluation rests on your extracurricular/personal ranking, consisting of: (1) extracurricular/athletic involvement, indicated primarily on the activities chart in the common application, and (2) personal qualities, like integrity, honesty, and altruism, indicated primarily in the teacher recommendations, the alumni/ae interview assessment, and essay responses to prompts given in the common application and the Harvard supplement.</p>
<p>You will be given "special preference' in the admissions process if you are a legacy, recruited athlete, or racial, ethnic, or geographic minority. Applicants with tehse valued statuses get an unspecificed extra advantage in the admissions evaluation that reduces emphasis on academic and extracurricular/personal categories accordingly.</p>
<p>Harvard's academic rating - on a scale of one (high) to six (low) - consists primarily of three parts: (1) the average of your highest SAT I math and verbal test scores (or converted ACT test scores), (2) the average or your three highest SAT II subject tests (this average is bumped higher or lower by AP and IB exam scores in the same areas as your SAT II tests, and (3) a standardized determination of high school class rank in terms of high school class size, according to either actual class rank, percentile rank, or grade point average weighed for honors and AP courses, (depending on what your high school uses). Academic initiative outside of the classroom, demonstrated by participation in summer programs, special projects, research papers, or independent studies, can also help your academic rating. The honors/awards chart on the common application helps to confirm admissions judgments about your academic ability and achievement.</p>
<p>Class rank is weighed most heavily among all academic factors, approximateily twice as much as SAT I scores, and about three times as much as SAT II (+AP/IB) scores. The admissions committee determines class rank by weighting: (1) the difficulty of the classes you took out of those available at your high school, (2) the grades you got in those classes, and (3) how your grades weighed for honrs, AP, IB, and college classes, compared to those of other students in your high school class. "We look first at grades in college-bound courses," says Senior Admissions Officer David Evans because "[t]he best indication of future excellence is past excellence. Three-quarters of the applicant pool graduates in the top 10% of their high school classes; most applicants who are accepted at Harvard have overall grade averages of A- or higher. "A student with a B+ average," Evans says, "only gets in if there is much more to the student. It must be the case that the B+ doesn't represent the student."</p>
<p>Although admissions officer allege that "four years of high school are more telling than four hours on a Saturday morning," SAT I and SAT II (+AP/IB) standardized test scores, all combined, count for just as much in the admissions evaluation as extracurriculars, recommendations, essays, and interviews combined, and almost as much as class rank. There are no cut-off scores for the standardized tests, but averages tend to be extremely high.... Harvard rejects 3 out of 5 applicants with perfect SAT scores.</p>
<p>The highest academic rating of one is reserved for students who rank first or second in their high school class, score over 700 on at least five SAT tests, score 4 or 5 on at least three AP tests or 6 or 7 on three IB tests, and show academic initiative outside the class. Applicants with successively lesser ranks and scores are given a two, three, four, five, or six for academic rating. Roughly 10% of applicants to Harvard are given academic ratings of one, about half have academic ratings of two or three, and approximately forty percent have academic ratings of four, five and six. Academics ones are virtual locks for admission.</p>
<p>Harvard's extracurricular/personal rating, much more subjective than the academic rating, comprises the admissions committee's determination of the depth or your extracurricular committment, leadership, and achievement as well as personal qualities, like concern for others and demonstrated ability to overcome socioeconomic/educational disadvantage or physical/mental disability. Like the academic rating, the extracurricular/personal rating is ranked on a scale of one to six for each applicant. The admissions committee evaluates your extracurricular merit according to the employment and activities charts that you fill out on the common application. These charts ask for years of participation for each extracurricular committent, hours of participation per week, and any special leadership positions held or honors earned.</p>
<ul>
<li>"Truth about Harvard"</li>
</ul>
<p>
[quote]
Roughly 10% of applicants to Harvard are given academic ratings of one, about half have academic ratings of two or three, and approximately forty percent have academic ratings of four, five and six. Academics ones are virtual locks for admission.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hmmm... so 10% are "virtual locks" for admission, but around 9% get in. And then there are star athletes, minorities, musicians, artists, etc... Math, anyone?</p>
<p>Hey, Chancellor_Phoenix, great, detailed citation from the "Truth about Harvard." I'm just a little bit curious about the phrase "Academic ones are virtual locks for admission"- It seems to me that upwards of a quarter of the applicant pool meets those criteria; surely they cannot all be "virtual locks for admission"? It seems as though a very large number of CC'ers have had those stats and have been waitlisted or even rejected outright. Perhaps Harvard is stingier in terms of handing out "academic 1's" than initially advertised?</p>
<p>i agree to what snafu851 said... "academic ones are virtual locks" practically contradicts all harvard claims to look for in a person. academics just aren't enough...</p>
<p>Yeah, there's also this discrepency:
[quote]
Class rank is weighed most heavily among all academic factors, approximateily twice as much as SAT I scores, and about three times as much as SAT II (+AP/IB) scores.
[/quote]
[quote]
SAT I and SAT II (+AP/IB) standardized test scores, all combined, count for just as much in the admissions evaluation as extracurriculars, recommendations, essays, and interviews combined, and almost as much as class rank.
[/quote]
Although a nice read, I am highly skeptical of any publication that will manipulate their facts that much in only two paragraphs.</p>
<p>Who wrote the article?</p>
<p>Maybe CC has much higher standards than most Harvard applicants. Think about it...we found this site because we REALLY care about our admission and want to be informed to the optimal level. An applicant that does not seek to learn about this process is at a disadvantage and may have lesser credentials. This is a possibility.</p>