Here are the actual factors Harvard admissions officers look for!
And no, the biggest factor actually ISN’T having your parents donating to the university!
9 - Legacy Status Having parents who went to Harvard DRAMATICALLY
increases your chances of getting in.
But that’s something Harvard and other Ivy League universities are less than willing
to admit.
The whole legacy concept has been controversial from the beginning.
Applying to college as a legacy is like having a superpower.
It’s been estimated to double or quadruple one’s chances of getting into a highly selective
school.
It’s also roughly equivalent to a 160-point boost on the SAT!
In the early 1900s, universities introduced a preference for legacies.
They did that just so they could exclude less desirable applicants, such as immigrants.
For instance, Dartmouth created an almost all inclusive legacy admissions policy in
1919.
That stated quote “all properly qualified sons of Dartmouth alumni and Dartmouth college
officers” would be admitted.
If one or two of your parents went to Harvard, your chances of getting accepted jumps to
33.6%.
These legacies were five times more likely to get in than applicants without relatives
who went to Harvard!
Harvard’s Class of 2022 is made up of over 36% legacy students and the year before, the
share of the freshman class was just over 29%.
8 - Harvard Endowment Surprise surprise, if you have your super-rich
parents donate money like crazy to Harvard, your chances of admission just went up!
But remember Aunt Becky from full house?
Federal prosecutors brought charges against her and 49 other people for a college cheating
scandal in 2019.
No matter how much money they donated, it probably wasn’t gonna get their kids in.
So they just decided to do the old fashion way of bribery.
Those parents allegedly paid a collective $25 million dollars to help their kids get
into top colleges such as Harvard, Yale, Stanford, and USC.
Unlike the people who got caught by the FBI, America’s billionaires don’t have to break
the law to help their kids get into Harvard.
If they didn’t go to Harvard, they can wield their money instead through donations.
For example, Les Wexner, the billionaire who owns and controls Victoria’s Secret, didn’t
go to Harvard.
But he started donating to Harvard back in 1989!
He gave Harvard between one and a half million to 2.1 million dollars each year from 2003
to 2012.
In 2013, Wexner’s upped his gift dramatically, donating $8.5 million to the university, as
part of a long-planned building endowment.
Nothing weird here, right?
But that same year also happened to be the year the first of his four children started
attending Harvard.
Obviously, the donations kept happening.
Wexner’s three other children enrolled at the university in 2014, 2015, and 2017.
Having the last name “Wexner” at Harvard where your dad regularly donates millions
definitely helps!
Another example is real estate mogul Charles Kushner.
He’s a graduate of New York University.
He reportedly gave $2.5 million to Harvard before his son Jared Kushner was admitted
to Harvard!
In case you didn’t know it, Jared Kushner is married to Ivanka Trump, and he’s a senior
advisor to his father-in-law President Trump!
Having parents that donated a lot of money, your acceptance would be around 40%.
And what if your parents went to Harvard AND they also donated a lot of money?
Your chances of getting in just jumped above 70%!
7 - Dean’s List Yep, it helps to be on the dean’s list.
But it’s NOT the regular old dean’s list we’re talking about here that someone with
great grades can get on.
We’re talking about the Harvard Dean of Admissions’s actual special interest list.
If you’re on that special list, well…..you’re pretty much guaranteed for admission.
So how do you get on?
Well, we just talked about it actually.
According to emails uncovered, donations definitely come with certain perks.
The “Dean’s Interest List,” is a special and confidential list of applicants Harvard
compiles every admissions cycle.
Although Harvard closely guards the details, applicants on that list are often related
to or of interest to top donors.
But of course, there are a number of other ways to get on the list.
Such as if the dean owed someone a favor.
The ways to get on this list is practically endless but making it on this list practically
guarantees a Harvard degree.
6 - Geography Wait, where you live matters to Harvard?!
Yep, apparently, they care very much about having people from small populations attend
Harvard.
Every year, Harvard sends out thousands of recruitment letters inviting high school juniors
to apply.
Who get the letters is based on their PSAT scores and where they’re from.
Students who apply to Harvard after getting the special invitation are about twice as
likely as other applicants to be admitted.
These areas are what Harvard calls “sparse country”.
It’s 20 largely rural states where relatively few students apply to Harvard.
The main reason why Harvard does this is because they want their students to have as much diverse
experiences as possible.
They don’t want all the same students with the same life experiences, and that definitely
makes sense.
If you’re enjoying this expose on harvard, you won’t want to miss our video on the
actual cost of some of our favorite things!
5 - The Old Switcheroo When Harvard decides on who they let in, they
definitely consider what major you put down on the application.
Harvard considers your future major because one, they don’t want too many students with
the same interests.
And two, they don’t want to be ditched by IT and science geniuses later on!
At a time when secondary schools around the country are working hard to offer as many
science and tech classes as possible, it turns out that Harvard has a special place in its
heart for humanities majors.
These kids ensure that Harvard’s math and science majors aren’t so single-minded in
their focus and conversations.
Like we just mentioned, Harvard is picky in offering admissions to geniuses who’re wanting
to be engineers and coders.
That’s because they don’t want to offer admission to those kids, only for them to
go to MIT or Caltech!
If too many of those child prodigies pass on attending Harvard, they’ll be left with
a lot of last-minute seats to fill!
4 - Personality When it comes to the process, your personality
definitely goes a long way.
Harvard looks for more than just excellence and potential in a candidate.
And that makes sense, because no matter how smart someone is, no one wants to be around
a jerk.
What Harvard looks for is something called “effervescence.”
This was something that was revealed in the Harvard admissions scandal.
In regular people talk, effervescence is someone who’s active, positive, and full of energy.
Or in other words, Harvard values applicants who are bubbly, and not quote “flat,”
to use another word in the Harvard admissions vocabulary.
Positivity goes a long way in getting into Harvard.
And that goes for anywhere in life in general.
Who wants to be around someone that’s always negative?!
So basically, don’t be a jerk.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that Harvard wants students who are bubbly and outgoing?
At the same time, however, that doesn’t mean that being an introvert will work against
you.
The new guidelines for the Class of 2023 caution officers that they shouldn’t only value
character traits connected to being an extrovert.
They should also rank high applicants who seem to be reflective, insightful, and dedicated.
3 - Not just any snowflake Court documents from the scandal repeatedly
show the advantages given to students who’ve had unique circumstances in their lives.
One specific example is Thang Diep.
He’s a Harvard student who came from Vietnam as a child.
In his application, he talked about being bullied for his accent and how that affected
him.
In a document totaling at least four pages, the reviewers commented on Diep’s perfect
grades, his “incredibly hard-working” nature, and his impressive leadership skills.
That and his unique immigrant experience hit all the checkboxes for a successful Harvard
applicant.
Although you can’t exactly easily choose to become an immigrant when you’re a kid,
what you can do is differentiate yourself with different life experiences.
Essentially, the theme is to step out of your comfort zone, and be open to new and very
different experiences than that of the typical applicant!
2 - Athletics If you’re one of the lucky few people that’s
gifted athletically and you have colleges left and right offering you an athletic scholarship…….well,
you might as well be ready to sign your name on the acceptance letter!
Being a recruited athlete is THE best way to get into Harvard.
Recruited athletes are admitted roughly 80 percent of the time!
Athletes with the highest or second-highest academic rating on an internal Harvard admissions
scale have an acceptance rate of 83%, compared to 16% for non-athletes.
Applicants are rated on a scale of 1 to 6, with 6 being the highest.
For example, recruited athletes with an academic rating of 4 had an acceptance rate of 70.46
percent, nearly a thousand times greater than the 0.076 percent admit rate for non-athletes
with the same academic rating.
THAT’S how much being an athlete helps!
And to be honest, if you’re getting scholarships to play a sport, there’s really no reason
why you wouldn’t want to go to Harvard and take advantage of the free degree!
Unless you’re like a Zion Williamson type where you’re for sure going to make a lot
of money being a professional athlete, the smart long term play is to pick Harvard!
1 - What NOT to do So we’ve gone over what the biggest factors
Harvard looks for in an applicant.
But what about what NOT to do?
That personal score matters a lot, and it’s a measure of a student’s character.
Harvard gets it through essays, interviews, and school recommendations, and it is crucial
in Harvard’s admissions process.
The majority of students admitted earn top marks in this area.
One thing not to do is be boring.
Admissions staff gave a bland review of an essay from a biracial student who focused
on his computer programming experience.
However, whatever you do, don’t be arrogant.
From the court case there was a story of an applicant who was a math genius.
His application got the attention of admissions officers, but not in a good way.
In his recommendation letter, his teacher lauded his academic ability, but added that
he had no tolerance at all for weaker teachers!
Apparently this guy was seriously considering circulating a petition to have his then-English
teacher fired.
Of course, Harvard didn’t admit that guy.
They also concluded that his lack of extracurricular activities was a problem.
Underwhelming personalities can even undermine athletes!
There was the case of a girl who had been recruited for the Harvard crew team.
But her documented lack of quote “spark or enthusiasm or any particularly compelling
or appealing quality” torpedoed her admissions chances.
And basically, don’t NOT be unique.
One of the worst things is to be labeled as quote “standard strong.”
That dreaded designation is reserved for excellent applicants who just aren’t Harvard material.
They’re the type of people who had a very stereotypical profile.
You know, good grades, class president, president of the Finance club!
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