During college, Luo also took off a semester to work for an HIV/AIDS prevention program in South Africa. Luo will return to the US this fall to attend Johns Hopkins medical school.

"As a doctor, I hope to care for people living with HIV, as well as work on AIDS education and prevention in both the US and the developing world," Luo wrote in an e-mail message.

For Weiss the application process and waiting to find out if she had been chosen was not a major concern.

"I was on the first team in high school, so I felt like I had done it before. It was definitely not as complex as a medical school application" Weiss said.

Like Schwartz, Weiss is also concerned with disabilities, and founded EMPOWER, a group working for advocacy and awareness of disabled students at Harvard.

Bennett, a Pforzheimer House resident, is a Cognative Neuro-Science major and is currently working on a thesis which deals with why certain songs become stuck in people's heads more easily than others.

The founder of Harvard's BOND support group and a National Chopin Competition winner, Bennett actually had to spend 5 years in college.

"I went to Depaul for 2 years but I had to transfer as a sophomore becasue Harvard didn't accept my piano credits," Bennett quipped.