<p>vtoodler...
nope...4.0 UW GPA; 1/122; 1560 SAT; SAT II's 800/790/770/770/760; excellent recs and essay; NCTE writing award winner; AP Scholar with Honor; interviewer said "you're just the type of person we're looking for"...tons of EC's and much dedication to each (15 leadership positions over 4 years of high school); speaks four languages, including one that was self-taught...also applied EA</p>
<p>Well, I'm baffled.</p>
<p>3.98, 1580, 800/800/800/800 (math/eng/bio/physics), excellent interview, recs and essay (commended by Yale adcom in a handwritten letter), numerous awards, lots of ECs with dedication, NM finalist, Presidential Scholar semi-finalist, immigrant student of the year (Governer's award), 3 featured articles in the regional media.
Deffered and then waitlisted by Harvard...</p>
<p>It seems that "lots of ECs" is more dangerous than a few ECs taken to a nationally competitive level. That would be true at MIT too, where the admissions application has been revised to allow less space for listing ECs.</p>
<p>Accepted by MIT, Yale, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, Williams.. If you look at Harvard's RD Roster, there are people with national level ECs rejected, and some are accepted with "no hook" at all. On the other hand, those accepted by Harvard were rejected by Yale and Princeton. Game with no rules.</p>
<p>I can not believe that all of these excellent people are being rejected from Harvard. If Harvard doesn't accept someone with perfect grades, perfect test scores and an interesting ec life, then who do they accept?</p>
<p>Harvard accepts people who go beyond the world of high school might be the easiest way to put it. There are too many high schools in the United States alone, not to mention all the other countries that have Harvard applicants, to accept every kid who has "perfect grades" in high school, especially in this era of grade inflation. There isn't any sure-fire formula for admission to Harvard, but I haven't seen much in this thread about applicants who have two years of previous college classes (taken for high school dual enrollment credit) AND a national level award in an EC AND peak test scores getting rejected. That probably happens, just because of the crush of numbers in the application pool for a limited number of spaces in the entering class, but I think most students who don't make it into Harvard are counting on their friendly local high school being a lot more illustrious than it actually is.</p>
<p>You can't chalk up everything to legacy, either. I'm a double legacy whose parents faithfully give a good amount (>20K a year, I think) to Harvard, I have decent extracurriculars (class president, buncha theater, blah blah blah), good grades, a 1550 SAT with 740, 750, 800 SAT IIs, and absolutely KILLER recommendations. Now, I'm not saying I deserve to get in over a lot of the people here. However, as deferred and waitlisted, I am going to say that legacy doesn't mean as much as everyone would like it to think. I think.</p>
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<p>If Harvard doesn't accept someone with perfect grades, perfect test scores and an interesting ec life, then who do they accept?</p>
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<p>In all likelihood, another kid with all of that who looks just the same to his friends and family as the kid who didn't. There are just too many kids who are too amazing. There's probably a decent reason Kid A got in and Kid B didn't, but unless you were in the room while the committee was debating them, you'll never know what it was.</p>
<p>Sometimes, the adcoms see something in an individual that the individual themselves didn't know they had. </p>
<p>Read that somewhere =.=</p>
<p>californiacutie said that.</p>
<p>I had only two leadership positions in school clubs, and I got in... maybe they're trying to make sure that what people write in the apps is realistic.</p>
<p>i would like to reiterate that there is no formula. they will take whatever kind of person they need to fit a niche on campus. and contrary to popular belief, there is no diff between EA and RD other than making it clear how interested you are in the college. it wont make getting in any easier at all. i applied harvard EA, was rejected. im going to princeton, supposedly a more selective institution. applying EA to stanford may be especially important as you cant express interest in an interview, as they do not offer them.</p>
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<p>I haven't seen much in this thread about applicants who have two years of previous college classes AND a national level award in an EC AND peak test scores getting rejected.</p>
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<p>Check Zuma stat roster, you'll find a couple of cases there. And there's a lot of applicants accepted with neither of those. I think it has a lot to do with an applicant's school. If your school traditionally sends 1-2 ppl to Harvard, you can expect this tendency to continue.</p>
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<p>Why go to another school, if there is one that is known to be the one that sends people to Harvard? In other words, what does it take to get into those high schools that increase the odds (which perhaps are never 100 percent) of admission to one's favorite college?</p>
<p>I don't think you have a choice of a public school, unless your family is willing to move to another area. My school hasn't sent people to Harvard or Princeton for years, but it is favored by Yale. Another kid with similar stats/EC was rejected by Harvard while being Harvard legacy, but we both got to Yale (btw, two of us have been taking college classes for credits going well beyond what the school offers). And I know a valedictorian from a nearby public school (liked by Harvard) who got to Harvard with admittedly modest stats/achievements.</p>
<p>My (public) school regularly gets its top applicant each year into Harvard. I'm sure there are situations where Harvard would accept none, and situations where two or more would be accepted, but it hasn't happened recently.</p>
<p>Wouldn't you think that the school factor plays a bigger role in admission decisions than the presentation aspect as you suggest in another thread? What makes a top applicant from your school Harvard material each year as opposed to other strong schools?</p>
<p>It may be that the school has established a "track record" in that prior admits have done well. Admissions people often struggle to discover what a 4.0 or valedictorian status may mean at a school with whose graduates they are not familiar.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure that Byerly is correct in general. For example, if recent grads from ABC high school tend to do very well after being admitted to XYZ college, then XYZ college will give a "positive weighting" to future applications from ABC high school. While it sounds logical on one hand, it has some possible perverse implications on the other hand (i.e., an applicant is given a positive or negative weighting based on the performance of his/her predecessors). I am curious as to how widespread this practice is, but rather than hijack this thread, I started another thread in the general admissions discussion forum to see if others have info.
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=56488%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=56488</a></p>