I am just curious. In my school its usually two or three kids out of 300 to 400ish and typically one Asian boy, a girl, and an athletic smart kid. No one really expects the former of the two to get in and then they do and everyone is like “that makes sense.” Is this the case for everyone else?
What MORE do you want to know?: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics
Or, to put it another way: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/making-harvard-feeder-schools
In other words, if your high school is not included in the above schools, it may seem completely random which students from your high school receive the “fat envelope” – but believe me, it’s NOT random. Admissions is seeing something specific from those students, and IMHO it’s the teacher recommendations that are the “tipping point.”
This school in New Jersey (NOT a prestigious school at all – the opposite) had four kids admitted to Harvard this year.
A few of the kids seem politically active, one is a Dreamer. One boy’s parents own a dollar store. Interesting.
Harvard and other schools are actually prospecting for students who do not come from the kind of background Gibby describes. I think an achieving or interesting student from schools that do not usually send students to Harvard et al can do very well with admissions.
My kid’s HS had 13 kids go to Ivy’s (2 to Harvard, both Asian girls) or MIT or CMU yet rarely gets one kid into Stanford (none this year). Even though Stanford is like a 20 or 30 minute drive away.
Are they truly prospecting? My completely unsupported impression is that in the competitive hunt for tuition$ and the elusive low accept rates which associate a college as elite, the marketing to students seem to be increasingly more voluminous and aggressive. On my 3 rd kid right now getting ready to apply. All 3 with similar stats, # 3 seems to be receiving much more literature and emails from the HYPS and their ilk. I’m much too cynical to accept it seriously as to be impressed. However I am open to encouragement. Compromise please elaborate on the increased opportunities for those i overachieving students from your average socially and culturally diverse schools. Much appreciated!
compmom ....not compromise
I agree with @compmom. Harvard is constantly looking for interesting students from all over. Furthermore there is really no such thing as a tipping point. It is more of a look at the complete picture with all the features considered
Marketing is different from the kind of prospecting I was referring to. Those mailings don’t mean much at all, no.
Read “The Gatekeepers” about Wesleyan. There is a certain amount of social engineering going on in the name of diversity, and top colleges talk a lot about socioeconomic diversity.
There are schools in NYC that funnel talented low income kids into prep programs that then allow them to go to the rigorous high schools that then funnel them into top schools, where diversity stats improve every year as a result.
I read an interview in which an admissions person, I think at Harvard but can’t be sure, said that all things being equal (grades, stats, EC’s, character etc.) that elite schools would take a kid from an underrepresented school over a kid from a private prep schools because the level of benefit from the experience would be so much greater.
I cannot confirm any of this of course, but I have seen it in real life, where one kid from a mediocre high school who is a self-starter gets in, but in the private school where the ambitious parents sent their kids, no one got into the elite schools (though of course they did very well).
ps also if a kid accomplishes something wonderful, say, by writing a play, I think it is seen differently if they did it on their own in a less privileged environment versus a kid at Andover or Exeter with a stellar playwriting course- just as an example
@compmom speaks the truth here, @j7thletter.
I’ve been doing alumni interviewing for Harvard for 20 years and I see them actively marketing. I don’t think they are looking for the full-pay tuition. They get a lot of credibility from making their education accessible.
marketing = more applications = more money = more applicants = lower acceptance rate = higher ranking.
Students with hooks (athletes, legacy, famous, URM, etc) and students who are extremely accomplished both in the classroom and outside of it. They win awards, write books, publish research, build apps, and are genuinely interested, more or less, in the field that they want to study at college