<p>I go to a very competitive hs in the Midwest as an underclass men. Due to the competiveness of my school, there are usually 2 or three ivy admits each year. Last year, their was a superstar who was admited to all the ivues but finally settled on stanford. I guess it was cause of his insane ec's. Usajmo 9 and 10 grade, usamo 11 and 12. Rsi, Us physics olympiad, recognized by obama etc... This year 7kids applied for early admit that I know of who were asian American. 4deffered, 3rejected. So what does it really take to get accepted? These kids all had 3.9-4.0 gpa'a, took 7-12 aps, got 4-5s on all of them, scored 34-36 on the act and 2300-2400 on sat. The 4 who were deffered had research, aime, chem olympiad, leadership positions in deca or hosa, or were state lvl varsity athletes. The three rejected had less prestigious ec's. </p>
<p>The only surefire ticket for anyone to be accepted is to be a recruited athlete with great academic stats. It works regardless of race. I personally know a fair number of Asians who played that card to gain admission to HPS, Columbia, and Penn. </p>
<p>Also national team is also good, like that superstar you talked about, aime and chemistry olympiad is rather easy to get into, you said research,… OR varsity athletes right? One of these awards alone is definitely not enough, you need to be a combination of multiple of what you mentioned like the one who was accepted, he was not just one of the above but rather a combination of above. </p>
<p>Oh,no I meant that three of them had those three ec’s together not seperately. Then there’s the athlete guy who is one the top in the state. </p>
<p>IMHO: If the word “Asian” were removed from the entire thread – and we just assume the Harvard aspirant is just a white kid – nothing would change. With an approximate ~3% admit rate in RD, it’s the definition of crap shoot.</p>
<p>(Caveat: my perspective is biased – I was a 25th percentile SAT/ACT scorer (25th for my Ivy target schools, not 25th overall) who rec’d mulitiple Ivy admits all while being Asian – I clearly admit my life experience as “one who made it despite the odds” may cloud my sympathy for fellow Asians who wonder about anti-Asian bias)</p>
<p>I’m an Asian who applied SCEA from a hella competitive school, and I got in even though my test scores were below average for my “race.” I scored a 2240 superscore SAT with less than 720+ subject test scores, but I think that my extracurriculars were pretty good.</p>
<p>Do what you enjoy to the max.</p>
<p>The essays are really the only intangible factor on all these discussion threads (results, chance, etc.), so I’m gonna assume that it takes a killer essay to get in. </p>
<p>@triplehelixva - Recommendations and interview reports are also unknowns, as is the academic reputation of the high school the student attends. We also don’t know whether any given candidate submitted a shoddy application - excellent qualifications don’t help if you cannot present them coherently - as in the original message in this thread. There’s a lot more behind the scenes than meets the eye.</p>
<p>@BldrDad Right. The only things we know for sure are GPA and SAT/ACT. GPA isn’t even comparable across schools, though, so really standardized testing is the only thing we can look at and understand fully. And I’m guessing that standardized testing is maybe 25% of the application review process at most. </p>
<p>SAT Is and ACTs aren’t anywhere near 25% of the application review process. It’s probably more like 5-10%. If you add in SAT IIs and AP scores, maybe you get to 15-20%. If your scores are below the competitive range, they probably loom larger and mean more – they may contribute to a rejection notwithstanding other strong qualities. But great scores will just be one factor of many that get considered, and they tend to have less importance because they don’ t do much to distinguish one strong candidate from another.</p>
<p>^^ To quote William Fitzsimmons: <a href=“A change for the better — Harvard Gazette”>http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/03/a-change-for-the-better/</a></p>
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<p>I was accepted SCEA for the Class of '19. I’m 100% Asian and I’m NOT a legacy or an athlete. I’m a theatre kid with all-around good grades, and a special interest in English. I got a 35 on the ACT (36E, 36M, 33R, 36S) and all 800’s on SAT Bio E, Chem, and Math II. I tried my best to write really interesting and funny essays, and I think that’s one thing that really helped. Best of luck in the RD round!</p>