@IvyWin Best of luck, you are clearly capable and will thrive at whatever school you attend.
@jwong945 Thank you very much!!!
@IvyWin I was accepted to Harvard SCEA. I applied specifically because I didn’t have the highest GPA in my class, but my school didn’t rank and my transcript was pretty strong overall.
Are you in the top 5-10% of your class? If you are, then you GPA won’t keep you out. In my opinion, once you cross a certain academic threshold, it is really the ‘soft’ factors, like essays, recommendations, and ECs that will push you over.
Edit: I just read the first post on this thread. In my opinion, you should apply SCEA. Your stats will definitely not keep you out, and your chances are much, much higher SCEA. (20% acceptance rate SCEA v. 2.3% acceptance rate RD)
@jalebigirl my school does not rank, but it does a histogram. I am definitely fine on the weighted scale, its just the unweighted rank that could hurt me. The historgram is like a 3.2-3.4, 3.4-3.6,3.6-3.• and 3.8-4.0. If my GPA is indeed a 3.8 UW by the end of the year, then ill scea at Harvard. And i am in the top 5-10% of my class. And yea my transcript was pretty strong overall as well.
My understanding – and please correct me if I’m wrong as my kid’s went to a high school that didn’t use a weighted rank – is that high school’s use a weighted rank to designate that a student took a more rigorous course load than his or her peers. Is that what happens at your HS?
If so, based upon what you wrote, it would see as though you took a bunch of AP or honors courses at your high school, which gave extra credit points for you doing so, but you did not get straight A’s in all those more difficult classes. Is that correct?
And . . . if that’s correct: Did other student’s from your high school, who might also be applying SCEA to Harvard, get straight A’s in those same weighted courses? Or, were you one of the top students in those AP and honors courses?
I guess, what I’m getting at: No matter what you do – whether you apply SCEA or RD – you are going to be compared to those other student’s from your high school who took the AP and honors courses and have a weighted and unweighted higher than yours.
If that’s the case, then forget about your GPA – weighted or unweighted – as those other student’s from your HS are always going to best you in that arena. You will have to beat them by having superior essays, teacher recommendations, guidance counselor’s Secondary School Report, Interview Report and extracurriculars.
See thats what I am constantly torn about. @Gibby is exactly correct. I’ve taken the most rigorous courses, but there are kids who have gotten better grades. When it comes to testing, I have the highest standardized tests. I also am pretty sure I’ve got the most leadership positions. One more question I have is about quotas. Does Harvard only take a limited amount of kids from one school each year?
No. Another urban legend bites the dust.
@skieurope thank you for the clarification! And is GPA a your in or out thing, or is more ofa sliding scale. So is a 3.9 or 3.8 gonna be a difference, or is it like once you are past a point you are ok?
Yes. Contrary to what Harvard Admissions would like you to believe, they can’t take every top student from every top high school – even if that high school is Andover, Exeter, Dalton, Trinity or Phillips Academy.
To wit: Both my kids went to Stuyvesant High School, a feeder school to the ivies: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_High_School. With a graduating class of about 900 kids, in any given year about 200 Stuyvesant students apply to Harvard – and ALL of them have the stats to be accepted. But Harvard cannot take them all. Over the past 15 years, Harvard has accepted anywhere between 8 and 26 students. That means the vast majority of students that apply from Stuyvesant – a high school that has a lower acceptance rate than Harvard – do not get accepted.
And, FWIW, Harvard doesn’t just take the kids with the top GPA’s or test scores. Instead they cherry-pick students who they think have the “best character” often bypassing the Valedictorian and Salutatorian for students who are ranked #5, #13, #21, #37, #43, #58, #72, #143 etc (those numbers were chosen at random, but you get the idea).
@gibby good advice as always! Harvard has taken 2-3 from my school in the past so I think it could be ok. I’d also like to thank not only all the help you’ve given me, but countless other students. You’ve been here for some time, and you always respond to posts by people! Heaps of thanks for helping me and so many others!
@SkiEurope: No. @Gibby: Yes.
SkiEurope and I obviously have a difference of opinion. Mine is based upon 15 years of stats from one high school, but maybe SkiEurope has better info.
For my own school, I plan on using Navience. Normally 2-3 kids are given admission each year.
^^ That’s always best. But, from your high school, how many students apply to Harvard in any given year? And how many students have the stats to be accepted? And how many of those that have the stats are rejected?
Thats a good question. I can’t tell individually, but the Navience graph lets me see how ppl ended up by graphing there sat and gpa and whether they were accepted, deferred (then accepted or rejected) and rejected. On the graph, I seem to be well within he range, and above the accepted norm for weighted gpa and sat.
“Does Harvard only take a limited amount of kids from one school each year?”
In theory, no. Practically, how could it be different? As a thought experiment, imagine a schools with 2500 seniors, who were just heads and shoulders above everyone else in the country, and imagine that Harvard decided to take their entire freshman class from that school. So. they offered the first 2000 kids admission. The limit would be number of spots Harvard could offer.
When Harvard offers a spot to one student, by necessity, another applicant is not getting that spot. Harvard does NOT want all their freshmen from one school, or one small set of schools. Thus, practically, they must trade off one application for another.
I’m sure Harvard doesn’t have hard-and-fast quotas for each high school. One year, maybe three kids at a school get picked. The next year, maybe only two make the cut. The following year, the kids are extraordinary, and they take five. But the admissions committee sees applicants from the same schools year in and year out, and they get a good feel as to what to expect from that school. The school that produces 2 or 3 or 5 a year isn’t going to see 20 one year. How many they admit will likely be in the same range each year. I believe it’s not a hard quota, but I think it becomes an expectation.
Mine is based upon 15+ years of stats from another HS 
The reality is that we are all saying the same thing. There is, IMO, no hard quota. Obviously, Harvard can admit many more applicants form Stuyvesant, Dalton, Andover, Exeter, etc. than it does. The historic Naviance data will provide a starting point. If, on average, ~10 kids are admitted from a particular HS every year, there should be no expectation that they will admit 30 next year. Conversely, if in the unlikely event that there are not 10 qualified applicants in a given year, there should be no expectation that Harvard will admit 10.
I guess I’ll just wait to see what my GPA is at the end of the year and then make the decision.
Hey @IvyWin , i;m an aspiring applicant to both these universities as well. Infact I have the same dilemma as well man. I was always leaning towards ED to wharton, but Harvard has always been my dream school. I spoke to a lot of admits to both the institutions, and here is what ive got.
Both Harvard and Wharton have huge intakes of legacy students during the early period (irrespective of REA or ED). Secondly, both schools recruit lot of athletes, so those many lesser spots available. With wharton, the number of seats for UG as such is less. Also harvard is known to have one of the largest deferral rates for REA. BUT, all that being said, both these schools admit a decent number of students in the early period, and these students are what I call: STELLAR. To be very honest, my application isnt as strong as yours. You definitely have strong academics going for you and you definitely have an amazing list of extra curriculars. I think i would put you in that strata of a highly competitive student. If you do ED to wharton, its very likely you’ll get in, so the question you have to ask yourself is that if youre willing to get into Penn via ED and never get to apply to harvard at all. If wharton is your dream, then dont think twice. But if anything is holding you back, dont commit, dont ED. and instead should you REA? i think yes. You’re competitive enough to be in the stellar REA pool, and even if you get in or not, you can still apply to penn. and you will still have a very good shot even though its RD and not ED
Thanks for the imput @Hamshank . I’m leaning Wharton at this point, I still have to go look at the school but at this point I think I really love the place!!!
Regarding “Does Harvard only take a limited amount of kids from one school each year?”.
I’ll add my data point. Using ten years of data our high school has never had two Harvard acceptances in the same year. If in a year the acceptance was for an athletic recruit there were no academic acceptances.