Has anyone here been to Harvard?

[SootAndGrime]

Has anyone here ever been to Harvard university in Massachusetts? If you have, I have a few questions.

*Exactly how difficult is it to get accepted into Harvard?

*What are the minimum accepted GPA, and SAT/ACT requirements?

*How much is the tuition of a 4-year degree? And how much is the tuition of their graduate schools?

*Why are only 3-4% of applicants accepted?

*Are MBA graduates from Harvard Business School (HBS) guaranteed job placement on wall-street making a six figure salary their first year out of college?

*Is a 4.0+ GPA a prerequisite for Harvard?

*Is the coursework more difficult at Harvard than at other universities?

 

[Saladsamurai]

Has anyone here ever been to Harvard university in Massachusetts? If you have, I have a few questions.

*Exactly how difficult is it to get accepted into Harvard?

*What are the minimum accepted GPA, and SAT/ACT requirements?

*How much is the tuition of a 4-year degree? And how much is the tuition of their graduate schools?

*Why are only 3-4% of applicants accepted?

*Are MBA graduates from Harvard Business School (HBS) guaranteed job placement on wall-street making a six figure salary their first year out of college?

*Is a 4.0+ GPA a prerequisite for Harvard?

*Is the coursework more difficult at Harvard than at other universities?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=tuition+at+harvard

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=minimum+gpa+at+harvard

Need I go on?

I've got news for you: If you don't know how to work Google for yourself, you're probably not Harvard material.

 

[MissSilvy]

Seconded. I know this is a academic guidance forum, but christ, learn to use Google. There's very few things that people here know that a 10 second search couldn't answer.

 

[Mépris]

Feed my curiosity: why do you want to go there *so badly*?

 

[mathwonk]

I delivered a load of wood there once. It was pretty easy to get in.

 

[HallsofIvy]

Yeah, I just took a bus up Massachusetts Avenue and walked right onto the campus!

In a slightly more serious vein, colleges like Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Cal Tech, etc. accept "only 3-4% of applicants" is that they only have room for 3-4% of the people who apply! The difference between those colleges and "Enormous State University" is that they are smaller so they can have smaller classes and afford to pay the salaries that attract a smaller select faculty and have much higher numbers of applicants.

 

[Sferics]

Hi ScootAndGrime,

I was accepted at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT for the Class of 2015, and I will be a freshman at Harvard in just a few short days. I will try my best to answer your questions.

1) I'm not sure how to quantify "difficult to get in" - the most objective measures are likely acceptance rate (6.2% for the Class of 2015) and average SAT/ACT scores (http://collegeapps.about.com/od/collegeprofiles/p/harvard_profile.htm)

2) There are no explicit requirements, but I think it's fair to say that there are score ranges below which your chances are near zero. My personal recommendation would be to shoot for at least a 2200+ SAT and 34+ ACT.

As far as GPA is concerned, you have to realize that there is virtually no standardization for high school GPA's in the United States, i.e. a 4.0 student at a rural, public high school could be a dropout student at an elite boarding school. It wouldn't make sense for Harvard to make hard GPA cutoffs when such discrepancy exists. You're performance in school will be evaluated in context.

Also keep in mind that Harvard requires that you have taken at least two SAT Subject Tests (yet another standardized test) to even be looked at in the application process.

3) Links to the Harvard web page concerning tuition have been provided.

4) As stated before, 6.2% applicants were accepted. This is simply a function of an increasingly large applicant pool and a fixed, much smaller amount of open slots. The acceptance rate has been steadily declining for years due to an increasing applicant pool - look for it to go below 6% next year.

5) I am entering the undergraduate college, but I think I can answer this question for you regardless: No.

6) No GPA cutoff (see 2).

7) Again, I am an entering freshman, but I would assume it depends on the individual. I have heard that it is definitely possible to make a fairly lax schedule for oneself at Harvard.

All things held constant however, my guess would be that a freshman mechanics course at Harvard would be slightly more difficult than at another university (excluding other "top tier" schools) if only for the elevated academic prowess of your classmates.

 

[SootAndGrime]

Yeah, I just took a bus up Massachusetts Avenue and walked right onto the campus!

In a slightly more serious vein, colleges like Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Cal Tech, etc. accept "only 3-4% of applicants" is that they only have room for 3-4% of the people who apply! The difference between those colleges and "Enormous State University" is that they are smaller so they can have smaller classes and afford to pay the salaries that attract a smaller select faculty and have much higher numbers of applicants.

So it's mainly because there are simply too many applicants and not enough dorm rooms and college faculty to teach and house that many students.

 

[SootAndGrime]

Hi ScootAndGrime,

I was accepted at Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT for the Class of 2015, and I will be a freshman at Harvard in just a few short days. I will try my best to answer your questions.

1) I'm not sure how to quantify "difficult to get in" - the most objective measures are likely acceptance rate (6.2% for the Class of 2015) and average SAT/ACT scores (http://collegeapps.about.com/od/collegeprofiles/p/harvard_profile.htm)

2) There are no explicit requirements, but I think it's fair to say that there are score ranges below which your chances are near zero. My personal recommendation would be to shoot for at least a 2200+ SAT and 34+ ACT.

As far as GPA is concerned, you have to realize that there is virtually no standardization for high school GPA's in the United States, i.e. a 4.0 student at a rural, public high school could be a dropout student at an elite boarding school. It wouldn't make sense for Harvard to make hard GPA cutoffs when such discrepancy exists. You're performance in school will be evaluated in context.

Also keep in mind that Harvard requires that you have taken at least two SAT Subject Tests (yet another standardized test) to even be looked at in the application process.

3) Links to the Harvard web page concerning tuition have been provided.

4) As stated before, 6.2% applicants were accepted. This is simply a function of an increasingly large applicant pool and a fixed, much smaller amount of open slots. The acceptance rate has been steadily declining for years due to an increasing applicant pool - look for it to go below 6% next year.

5) I am entering the undergraduate college, but I think I can answer this question for you regardless: No.

6) No GPA cutoff (see 2).

7) Again, I am an entering freshman, but I would assume it depends on the individual. I have heard that it is definitely possible to make a fairly lax schedule for oneself at Harvard.

All things held constant however, my guess would be that a freshman mechanics course at Harvard would be slightly more difficult than at another university (excluding other "top tier" schools) if only for the elevated academic prowess of your classmates.

Very few people score over 2200 on the SAT and get an equal composite score on the ACT. I graduated high school a few years ago and for some reason, I was never given the SAT or ACT.

I don't plan on going to Harvard, I can't afford it and I could care less about academic prestige. I will soon be taking classes at a local community college.

 

[jtbell]

I graduated high school a few years ago and for some reason, I was never given the SAT or ACT.

You're not "given" the SAT or ACT automatically like all those state-mandated standardized tests that schools have to give nowadays in the name of "school accountability" (and which were almost unknown in my day). You have to sign up to take them, and pay for them.

 

[deRham]

So it's mainly because there are simply too many applicants and not enough dorm rooms and college faculty to teach and house that many students.

Actually space isn't the thing. It's popularity. There are places that are probably smaller by a huge shot than Harvard. But they're less popular, simply because of the whole name/prestige/top resources factor.

And to some degree, they maintain their size to maintain that level of selectivity. It's part of the package.

 

[Bourbaki1123]

I could care less about academic prestige. I will soon be taking classes at a local community college.

So what's with all of these silly threads about prestigious colleges? You obviously have some sort of interest in prestigious colleges or you wouldn't be asking all of these questions and making multiple threads about them.

Some people go to these schools, and some people go to them on scholarship. Some people go to them at an unusually young age. What of it? What is the real issue?

 

[Anonymous217]

^ Exactly this. I was at least hoping that you would contain your prestige-obsession to just one thread.

 

[SootAndGrime]

So what's with all of these silly threads about prestigious colleges? You obviously have some sort of interest in prestigious colleges or you wouldn't be asking all of these questions and making multiple threads about them.

Some people go to these schools, and some people go to them on scholarship. Some people go to them at an unusually young age. What of it? What is the real issue?

I know that it is virtually impossible for me to be accepted into a prestigious university.

 

[Vanadium 50]

If you have no intention to go to Harvard, there's not much point of a thread about getting into Harvard.