<p>would it help or hurt you in admissions if you wrote in the additional info section that harvard is your first choice and then gave a short explanation that it is the best school for your major and minor and has great recruitment?</p>
<p>It certainly wouldn’t hurt. Why would you think that?</p>
<p>Harvard has an 80% yield, is likely the most well-known school in the country, if not the world, and is almost always ranked first. It assumes (usually correctly) that it is the top choice of almost every applicant.</p>
<p>OP: I think it’s great you explain why you want to attend. I mentioned this in my supplementary essay, as well as in an essay I put the additional information section. They know that everyone who applies there wants to attend there, so it’s important you tell them why, both in your application, and, maybe even more importantly, at your interview.</p>
<p>I don’t think it will help. Harvard has the top yield in the country and knows that it’s the first choice of most applicants. Harvard is more interested in what you have to offer Harvard than what Harvard has to offer you.</p>
<p>Only if your major/minor were so obscure and your passion for it so strong, and Harvard so far ahead of every other school in that field, would it be convincing.</p>
<p>If you say Harvard has the best Econ department and that Harvard grads are heavily recruited by big banks and consulting firms, you’re going to get laughed out of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>It’s not going to help you</p>
<p>“If you say Harvard has the best Econ department and that Harvard grads are heavily recruited by big banks and consulting firms, you’re going to get laughed out of the applicant pool.” Kwu</p>
<p>I lol’ed</p>
<p>isn’t harvard everyone’s first choice? i mean really how could you rank anything ahead of the world’s best school?</p>
<p>idk maybe some british people like Oxford or Cambridge more?</p>
<p>I understand that Harvard is the best of the best, but you have to realize that not everyone acts as enthusiastically about Harvard as we cc’ers do. It’s important to display to them that you will be an active part of their community, and that you plan to add to their college by participating in a variety of extracurricular activities and sports. They don’t want students who plan to sit in their rooms and play Halo. </p>
<p>That being said, saying, “I love Harvard” doesn’t improve your chance of admissions. Explaining why you are passionate about receiving a Harvard education, and what you plan to channel that enthusiasm into while on campus, however, is crucial.</p>
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<p>No.</p>
<p>Plenty of people prefer different types of colleges - ie LACs, or a college which offers a more focused, pre-professional program (ie. Wharton School at UPenn), or would prefer to focus more on the sciences (Caltech/Staford/MIT). Perhaps they’re looking for a different type of environment - ie. a women’s college.</p>
<p>It’s silly to generalise everyone’s needs and preferences.</p>
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<p>Very easily? Because if a RANK was all that was drawing you to a particular university, then that’s a pretty vapid and superficial reason?</p>
<p>As for myself, Harvard is not my first choice at all actually. Through my personal interaction with both universities, Yale has been by far the more attractive - it’s been much more personal, supportive and generally seemingly more interested in its students. From accounts of friends, it also seems that the parties and social scene at Yale are louder and more fun (and in that regard, more suited to my personality).</p>
<p>People choose colleges for a whole number of reasons, the least of which (I hope) is the rank that that college happens to be!</p>
<p>My son (computer science major) turned down Harvard for Carnegie Mellon. His first choice had been MIT, but he didn’t get in. He told his interviewer that Harvard wasn’t his first choice. Harvard really truly doesn’t care.</p>
<p>“isn’t harvard everyone’s first choice? i mean really how could you rank anything ahead of the world’s best school?”</p>
<p>I’d rather go to Brown. Open Curriculum ftw :D</p>
<p>Harvard is not everyone’s first choice. And I’m not British and I do like Cambridge more, just maybe not Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. One of my friends there would have rather gone to Stanford or a 7 year medical program, but she was rejected.</p>
<p>Personally I like Yale better. It’s ridiculous to say that Harvard is the #1 school for everyone.</p>
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<p>Exactly. </p>
<p>And from a non-American perspective (non-British as well for that matter)</p>
<p>I would prefer Yale to Harvard, and Oxford to them both.</p>
<p>i’m saying if you’re applying to harvard and you’re serious about getting in then obviously its one of your first choices if not your first choice. telling the adcom that would not do anything. it would just prove to the adcom you are applying to harvard because you want to get in, like literally thousands of other kids.</p>
<p>I heard from my fencing coach that Yale treats its undergrads better than Harvard does - and he went to Harvard.</p>
<p>Hearing lots of nice things about Yale here… I guess that is why people do turn down the alleged “Best school in the world?”</p>
<p>I also don’t think telling Harvard that it is your first choice will help much.</p>
<p>On a sidenote, of course there do exist people who prefer other schools to Harvard but they are obviously a minority. It is also a fact that most of Harvard-Yale cross-admits choose to matriculate at Harvard.</p>