What are my chances of getting into Harvard College

Chance Me / Match Me!
1

I’m a junior in high school from a traditional South Indian family

School Indian classical Kuchipudi, Folk dance team

School basketball team

Editor of school magazine

Founder of English editorial team

Multilingual- English , Hindi, Telugu, Kannada, Sanskrit, Spanish, German, French

Since we don’t have APs, additional online courses- minds and machines, contract law, intellectual property law, philosophy and critical thinking, journalism, astrophysics, a philosophical road trip, human rights, international human rights, Spanish for learners.

IIT-JEE Level Coaching in Physics, Chemistry and Maths

Major interests- Philosophy, law, Physics.

I have a paper that I’m working on, it’s about Dualism, it’s kind of my take on dualism and some pretty strong evidence to support it.

I can dance with a hula hoop spinning around my waist.

I usually get 10/10 GPA.

Considering I get good scores on the SAT, do I have a good chance at Harvard.

2

We can’t chance you without the SAT scores.

3

Honestly, nobody has a super good chance of getting into Harvard. You can do everything right your whole life and have amazing test scores but if they decide when they get to your application that they have already let in enough basketball players and need more hockey players, you aren’t going to get in. That’s just one example of how aribtrary the system of admission for a top school like that is. The fact of the matter is that if you have good SAT scores, you will meet their base line but then again, so does almost everyone who applies so your chances of admission from there is about 9%. I would recommend looking into more safety schools because almost no one gets into Harvard.

4

Will my chances be better at Princeton ?

5

Doesn’t matter if you apply to Harvard or Princeton or any other Ivy; regardless of how qualified you are, acceptances are a crapshoot at all top-tier schools. If you’re an international student (which wasn’t specified), acceptance at Harvard isn’t higher then 3-4%.

6

I get the sense that you don’t understand the level of competiton you are facing in your country for the few spots at Harvard allocated to India. They honestly could care less about your hula hoop dancing or online classes you claim to have taken unless theiy are dual enrollment with actual scores being posted to your transcripts, I’m sorry to be so blunt but you shouldn’t have your sights on one of the hardest schools to get into in the entire world unless you have some achievements that are least on a national level (preferably international level) that makes Harvard feel that they just have to have you. All the top schools will be like this so Princeton, Stanford , MIT etc will all be very high reach schools for you. Good luck!

7

@Falcon1 I agree and disagree with what you have said. The hula hooping is obviously something you should not emphasize, but online courses, if they are from a legitimate source, are something that can be worth emphasizing if they show something important about you. Though this may be perhaps I am biased. (I am also a prospective philosophy major who wants to go into law, and I took many online philosophy and law courses, and made an emphasis about them in my application (I even wrote my CommonApp essay on them and detailed them significantly in my Additional Info section. I ended up getting into UChicago a month and half ago with average grades and test scores (by their standards), and no hooks.)

Obviously, it all depends on how you present it, and how important the things are to you will truly be reflected on the application. But to say they couldn’t care less about them, well that’s just not looking at things for how important they may be to some people. Minute things may be more meaningful to some people. Again, it’s all about how you present it.

@DiyaYolo We talked about this already, so I don’t need to add any new comments. You said though, that you were more interested in Cornell? What happened with that?

8

Competition from India is stiff. Only harder place is from China. Not many non-athlete Indian kids have a chance at Ivies unless you have all of the following:

High SAT scores (2300 plus)
High class rank (top 1-5%)
EC of international or national prominence

Without all of these, and a compelling story your chances are quite low. Also note that only 2 ivies are need blind for internationals. The rest are need aware which means they will give you FA only if you fit a profile for which they are seeking to fill.