From: college
To: Sonia
Subject: Re: attn undergrad admissions
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 11:22:52 -0400 (EDT)
The bet way to get the information you'd like would be to call us, at 617-495-1551, or to visit the campus if you can. Our web page http://adm-is.fas.harvard.edu also provides information.
Thank you for your interest.
Sincerely,
Admissions Officer
Harvard and Radcliffe College
Dujari: What is campus life like at Harvard?
Officer: You know our location in Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and it's a very residential campus. About 99% of the students live on campus and we do guarantee housing for five years. We are an urban campus, and are about 8 minutes away from Boston on the public transportation system. So we have all the advantages of being near a big city, and there are 40 other colleges and universities within the area. There's a lot going on on campus: there are tons of athletic teams, and seventy publications, and eighty to ninety drama productions a year, and community service.
Dujari: What differentiates Harvard from the rest of the pack?
Officer: I think it's different for each person; location, and resources. We do have a lot of great professors at Harvard, and the quality of the student body. The students are definitely the college's greatest resource. When you talk to graduates of Harvard, they usually say that the best thing about Harvard was the people. It's sort of hard to answer that question because I think all the schools are very good and people have their own individual reasons for choosing different schools.
Dujari: What is your policy on affirmative action for non-Asian minorities?
Officer: We actually have affirmative action for ALL minorities, including Asian Americans. We take into account people's backgrounds, what kind of schools they went to. We really try to judge and base our admissions decisions on what type of individual the student is. So no matter where you are or what type of resources were available to you, we try to determine if you tried to challenge yourself. And race is one of the factors that we look at.
Dujari: So do you give minorities special consideration?
Officer: Well, what we like to say is that we give tips for different excellences. So somebody who is a great musician might get a tip over somebody else. We have a lot of applicants with a lot of great qualifications and great talent. So we kind of look for things that distinguish somebody from the rest. We do look at their ethnic backgrounds, but it's tough for everybody to get in. I wouldn't say it's easier for someone who is a minority to get in. However. race is one of the factors that we do look at on a person's application.
Dujari: There is a lot of criteria that it takes to get into a top school, and I was wondering: do you have any ranking order that you would rank the following in: SAT scores/other standardized test scores, grades/GPA, rank in class, the difficulty of classes taken, and the extracurricular activities?
Officer: We really don't have any ranking order and that's the truth. We try to look at the whole person; we try to look at a human being out of all the information that we get on paper. We look at all of the things that you talked about, together. We have students that are more distinguished in one way more than another . . .
Dujari: Do you have any kind of cut-offs whatsoever?
Officer: No cut-offs and no minimums. We do take students with lower test scores who have something else.
Dujari: Thank you.