<p>silverturtle, What things do you think characterize typical Harvard applicants?</p>
<p>^I would say the three major commonalities are a desire to attend Harvard, access to the Common Application, and being a current secondary school student.</p>
<p>^^ At or near top of class, meaningful extracurricular involvement and success, test scores around the 99th percentile, etc.</p>
<p>^ In slightly more confidently generalizing form, yes.</p>
<p>What is there to be ashamed about if you get rejected or deferred? You tried your best to get into one of the best schools in the world and you didn’t get in, SO WHAT?</p>
<p>^ Exactly! And to be honest, I think everyone who applied to Harvard has nothing to be regret. It just shows how hard-working we are. And everyone knows thousands of over-qualified students get rejected each other. Getting accepted or rejected has nothing to do with one’s intelligence or character. In reality, the way we handle and react to our admissions decision speaks a lot more about ourselves character than the actual decision itself.</p>
<p>Just my view…</p>
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Not, at, all.</p>
<p>^ Please elaborate on your false statement.</p>
<p>Reply: Note well, it IS self-reflection.</p>
<p>If you’ve done the work, made the grade and proven the point . . . heck . . . send in an application.</p>
<p>THAT is the point.</p>
<p>One should be proud (and she is) to apply.</p>
<p>^I agree. Sometimes the hardest part about doing anything is to motivate yourself to do it in the first place. </p>
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<p>Not to mean to insinuate anything in any way about your qualifications, which I’m sure are amazing, but sometimes people say phrases of encouragement such as “Oh, I’m sure you’ll be able to get in! You’re so good at everything!” to be polite. Yes, they know that you’re smart and capable, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they somehow have absolutely faith in your acceptance as you said. Imagine putting yourself in their shoes. Are you going to say to someone you don’t know that well but hold in high esteem, “Good luck! I’m sure you’ll do great!” or “well, you know there’s a chance you won’t to get in…” </p>
<p>“Dreading the inevitable shame”? That’s ridiculous. You may be holding yourself in too much esteem.</p>
<p>At my senior end-of-the-year picnic in high school, I ran into someone named Holly that I knew from a class in sophomore year:</p>
<p>Her: Where are you going to college?
Me: Harvard.
Her (it was pretty loud in the area): What, Howard? Congrats! That’s great!</p>
<p>So glad I never had to face the same predicament as all of you guys.</p>
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You can’t just generalize that with the sample size. </p>
<p>At or near top of class- Possible.</p>
<p>meaningful extracurricular involvement and success- How do you define that?</p>
<p>test scores around the 99th percentile- You know that you were false again, right?
You took Math II and Chem and 800’ed them.
Math II would be 89th percentile and Chem 92nd percentile.</p>
<p>You are saying that the majority of applicants must take SAT Literature or SAT Math I and get 800s on those.</p>
<p>It’s not that there’s any shame in rejection. But I imagine the following scenario would be pretty annoying…</p>
<p>Friend: So did you get in anywhere?
Me: No…
Friend: Aw there there <em>pat</em> <em>pat</em></p>
<p>Now multiply that by ~10 people.</p>
<p>Idk. Personally, I’ve never directly asked anyone where they got in. If I’m extremely curious, I’ll ask someone else. I imagine it would be really awkward and annoying, and I think everyone should just mind their own business. Hence, why I didn’t want to tell anyone.</p>
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<p>Not only possible but true. The vast majority of Harvard applicants are in the top ten percent of their class.</p>
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<p>I believe that most Harvard applicants are involved in significantly more activities than are most high school students and that they are more involved in those activities than are most high school students.</p>
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<p>Again?</p>
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<p>If I were referring merely to Subject Test scores, yes. I was, however, not; I was referring to SAT/ACT scores, though I could have correctly been referring to the entire testing portfolio.</p>
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Big boii are you messing with me??
Top 10% is top??
That is average.
Top 0.5% is what I was talking about.</p>
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Bic boiiiii… Be more definite. Any idiot can do that.</p>
<p>^^ I would say, as well, that the average class standing percentile for Harvard applicants is higher than 90. Top .5% seems like an unreasonable and certainly arbitrary selection, considering that many high schools’ graduating classes have fewer than 200 people.</p>
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<p>In describing extracurricular involvement, it is meaningless to be more specific. I have no idea what relevant point you could be making in claiming that an unintelligent person can participate in many extracurriculars, or why you keep using an address that reminds me of a YouTube prank call.</p>
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Higher than 90? That would be around 640 for some tests.</p>
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<p>I was referring to “average class standing percentile.”</p>
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I do not think so. In evaluating more than 25000+ apps, I am pretty sure that titles are impressive.</p>
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Why not?
We have full of those in South Carolina or Florida.
NHS, Mu Alpha Theta, Honor Society, Science Club,… those meaningless clubs.
They (the students) join because they think they have a better chance of getting in that way.</p>
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That’s my way of talking. Bic Boiiii</p>