<p>Is everyone definitely going to Harvard if you get off wait-list. Personally, I’m not so sure.</p>
<p>I am for sure. Harvard > Wash U any day. Princeton, I don’t know so much.</p>
<p>Me too for sure. As long as I get more financial aid than my state school to make my parents go with it.</p>
<p>im not so sure, if I get into Stanford I’ll probably go there. To be honest I am worried about the weather situation over there on the east coast. But if neither school (harvard/stanford) lets me off their god forsaken waitlist then I am going to Dartmouth so I’ll have to deal anyway</p>
<p>I’m like 95% Harvard over Penn, with the 5% dealing with financial aid, which I don’t expect to be significantly lower at Harvard (if anything I hope it to be higher).</p>
<p>But we only have a ~10% (I don’t think anyone knows for sure) of getting in, which for most of us is our main concern.</p>
<p>I’m having a very hard time because the more I talk to people, the more it seems to me that I will get a better education at princeton, have more fun, and enjoy it more. Everyone I talk to who went to Princeton is literally in love with it. I don’t think this is as true with harvard.</p>
<p>At least 10% is better odds than getting in via the regular pool. Is the Z list included in the waitlist calculations?</p>
<p>^I assuem you’re kidding. 10% here is definitely not better than the regular 7-something%. Here everyone is of comparable quality, whereas the regular pool has many subpar applicants.</p>
<p>HHopeful2 is definitely right, gunther. In fact, I wonder if the 10% (or whatever it is) “chance” we all have now is really mainly just chance, because Harvard has designated us as fairly equal in ability by placing us on the WL (discounting legacies and other “political” waitlistees).</p>
<p>just out of curiosity, how many of you guys are legacy kids?</p>
<p>I’m not so sure about the fairly equal bit. Harvard was faced with just three choices for all 30,000 applicants: Accept, reject, or waitlist. I think within the waitlist there’s a lot of room for more qualified and less qualified.</p>
<p>I think that there are those on the waitlist who at the last minute the admissions office fought over whether to accept them or someone else. At the same time, I assume there are people on the waitlist who would never have made it on the waitlist had they shrunk the waitlist by a hundred people.</p>
<p>However, I’d assume this only applies to the extremes; I agree Boggler that a lot of applicants probably seem about equal to them. I’m just not sure the 65-75 they accept will include many “unsures” or whether it will mainly be those the admissions office came extremely close to accepting.</p>
<p>Sorry if this makes no sense – it made sense in my head :)</p>
<p>My son is totally set with Stanford. He decided to remain on the wl so that he could get closure on every school. After all the time and the amount of work that went into each application, it seemed anti-climactic to leave something on the table.</p>
<p>With so many on the Harvard waitlist that do not sound like they would accept, it may drag out the process even longer!!</p>
<p>How much of the regular applicant pool is completely unqualified? 20%? Maybe 30%. 10% of the waitlist isn’t great, but it’s not awful.</p>
<p>@floridahopeful, the waitlist yield is generally high, though people do turn it down for various reasons. It still won’t last into July, they say.</p>
<p>Could anyone give their thoughts on Princeton v Harvard?</p>
<p>Urban vs. Suburban
Good undergrad (It’s not as bad as people think) vs. Undergraduate Focus
Proximity to Boston vs. Train ride from NYC
Nice Campus vs. GORGEOUS Campus
Slightly more diverse student body vs. less diverse
Great academics either way, but if you have something specific, we can compare.</p>
<p>I’ve heard that Princeton has better academics and better partying. These are two big considerations for me…</p>
<p>Princeton almost certainly has better partying. That’s not a high hurdle where Harvard is concerned, but Princeton is known for good parties, especially of the mainstream, frat-with-class sort. “Better academics” is practically impossible; what Princeton has is a different style of academics. Harvard isn’t that much bigger than Princeton, and it doesn’t have that many more graduate students in academic disciplines, but it plays more like a really large university, in that if you want a lot of faculty contact you have to pursue it aggressively yourself, and it’s possible to have a perfectly good career doing the minimum in one’s classes and focusing on other things (research, the Crimson, one’s own writing, politics, etc.). Princeton plays more like an LAC – closer connections, fewer places to hide. It has fewer ginormous introductory lecture classes in popular subjects, and a requirement that everybody (not just honors candidates, and not just in some concentrations) produce a substantial senior essay under the guidance of a faculty advisor.</p>
<p>The Harvard Gazette now has an article discussing the high yield for this year–76%. Also they state the prediction of taking 65-75 off the wait list. Good luck CCers.</p>