Harvard Decisions

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Hednej said:
I heard 1000 too. The admissions guy was saying how lucky we were to be in the chosen 1000 from approximately the 6000 smt applicants.
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from US News report. last year's stats:

Applied Interviewed Accepted Enrolled
Total: 4,598 1,041 239 165
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Hednej said:
Here's the link just in case anyone else is curious.
https://medweb.med.harvard.edu/finaidapp/logon.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2ffinaidapp/PgHome.aspx
I just had to try and see. Didn't work for me though.:mad:
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What did you guys try for student ID?

Never mind.

PS. didn't work for me either.
 
How stressful. At least for UCSF decision I knew I'd be one of the first to hear. Having to wait for mail to travel on top of the wait until March, blah.
 
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cgscribe said:
How stressful. At least for UCSF decision I knew I'd be one of the first to hear. Having to wait for mail to travel on top of the wait until March, blah.
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I guess now the tables have turned, my friend ;)

Hey, at least you heard from UCSF! Waiting is the story of my life these days...
 
I'm sure with interviews at Harvard and UCSF though, you've got acceptances in-hand. Good luck, I hear UCSF is sending out another batch soon.
 
Gah...I think I need to officially swear off this thread.
 
foofish said:
Gah...I think I need to officially swear off this thread.
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Dude, you shouldn't be stressing. I would be shocked if you didn't get in...they love Harvard undergrads, you have great stats and you work at Harvard. You're practically golden!


cgscribe -- my fingers are crossed!
 
From what I surmise, Harvard ugrads have, on average, a higher rate of admission. However, I do know multiple people who had recommendations from profs at Harvard Med and a solid application that did not get in.
 
Well, I'm no Harvard undergrad, but I'm hoping for the best.
 
wtf, the dean told us on interview day that they only interview 850... or is that NP only?
owell, i better brace myself for a big nasty NO...
 
omegaxx said:
wtf, the dean told us on interview day that they only interview 850... or is that NP only?
owell, i better brace myself for a big nasty NO...
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850 is much different from 1000 (usnews and secondhand source several posts ago) which is much different than 711 (msar)....who knows...it really doesn't matter anymore
 
Apparently, being Ivy League crew confers a significant advantage for Harvard med school admissions. Probably because many of the folks on the Adcom were either on crew or their kids were on crew at Ivy League schools. Could be an urban myth. I really don't know. I do enjoy rowing a boat but I was definitely not Ivy League crew. Good luck to everyone!
 
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searun said:
Apparently, being Ivy League crew confers a significant advantage for Harvard med school admissions. Probably because many of the folks on the Adcom were either on crew or their kids were on crew at Ivy League schools. Could be an urban myth. I really don't know. I do enjoy rowing a boat but I was definitely not Ivy League crew. Good luck to everyone!
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I'm just hoping that the urban legend that Harvard is a Canadian school has at least a drop of validity.:luck:
 
omegaxx said:
wtf, the dean told us on interview day that they only interview 850... or is that NP only?
owell, i better brace myself for a big nasty NO...
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Whatever the number is, we can take solace in the fact that its probably not much different than last year. If you look at MDApps for Harvard in 2006 and 2007, the number of applicants and interviewees are pretty similar. Of course we always say MDApps is not a reliable source, but I think 400 apps is a good sample size for our purposes (unless of course there is an SDN quota:p )
 
searun said:
Apparently, being Ivy League crew confers a significant advantage for Harvard med school admissions. Probably because many of the folks on the Adcom were either on crew or their kids were on crew at Ivy League schools. Could be an urban myth. I really don't know. I do enjoy rowing a boat but I was definitely not Ivy League crew. Good luck to everyone!
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hahah very funny. any other myths? i would love to hear them.
 
At least with other schools, I felt like after the interview there was a 50/50 shot of acceptance. Harvard was a longshot anyways, but ~1000 interviewees makes it seem that much more daunting.
 
cgscribe said:
At least with other schools, I felt like after the interview there was a 50/50 shot of acceptance. Harvard was a longshot anyways, but ~1000 interviewees makes it seem that much more daunting.
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Especially when every interviewee I met that day was absolutely amazing:scared: :scared: :scared:
How they manage to narrow it down to 200 is completely beyond me.
 
omegaxx said:
Especially when every interviewee I met that day was absolutely amazing:scared: :scared: :scared:
How they manage to narrow it down to 200 is completely beyond me.
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Maybe I just interviewed on a bad day, but I actually didn't care for a number of the other applicants at HMS and wondered why they were even there in the first place. Sure there were definitely a few shining stars in the group, but it was a bit immature to hear them talking about Facebook with their faculty interviewers and others acting like they were omniscient about subjects in which they had no direct experience whatsoever. Nearly everyone was life/physical sciences major from an Ivy League or a big-name public university as well.

The HMS students, on the other hand, were diverse and highly engaging; my faculty interviewers were especially interested in hearing my thoughts and impressions on them. So even though the applicant pool (on my day) was less than desirable, I think the adcom does a remarkable job at ultimately accepting the best students.
 
clusterfunk said:
Maybe I just interviewed on a bad day, but I actually didn't care for a number of the other applicants at HMS and wondered why they were even there in the first place. Sure there were definitely a few shining stars in the group, but it was a bit immature to hear them talking about Facebook with their faculty interviewers and others acting like they were omniscient about subjects in which they had no direct experience whatsoever. Nearly everyone was life/physical sciences major from an Ivy League or a big-name public university as well.

The HMS students, on the other hand, were diverse and highly engaging; my faculty interviewers were especially interested in hearing my thoughts and impressions on them. So even though the applicant pool (on my day) was less than desirable, I think the adcom does a remarkable job at ultimately accepting the best students.
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This is interesting. The other applicants at my Harvard interview were actually the nicest, coolest, smart without being in-your-face applicants out of all the schools I went to. Also, my group was very diverse...age-wise, racially/ethnically, and undergrad-wise -- there were quite a few non-Ivys. Actually, the other applicants were what I found most impressive at Harvard.
 
I agree with this statement. Also if anyone finds out that the loophole works, or receives anything in the mail they have a duty to report it to everyone. Seriously this wait is ridiculous, why can't they post something online?
 
If it is not one thing, it's another. Either you worry (at other schools) that you are only interviewing for a waitlist spot -- or you wait and wait for the single decision day to arrive.

What is wrong with looking at the entire pool and deciding on the best? Harvard has a very high yield (that is to say that very few with an offer from Harvard choose to go elsewhere) and the Harvard adcom can't be as generous with offers as some other schools so they really do need to wait until they've seen everyone, even the August MCATers before they make and release their decisions.

:luck: everyone!
 
clusterfunk said:
Maybe I just interviewed on a bad day, but I actually didn't care for a number of the other applicants at HMS and wondered why they were even there in the first place. Sure there were definitely a few shining stars in the group, but it was a bit immature to hear them talking about Facebook with their faculty interviewers and others acting like they were omniscient about subjects in which they had no direct experience whatsoever. Nearly everyone was life/physical sciences major from an Ivy League or a big-name public university as well.

The HMS students, on the other hand, were diverse and highly engaging; my faculty interviewers were especially interested in hearing my thoughts and impressions on them. So even though the applicant pool (on my day) was less than desirable, I think the adcom does a remarkable job at ultimately accepting the best students.
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You must have spent much more time with the other applicants than I did...I definitely wasn't able to judge all this about anyone during my interview day.
 
clusterfunk said:
Maybe I just interviewed on a bad day, but I actually didn't care for a number of the other applicants at HMS and wondered why they were even there in the first place. Sure there were definitely a few shining stars in the group, but it was a bit immature to hear them talking about Facebook with their faculty interviewers and others acting like they were omniscient about subjects in which they had no direct experience whatsoever. Nearly everyone was life/physical sciences major from an Ivy League or a big-name public university as well.

The HMS students, on the other hand, were diverse and highly engaging; my faculty interviewers were especially interested in hearing my thoughts and impressions on them. So even though the applicant pool (on my day) was less than desirable, I think the adcom does a remarkable job at ultimately accepting the best students.
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I think you're precariously jumping to conclusions here. Why should talking about Facebook with an interviewer be immature? Is it not yet another topic for dicussion. It may even be more interesting for the interviewer, instead of hearing about another public service stunt that you used to pad your application.

Also, I think you're way too quick to degrade your fellow interviewees. And I doubt the faculty actually cared to hear your opinion on them. If you told them what you write here then you probably came off sounding aloof and obnoxious.
 
glinkov said:
I think you're precariously jumping to conclusions here. Why should talking about Facebook with an interviewer be immature? Is it not yet another topic for dicussion. It may even be more interesting for the interviewer, instead of hearing about another public service stunt that you used to pad your application.

Also, I think you're way too quick to degrade your fellow interviewees. And I doubt the faculty actually cared to hear your opinion on them. If you told them what you write here then you probably came off sounding aloof and obnoxious.
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Perhaps you need to simmer down and read a little more closely; the interviewers were asking about the students not the other applicants. And I don't disagree with you about rambling on about ECs and other fluff, mostly because they should already be in the application. Just not sure facebook is something that an applicant would want to be remembered for during the interview per se.

Looking at the entire pool is indeed a very good thing and so is trimming the excess fat, though it seems like a lot of people falsely get their hopes up because they interviewed at HMS. But as they probably say in every interview orientation, if you are lucky enough to get an interview here, then you should get accepted somewhere... whether or not that's actually true, who knows.
 
i know this is compulsive, but i've been checking the finaid site over the past few days (only once a day, i promise... :( ). anyway, i check today (yes, it's sunday) and i get a "generic error":

An administrator changed the system configuration while you were logged in. Please close your browser and log in again.

so this is just an error anyone would get, right? because i was never able to log in. can someone verify this? after the "thin envelope" scare from columbia, i'm getting close to just exploding next time someone asks "how's the med school thing going?"
 
mehhh said:
i know this is compulsive, but i've been checking the finaid site over the past few days (only once a day, i promise... :( ). anyway, i check today (yes, it's sunday) and i get a "generic error":

An administrator changed the system configuration while you were logged in. Please close your browser and log in again.

so this is just an error anyone would get, right? because i was never able to log in. can someone verify this? after the "thin envelope" scare from columbia, i'm getting close to just exploding next time someone asks "how's the med school thing going?"
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well, what happened when you tried to log in again?
 
well, that's just it. i can't log in, i keep getting the same error message. maybe they're updating the site? or maybe i've tried too much and i've been kicked out (ip address)? who knows? can you try it and see what happens?
 
Slightly off topic, but concerning the debate on how many interviews were given out last year, the interview manual says 912 interviews for HST and NP combined for 2006, and I am inclined to believe Harvard literature over other sources. Of course I have no idea how many were interviewed this year though.

As for the financial aid website, I my guess is it is still on the early side for that, if it works at all. I doubt they are even finished making decisions yet, much less finished with financial aid database profiles for admitted students.
 
Mr. Tee said:
Why would they block your IP?
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I don't think they would but mehh suggested it could be why we can't access the site? Really, I'm the wrong person to ask, I don't know anything about computers...
 
Dr. C. Troy said:
March 9th

I'm just hoping to get an interview invite anyday now :|
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where did you hear about march 9th date? thanks so much! i just wanted to know if the source of this information was a reliable one :)
 
also if you check out the attachment that came with your interview invitation you will see a list of all the important dates. March 9th is listed as the mailing day for all admission decisions.
 
hey,

do u guys mind sharing how long your interviews were? mine were about 30min each and that seemed extremely short, like they werent interested in me...just wanted to confirm...

thanks!
 
this is not fun said:
hey,

do u guys mind sharing how long your interviews were? mine were about 30min each and that seemed extremely short, like they werent interested in me...just wanted to confirm...

thanks!
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mine were both over an hour, but one of them didn't go so well so i'm not expecting much...
 
tch001 said:
mine were both over an hour, but one of them didn't go so well so i'm not expecting much...
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about 45 minutes. It's really quality over quantity here.
 
Both over an hour. I'm a non-trad so I think most of my interviews have gone on longer than usual because there's a lot of stuff to ask me questions about.
 
Has anyone heard anything reliable on when the admissions letters will be mailed out again?

Also, does anyone know if the MD-PhD letters are mailed out separately from the MD ones?

Thanks.
 
hpchope said:
Has anyone heard anything reliable on when the admissions letters will be mailed out again?

Also, does anyone know if the MD-PhD letters are mailed out separately from the MD ones?

Thanks.
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i called and was told "sometime in March."
 
cabgdoc1 said:
i called and was told "sometime in March."
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Hey cagbdoc1, thanks for taking the time to call and ask. Harvard is being vague and giving us all attitude as usual... Sighs.
 
anyone have any speculation as to whether or not decisions will be mailed out by the end of next week or not?
 
My heart says they'll be mailed out the 9th, but with all the delays that basically every school has had this year, I wouldn't be surprised if it's later. I just want to know.
 
Did the financial-aid loophole work for anyone recently?
 
cabgdoc1 said:
Did the financial-aid loophole work for anyone recently?
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from looking at last year's thread, it appears that the financial loophole works for accepted (not waitlisted though) applicants around the time letters are sent. I really doubt that decisions have been finalized yet and even if they have, that they would have given financial aid that info. to let accepted students log in.

check it maybe sometime next week?
 
QuantumMechanic said:
from looking at last year's thread, it appears that the financial loophole works for accepted (not waitlisted though) applicants around the time letters are sent. I really doubt that decisions have been finalized yet and even if they have, that they would have given financial aid that info. to let accepted students log in.

check it maybe sometime next week?
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Harvard waitlists?? I always just assumed that they over-accepted by 60-70 people and that was it. No doubt that the majority of those accepted will matriculate. But that's still good news.
 
mizilan said:
Harvard waitlists?? I always just assumed that they over-accepted by 60-70 people and that was it. No doubt that the majority of those accepted will matriculate. But that's still good news.
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not really, they waitlist a very small group of students (maybe they just don't overaccept at all, their yield is relatively large). someone on last year's thread cited that 40-60% of those on the waitlist get in.
 
this is true. i know someone who was pulled of the HST waitlist at the end of the summer last year
 
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