Thursday, September 10, 2009

Fascinating article about Harvard legacy admits

Great article to look at Harvard legacy admits.


Thanks a lot to my loyal contributor for this article.

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The Back Door to the Yard
Z-list: A legacy-heavy special admissions program
Published On Thursday, June 06, 2002  12:00 AM
By DAN ROSENHECK
Crimson Staff Writer
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=214982

The most interesting portion is below:

All the best,
Mark.

By the most commonly used gauge of selectivity, acceptance rate, Harvard does not appear to be dramatically ahead of its competitors. While Harvard accepts 11 percent of its applicants, 12 percent get into Princeton and 13 percent are admitted to Columbia and Stanford.

But acceptance rate understates Harvard's dominance in admissions, as it primarily measures the number of students applying for a fixed number of places rather than how difficult it is for top candidates to get in or where they choose to go.

Harvard's leadership is more evident in yield, the percentage of accepted students who choose to attend. Harvard's yield is nearly 80 percent, while Princeton's is 68 percent and Yale's is 65 percent.

And Yale and Princeton have binding early decision programs that inflate their yield, while Harvard's early action program allows students who get in early to go elsewhere.

The most revealing indicator of Harvard's comparative popularity is its head-to-head performance against its competitors.

While exact figures for this year were not available, in previous years the ratio of students who chose Harvard over Yale, Princeton or Stanford was over three to one, according to Leverett Professor of Mathematics Benedict H. Gross, who serves on the faculty committee on admissions and financial aid.

Because Harvard is so popular, the admissions office can contact students over the summer after they have already agreed to attend other universities, tell them they can change their minds if they take a year off they had no intention of taking and still get them to come to Harvard in high proportions.


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