<p>A quick question, boys and girls. If Harvard sends you its brochure, a letter asking you to apply and the list of its alumni for scheduling the interview, does that actually mean that the college is interested in you? If you get e-mails from Harvard Minority Recruitment Program, does it MEAN that the college wants you? OR, does the college just send this sort of things all around the world to students with high SAT scores so that they can just increase the number of its applicants and reduce its acceptance rate? In fact, does it mean anything at all? </p>
<p>Harvard is like a high reach school for me and the feeble hope I have of getting in there is partially based on this sort of communicatioon...I would just like to know whether or not I'm relying on something completely meaningless...AM I?</p>
<p>They maybe are sort of generally interested in students like you, but it does not mean that they have specifically flagged you for close scrutiny. They send out these brochures to many thousands more high school students than they can ever possibly accept. </p>
<p>I don't think they are specifically trying to reject more students to boost their numbers. They don't need to; they are already among the most selective schools in the nation. It is just marketing and you are part of the general target audience.</p>
<p>H does however target students with high stats from low socioeconomic areas. If you're from a town / county with limited resources, their interest in you might be greater than for some who receive their mailings.</p>
<p>They aren't sending these mailings to reduce their acceptance rate. They really do want more qualified minorities. It's no guarantee of acceptance, but it's a good sign. Your stats are probably in range, if they like the rest of your application, you have a better than average chance of being accepted.</p>
<p>I got the same stuff you did, the brochure and letter, emails, etc, but it all seemed pretty generic...I wouldn't read too much into it, especially because two students from my school got the same stuff last yr and they both ended up getting rejected even though everyone thought they had an exceptionally high chance...</p>
<p>Mind you better than average means better than the 10% most students have. When my son applied last year, I figured he had a slightly better than 50% possibility of acceptance. That was based on the fact that half the kids from our school with his grades and scores were accepted and the bump from being a legacy. (Don't know how many of the kids in the school's data base were legacies or had other hooks.) If you talk to the GC at your school, you may get a better sense of what your real chances are.</p>
<p>On the one hand, Harvard is in earnest about encouraging students to apply, but on the other hand, it already receives about ten times as many applications as the number it offers admission. If you like Harvard, apply. If you apply to Harvard, be sure to apply to a "safety</a>" college. Prepare your applications well (take as much care with the safety application as with the Harvard application), submit them, and then relax and enjoy your last year of high school.</p>