I guess I didn’t think really strategically going into admissions, but I have really strong ecs (unique) and was wondering why I dint get an ec/work additional rec? Do you think it would be too late to get someone to submit an addition rec before March? Basically this would be as an update (I applied RD).
Sending an additional letter of recommendation at this point is worthwhile if:
- The writer can share a perspective of you that is unique from that of your other writers;
- The writer is going to write specifically about some accomplishment of yours that is extremely impressive;
- The writer is going to write about you in the highest superlatives;
- The writer himself/herself is prominent.
In other words, if the pope wrote a letter about you describing how, in your role as his private theologian, your recently-completed seminal work of theology fundamentally changed his understanding of some point of Catholic doctrine, and said you had the greatest theological mind since St. Thomas Aquinas, that would be a letter worth sending.
If the director of the adult daycare center, however, writes a letter warmly describing your hard work, dedication, and uplifting, cheerful spirit as you play checkers with the old folks, put this letter in your personal files, show it to your mother or father, share it with you best friend, but don’t send it to Harvard.
Based upon your post in the Princeton forum, I do not think that an additional recommendation about your EC’s will override what your two teachers have already said about you in their LoR’s. Harvard is an academic institution and Admissions makes their decisions based upon your scholastic potential – and I’m guessing from your grades that your teachers did not write that you are one of the top students at your school. FWIW: I think you are just now coming to terms with the reality of the situation and are grasping at straws. I don’t even think a letter from the Pope would help you at this point (sorry).
@gibby
I’m definitely no where close to an expert on Harvard admissions or admissions in general, but I think your post may come across as unintentionally harsh.
I agree that another letter would not help (though, I have to admit, admissions would probably be damn impressed by one from the pope), but (to me) your post came across as saying that her grades have killed her chances for Harvard.
I’ve seen from a few sources (inc a talk I had with a Harvard alum/former Harvard admissions aide) that admissions doesn’t consider grades nearly as harshly after they decide that the admit can get by with C’s at Harvard. A few B’s on her transcript, maybe putting her around a 3.8, shouldn’t be a deal-breaker if all else is solid. It’s a stretch, but she could even be at the top of her school in her recommenders’ eyes if it’s particularly competitive.
I have to side closer to @notjoe on this one
“Harvard is an academic institution and Admissions makes their decisions based upon your scholastic potential – and I’m guessing from your grades that your teachers did not write that you are one of the top students at your school.”
I must have missed where the poster indicated that teacher recommendations weren’t that great. I saw one post where he/she indicated that teacher recommendations were good. As well, measured by the poster’s test scores, he/she has lots and lots of academic potential. That’s what standardized tests are good for: giving an idea of a student’s reach, if not his or her grasp as of yet.
I don’t really see enough information from the poster to tell whether any updates might help the poster.
@gibby they did write that I am one of the top students, and/or my GPA/rank could tell them that. I’m trying to decide whether to respond to your rude comment or not. But since your comment was kinda of baseless and irrelevant to my situation (seeing you know basically nothing about me, my achievements, or my aptitudes), I’ll just ignore it (sorry). Like I don’t even understand if your being serious or not? Your comment doesn’t use any lines of reasoning that convince me of how you claim to the conclusion that I have no chances (I said my recs were good?). Are you upset or something? Is it the "y’all"that turns you off. I’m from the Northeast 36 on ACT reading? Do you think I’m a dumb URM?
@notjoe @julianstanley Thank you guys for actually adding dimension to this thread!
Anyways back to the situation. My grade issues are related to a illness, looking at the situation now I’m guessing it’s more pertinent to send an update about that now since my midyear transcript just went out.
The rec was from a structural engineer that I’ve worked for three years worked. I’ve done a building extracurricular every year, and basically we learn how to check if a building is structurally sound using engineering software, and basic physics calculations. I do it as part of a program, and I’m one of the few girls there.
Ehh… I know it’s not quite on par with a rec from the Pope! 
And do you think it could serve any purpose? Now I’m learning towards no because I should address my unrepresentative grades. I’m guessing my lines of reasoning is that it would add a dimension that I’m at least historically decent at physics/math and he’s known me for the past few years, even if my grades aren’t perfect in those areas. And perhaps, it’s not that I’m grasping for straws, I just wanted to send an update since I don’t have any major awards to update them with. Senior year of high school nothing culminating happens really, our GPA isn’t calculated anymore, no awards etc.
My math grades are literally the weak chain in my application (and physics this one quarter), I’ve read my recs, tests scores in range, great extracurriculars, good CA essay, bomb supplement about moving furniture around, awards, interesting person.
But most importantly, maybe, I have some hope.
Something that a lot of people evidently lack on this forum.
Hmm. I’m guess I’m hyped about this now. @gibby please use your own posting history as you used mine. Anyways:
No one on this forum, not even me, can give you a meaningful chance.
Why?
- Because the factors of admissions that can be readily apprehended in a forum post (GPA, SAT scores, etc) are in many ways the least important in our process.
- Because listing the school you go to or EC's you are involved in does not communicate the degree to which you are a vibrant member of the community, does not communicate what your coaches or teachers or mentors will say about you, and those are the things we care about.
- Because it does not include any information about the interview, which is another critical insight into the candidacy of any prospective applicant.
- Because a forums post cannot communicate the complexity of an applicant's life story, circumstances, and so forth; even if they were to replicate all the answers to their essay questions, we still have additional data external to the application that we consider in understanding an applicant's context.
- Because of a billion other reasons along the way.
I understand that chancing may be fun, or a way to blow off steam, or just something to do because we haven’t made the app available yet. I don’t want anyone who isn’t aware of this to be misled into thinking that CC chances are accurate or meaningful in any way (they aren’t and could never be!).
I’m sure you’re a wonderful applicant, as are the thousands of students who are rejected every year. Admissions Officers use essays and teacher recommendations to help them distinguish between one high performing applicant and another – and we are not the ones reading those. The only true way to really know your chances, is to toss your application into the ring and see what happens. Best of luck to you.
@gibby
“In an average American high school, you would probably need to be at least one of the top five students in the class to have a shot if you are unhooked.
And yet, when I look through the stats of accepted students in the Class of 2019 SCEA decision thread, I see a smattering of accepted students with 3.7 and 3.8 unweighted GPA’s and I’m assuming that those students are not ranked as the top five student’s in their class. So, I guess there is still hope for some less than perfect students after all!”
??? I like how you post this, but you shoot me down. I must be a special case, no?
I apologize for being overly harsh. I made several assumptions, which may not be true. My first assumption was that a student who says they are getting all grades between 87 and 89 is probably in the middle of the class, not the top. That assumption let me to believe that your teachers would not be writing that you were one of the top students in your class. It was purely a guess, a hunch, and I admit I could be wrong.
That’s true, but those students are the exceptions… My guess is that accepted students with lower GPA’s have something extraordinary in their file to compensate for their GPA – recruited athlete, legacy, concert violinist, debate team champ etc.
I’m wondering whether instead of sending an update concerning your illness and its effect on your grades whether this may be a situation where a call from your guidance counselor may be more effective. Coming from the student, an update that says, “My grades fell down because I was sick,” may be credited as true, but it’s difficult to come off as not special pleading. A call from the student’s guidance counselor, on the other hand, might be taken as a more objective, third-party observation - “Dancelance was ill during this semester and it is reflected in her grades. She is an otherwise outstanding student.” It would have been better if the guidance counselor had sent a note with your mid-year report mentioning this. Admissions deadlines approach, and as they approach, it becomes increasingly more difficult to integrate new information into the overall picture. Thus, updates sent at this late date need to be of a greater import and urgency than what would have been appropriate to include in the original application…
I really, really hope that you at least mentioned your engineering extracurricular somewhere in your application. It is a great extracurricular activity. It would have been very appropriate to include a letter of recommendation from whomever supervised you in this activity with your original application. However, my own view is that it’s late in the game to make much more use of this, if you haven’t already. Unless you can tie a letter of recommendation to something unusual that arose from the activity, I’m not sure it’s appropriate material for an update. An example might be if you and your team did your usual safety analysis, and found a major safety problem with an existing building in your community, and if it was serious enough to merit press attention. The headline, then, becomes, “Dancelance saves thousands from unsafe structure.” Or something.
On the matter of grades. Much depends, I think, on what sort of high school you attend, and what your grades are in context to the rest of your class. Harvard formally doesn’t use class rank to help make admissions decisions, but it’s clear that they generally want kids who are very near or at the top of their class, in terms of grades. They don’t care if you’re first or second or third or fifth. But my impression is that generally, they want kids from the top cluster of a school’s graduating class. So, as an example, if you’re in a class of 200 students, and there are 5 kids with a 4.0 unweighted, and another 10 with a 3.9+, then you’re gonna run into some headwinds at 3.8 or below. If that’s the case, you’re good, but just not that good.
On the other hand, if the highest GPA in your class of 200 is a 3.95, and there are only five or 10 students with 3.8 or better, then if you have a 3.8. you’re going to look pretty good.
So - bottom line - if I were in your position, I would not send an update, either about illness or the extracurricular. However, I would ask my guidance counselor to call the admission folks to provide a little more background concerning your mid-year grades. That’s my two cents.
I wish you well. Good luck as the application process comes to a close.
^^ I think @notjoe’s suggestion is the way to go, especially if your grades were exemplary before your illness.
Unless otherwise informed, I think Admissions offices assume that a senior who has a downward trend in their grades is having a senior slump. And that doesn’t bode well for the student in the admissions process.
Even if a student sends an update letter about having an illness, which caused their grades to fall, colleges want to hear confirmation from an adult in a supervisory capacity at your high school, someone like your guidance counselor, high school college advisor, or principal of your high school. So, rather than sending in an update about your EC, your GC needs to send in an update letter with your mid-year report explaining the situation.
If your GC didn’t send in an explanation letter with your mid-year grades, they need to FAX an explanation to Admissions next week, as in past year’s the full committee has started deliberating about applicants on or about March 1st. And, as @notjie said, your GC also needs to get on the phone with your regional admissions officers and plead your case.
@gibby I appreciate your apology and your reconsideration.
But as when I mentioned your comment seemed to be baseless and irrelevant it was true. You just said: “My first assumption was that a student who says they are getting all grades between 87 and 89.” Moreover my school runs on a quarter system, rather than a semester system even at that.
Please tell me where I suggested all my grades were those that you mentioned. In fact I asserted they were all fine and referenced my actual quarter grades. So your comment was irrelevant because it didn’t actually pertain to my written situation (even while barring the fact that you don’t know know much about me). My average isn’t a B. For privacy reasons, I didn’t mention the fact that I had a illness that I had to see different doctors for.
Anyways I really do hold nothing about you. In a Stanford supplement, I discussed how in an information driven world, we are faster and faster to make generalizations and miss out on details, since often times we have to sort out through large pieces of information. We all make this rash generalizations.
^^ In the first paragraph, you wrote about your 1st quarter grades. However, in the 3rd paragraph you did write: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/princeton-university/1732606-second-quarter-bs-hate-to-ask.html#latest
That’s what you wrote! Maybe you meant something else – maybe you just meant that your grades for AP Calc and Physics were going to be in the high 80’s. I interpreted your comment to mean that all your grades – math, english, social studies, science and foreign language – were all in the high 80’s for the semester. Again, if misread, or misinterpreted, my apologies.
I said my courses run on a quarter system. So no my final grades will not be an 89 or 87.
Secondly “all” when did I say all my grades were such. You just made that up.
Quote: “My school grades on the quarter system, and first quarter I did fine in all my classes”
AND: “but my grades aren’t reported as a semester grade”
The semester pieces only comes into play because this is a midyear report.
Please let’s just leave this be. It’s clear that I carefully conveyed what I meant to say. If you misinterpret it that’s fine. But I said it’s a quarter system. My grades are fine overall. My grades are good first quarter.
I guess I’m sorry I don’t know how to the funky quote box.
But, in post #5 you also wrote
So, bottom line: Did the colleges on your list (not just Harvard) see your 2nd quarter grades? And were your 2nd quarter grades 89 to 87? And was your average for the 1st quarter and 2nd quarter LOWER than the average you have had in freshman, sophomore and junior years? Did your GC think your grades were ok for your 2nd quarter? For the semester? And if not, did your GC send in an explanation note about your illness to explain the downward trend?
Fine, I’ll let it be and comment no further. Please do consider @notejoe’s advice though.