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Archive for: Harvard

Premed Applicants


There was a great article in yesterday’s “The Harvard Crimson” that explored how students who arrive at Harvard and want to get on the premed path often end up changing their minds. The article points out that many students with an interest in medicine are exposed to medicine from an early age, either because of their annual doctor appointments, the prevalence of medicine on television series such as “House” and “Grey’s Anatomy,” or one or both of their parents are physicians and they want to follow in their footsteps.

At Harvard, like at so many universities throughout the country, students will so often find that their interests change while in college when they are exposed to new disciplines, to new possibilities. This isn’t just true of premeds. It’s true of students who apply to colleges thinking they want to be lawyers or business executives or politicians and that’s why it’s always important to keep your options open. Says Lee Ann Michelson, director of premedical and health care advising at Harvard’s Office of Career Services, “While approximately 20 percent of students informally declare an interest in pursuing the premed track when they first arrive on campus, only seven percent eventually apply to medical school as seniors.”

Check out the full article in “The Harvard Crimson.”

Harvard ROTC


The administration at Harvard decided this week to reinstate the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (ROTC) program on campus. Since 1970, the ROTC program had been discontinued at Harvard as a result of student protests to the Vietnam War and remained inactive due to the military’s “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy.” Said Harvard President Drew Faust in a statement, “Our renewed relationship affirms the vital role that the members of our Armed Forces play in serving the nation and securing our freedoms, while also affirming inclusion and opportunity as powerful American ideals. It broadens the pathways for students to participate in an honorable and admirable calling and in so doing advances our commitment to both learning and service.”

In light of the overturning of the discriminatory “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy instituted under the Clinton administration that did not allow members of the LGBT community to serve openly in our nation’s military, Harvard chose to welcome back the respected program that trains college students to be officers in our armed forces. This is welcome news for high school students seeking to attend Harvard who also want to participate in ROTC and complete their military service following their college graduation. It is welcome news that a program that will train some of the best and brightest students our country has to offer at Harvard will soon be returning to campus and it is also welcome news that this program is now open to ALL Harvard students. LGBT Harvard cadets can now enjoy the full right and privilege of serving our country openly and our country will be stronger for it.

Said U.S. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus in a statement, “[The move] is good for the university, good for the military, and good for the country. Together, we have made a decision to enrich the experience open to Harvard’s undergraduates, make the military better, and our nation stronger.” If you are interested in securing a scholarship with a ROTC program either at Harvard or another university, we would love to hear from you so that we can help you succeed in the college admissions process.

What Goes Around Comes Around


In the fall of 2007, the University of Virginia and Princeton University dropped their binding Early Decision plans and Harvard eliminated Early Action. Now three years later, the University of Virginia will be implementing an Early Action plan for its applicants next fall and hopes to receive between 12,000 and 15,000 early applications.

Early Action applications at UVA would follow the same policy as other Early Action colleges. Applications would be due by November 1st, and while applicants will be notified by the middle of December, they wouldn’t have to commit until May 1st. Time will tell if this move will bring Early Action back to Harvard and if Princeton will follow suit.

Check out our earlier post on whether or not colleges will be dropping Early policies.

There is Life After Being Rejected


For the class of 2014, Harvard University received 30,489 and accepted 2,110. If you’re one of those 28,379 students who applied and were rejected, you may find some comfort in knowing that Harvard does indeed make mistakes.

Take U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-MA), for example. He was rejected not once but twice by Harvard. After he was rejected by Harvard, he went to Yale University, graduated, and then enlisted in the Navy where he requested duty in Vietnam and earned a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts (although whether or not he truly earned this recognition was called into question by the Swift Boat campaign). He then applied to Harvard Law School and once again Harvard said “no.”

And you wonder what Harvard was thinking when they rejected Warren Buffet. With the $30 billion that he donated to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, just maybe Harvard regrets that they’re not on the receiving end for just a little something.

Here is a list of rejects that Harvard College most probably regrets:

Lee C. Bollinger – President of Columbia University

Tom Brokaw – Journalist, Former White House Correspondent

Warren Buffett – Investor and Philanthropist

Art Garfunkel – Singer and Songwriter

Matt Groening – Creator, The Simpsons

John Kerry – United States Senator

Scott McNealy – Chairman and Co-founder, Sun Microsystems

David Remnick – Editor, The New Yorker, Pulitzer Prize Winner

Ted Turner – Founder, Turner Broadcasting System, Creator of CNN

Harold Varmus – President of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine

Meredith Vieira – Co-Anchor, Today and Host, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.

Jann Wenner – Founder, Rolling Stone and Chairman, Wenner Media

Shellenbarger, Sue. “Before They Were Titans, Moguls and Newsmakers, These People Were…Rejected.” The Wall Street Journal Digital Network. 24 Mar, 2010. Web. 1 July. 2010.

Is the Process Not Stressful Enough?


Now a kid who is applying to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton is also applying to the Lehighs and Lafayettes, said Brett Levine, director of guidance at Madison High School in New Jersey. It’s the same tier, basically. Lehigh and Lafayette in the same tier as Harvard, Yale, or Princeton? No, Brett, Lehigh and Lafayette are not even close.

This latest “NY Times” article, “Ivy League Crunch Brings New Cachet to Next Tier,” is just another example of how a reporter makes the college admissions process ever so more stressful for students and parents. What Alan Finder fails to say in this article is that more students are applying to college and they’re submitting a larger number of applications than ever before. Students who are applying to the highly selective colleges are also applying to colleges such as Lehigh, Lafayette, and Bucknell because they are uncertain as to their chances of admissions at their top choices.

While this was not surprising to us, this past year, one of our students was accepted at Brown, Penn, Dartmouth, Duke, Tufts, and Columbia, and was waitlisted at Lehigh. The way we figured this to happen was that based on our student’s grades, scores, and extracurricular accomplishments, Lehigh’s admissions committee, with an eye towards their “US News and World Report” rankings in the area of student selectivity, waitlisted her because they figured if they accepted her it would be highly unlikely that she would attend.

What the article also does not say is how some of these schools drown students with glossy unsolicited advertising materials just so students think they are being courted. The students then apply, the college rejects them, and the college moves up a notch in the rankings because of the selectivity factor. Articles such as Mr. Finder’s only add to the pressure on the student applicant.