Admissions
Playing the Odds
If you’re a gambling man, you might be better off taking your money to Vegas than putting it on admission to any Ivy League school. This year Harvard had a 6.9 percent acceptance rate. Book of Odds, a Web site which describes itself as “a reference on the odds of everyday life,” has converted that number into betting style odds.
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Senior admissions officer David L. Evans and his colleagues enjoy champagne, cheese, and crackers as they celebrate the send-off of the decisions on which they have deliberated for the past three months.
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Admissions officers smile and cheer as the last box of decision letters is loaded onto the truck to be sent to students around the world.
Decision Day 2010: Rejected From Harvard
Chances are that you’ve heard the names of famous people who graduated from Harvard. But what about the ones who never made it past the admissions process?
Introducing the Class of 2014
At 5 p.m. yesterday, about 30,000 high school seniors had an e-mail from the Harvard College admissions office arrive in their inbox. Of those 30,000 or so students, only 2,110 were lucky enough to be accepted to Harvard. And of those 2,110, only 5 were lucky enough to be interviewed by FlyBy just hours later. Here are their stories.
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Admissions officer Valerie Beilenson helps load decision letters that will be delivered to applicants for the class of 2014 onto a mail truck outside of the Admissions Office. 6.8% of applicants were granted a spot in the Harvard College Class of 2014.
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Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 proposes a toast to admissions officers on a job-well-done, encouraging them to be proud of themselves.
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Admissions officers load rejection letters onto the USPS truck. They exchange congratulations on the successful completion of another year of decisions, and lament the fact that they must reject so many qualified applicants.
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The 2,110 acceptance letters are loaded first, followed by the rest of the letters--comprised of both rejections and waitlist notifications.
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Admissions Office staff members form an assembly line to load the newly-sealed letters onto the USPS truck that will deliver the hard-copy admissions decisions to this year's 30,000 applicants.
Decision Day 2010: Remember When You Got into Harvard?
Remember that transcendent moment when you opened that e-mail titled “Your application to Harvard College”? The sensation you felt after reading the first sentence? And then having to read it again?
