Does anyone here go to Harvard University?

I'm just now going to start high school. I would really like to go there, ever since 4th grade. I have great grades, extracurricular, clubs, and I won a lot of award on awards day, along with some other things. Please tell me what I need because I'm dying to go there.


P.S-I have visited the University many times.


I'm also looking into others like Yale, Princeton, Standford, and a few others, but my dream is to go to Harvard.


I left out some other details, but if I get any questions I will answer.


Thank you!

Does anyone here go to Harvard University?
I just graduated from Harvard, and I (along with all my friends) absolutely loved it and none of us wish we'd gone anywhere else. The only person I know who "hated" it was a girl who lived in my freshman dorm and was getting low-ish grades (several B-'s) in the first-year writing course. She also didn't get along with her super-perky roommate, and had a bit of a meltdown and transferred to Dartmouth. Oh, and Harvard is no longer offering an early admission option, so you're out of luck on that one. Now that I got that out of the way, I'll address your real questions. =)





I wanted to go to Yale starting around the same time you decided on Harvard -- then I switched when I decided I wanted to study math and realized Harvard had the much better program. Having a goal early on is great, but like everyone told me, you could be setting yourself up for major disappointment, so watch out!





It sounds to me like you're doing a lot of the right stuff. I never went overboard with standardized test prep, but if your scores aren't really high, make sure you do everything you can to get them up. Keep your grades as high as possible, too, obviously, and stay as involved as possible with your activities and clubs.





But here's what I think is the key:





While it's important to be very good at everything (being "well rounded"), it's even more important to be *especially* good at one thing in particular (being "well lopsided," as we like to call it). So even if you win lots of awards in lots of areas, make sure you have one that you pursue especially passionately -- as passionately as possible -- even if you love everything equally. You want the admissions people to be able to refer to you as "that X girl" where X can be debate, animal rights, molecular biology research or anything else. You don't want to be just another person who's done tons of little stuff and writes an essay about how important their family is to them, or how much they enjoy studying generally.





There's no absolute recipe for getting in, but that's the best advice I can offer. =) Keep challenging yourself, and you can make it. And once you get there, I promise it will absolutely have been worth it!
Reply:My friend got accepted to Harvard and from what I can read you're off to a great start. Just keep everything up. Take advantage of advanced classes, get involved in extracurricular activities and organizations at your school. I remember when I had my interview with Harvard the interviewer told me that he had once interviewed a girl that he thought would fit in great with the school. She had the grades...everything, but she did not get accepted. So, don't be disappointed if in the end you do not get accepted b/c what Harvard and any Ivy league school tries to do is diversify their campus. One piece of advice that I can give you though, is that if you really want to go to Harvard then apply for early admission, that way your chances of getting in are greater.
Reply:Why do you want to go to Harvard? Sure, it's a great school, but it's not best at everything. You might want to figure out what you want to do first, THEN decide where to go to school.





But if you want to stand out from all the other thousands of valedictorians with straight A's, millions of activities and awards and sports, and great recommendations, here's how you do it.





1) publish a book


2) sign a record deal


3) do original publishable research


4) start a business or sucessful non-profit





That will make you stand out a bit. But nothing is a garruntee.
Reply:i went to Harvard for a year and then transferred to University of Pennsylvania (another ivy league school). To be honest unless your family has money and or influence in the Harvard community, you won't get in. My father was alum and had a lot of cash to give. Honestly, Harvard isn't everything, just a name.....
Reply:A friend of mine does, he got a freakin 36 on the ACT
Reply:I was accepted to Harvard, but then I decided to move to Hollywood and become an actor. I drove to Harvard many years later just to flip it off for being a bad idea.