As students around the world anxiously prepare for alumni interviews, admissions officers back in Cambridge sit down to sift through tens of thousands of applications.
Harvard assigns each admissions officer a geographic region and asks that they read all applications from students living in that area.
The first reader for each application records a Harvard-dictated set of data points and makes note of any missing materials. This year, first readers will take down applicants’ citizenship, race, legacy status, recruited athlete status, socioeconomic background, and standardized test scores, according to reading procedures for the Class of 2023.
First readers also verify labels and scores that identify applicants’ likelihood of qualifying for full financial aid. Roughly 60 percent of College students receive need-based scholarships and 20 percent pay nothing towards tuition.
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“It has long been a priority for Harvard to seek talented students from all backgrounds, including those extraordinary individuals who are able to transcend economic disadvantages and achieve unusual academic distinction,” the document reads.
Admissions officers then move to the numbers. First readers assign applicants scores for their academic achievements, extracurricular accomplishments, athletic prospects, personal qualities, and the strength of the student’s “school support” — meaning their letters of recommendation. Staffers use a slightly different numerical scale for each category, though 1 marks the highest ranking across all scales.
The reading procedures offer highly detailed insight into what it takes to earn top marks.
In order to score an academic 1, an applicant must be a “potential major academic contributor” with “summa potential” and “near-perfect scores and grades.” It also helps if the high schooler has “national or international level recognition in academic competitions.”
Those who earn an academic 2 typically score in the mid-700s or higher on the SAT — or 33 or higher on the ACT. An academic 3 denotes an applicant with “mid-600 through low-700 scores” on the SAT or a 29 through 32 on the ACT.
A student with an academic 4, meanwhile, typically boasts “low-to mid-600 scores” on the SAT and between a 26 and 29 on the ACT — academic achievements the admissions office call “adequate preparation” for Harvard. Students who draw a 5 academic ranking typically earn SAT scores in the 500s or an ACT score clocking in at 25 or below. Harvard asserts these high schoolers have only “marginal potential.”
In the extracurricular category, a 1 denotes “possible national-level achievement or professional experience.” High schoolers can hope for a 2 if they serve as “class president, newspaper editor [or] concertmaster.”
An athletic 1, meanwhile, indicates the student could compete in his or her sport “at the national, international or Olympic level.”
In line with past years, the reading procedures for the Class of 2023 also detail how admissions officers calculate personal scores. This year’s iteration, though, is far more fleshed-out than old guidelines. While previous versions of the procedures summed up what it takes to score a personal 1 in a single word — “outstanding” — the 2023 booklet devotes a whole paragraph to the topic.
“Truly outstanding qualities of character; student may display enormous courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles in life,” the document reads. “Student may demonstrate a singular ability to lead or inspire those around them. Student may exhibit extraordinary concern or compassion for others. Student receives unqualified and unwavering support from their recommenders.”
Related: [Asian-American Harvard applicants saw lowest admit rate of any racial group from 1995 to 2013]
How Harvard assigns personal scores forms a key point of dispute in the ongoing admissions trial. Students for Fair Admissions has alleged Harvard unfairly assigns qualified Asian Americans lower scores for their personal traits as part of a campaign to systematically deny them admission. The University has repeatedly and strenuously rejected these allegations.
Still, the charges may have had some effect in Cambridge. The Class of 2023 reading procedures explicitly tell Harvard admissions officers how and when they may consider race as they evaluate candidates — something never detailed in past versions of the procedures, which the College produces each admissions cycle. The new guidelines particularly forbid admissions staffers from weighing a candidate's race when assigning scores for personal traits.
Finally, in a section titled “School Support,” the reading procedures outline how admissions officers should rank letters of recommendation penned by teachers and guidance counselors. If a letter writer describes the student as “the best of a career” or “one of the best in many years,” that student is likely to earn a 1. If, however, the applicant is merely "one of the best” or “the best this year,” they are more likely to score a 2.
Most applications see only two readers. The second person who reads the application — always another employee in the admissions office — typically checks facts and records applicants’ scores in an internal database.
Harvard professors sometimes review portions of an application if it includes notable academic or artistic work.
STEP 4: COMMITTEES TAKE A VOTE
Following the reading and ranking, the best-scoring applications go before two successive Admissions Office committees. A majority of each committee must vote “yes” on any given applicant for that student to win a spot at Harvard.
The Class of 2023 reading procedures indicate that all applications with a 2- overall score or better should make it to the committee phase. The first reader decides on a case-by-case basis whether those who earn a 3+ will proceed, while those scoring a 3 or worse typically do not advance.
The first committee that examines all applications is a smaller sub-committee comprising five to eight people: admissions officers, faculty readers, and a senior admissions office employee who serves as chair. There are several of these committees; each one focuses on applicants hailing from a particular geographic region.
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The subcommittees’ discussions and debates as they review candidates can be rather lengthy.
“Subcommittees may discuss a single case for half an hour or even more before voting on a recommendation to offer the full Committee,” the 2013 interviewer handbook states.
The subcommittees work throughout the fall and winter as officers slog through the early action and regular decision cycles.
“Subcommittees begin meeting in November for the Early Action process and for three- to four-day shifts in late January until the end of February for the Regular Decision process,” the handbook states.
The subcommittee holds a vote to determine which applicants it will pass on to the full admissions committee, a group comprising 40 application readers. A simple majority of the subcommittee must vote in an applicant’s favor for that student to move to the next phase.
The full committee scrutinizes and votes on each application at least once. It, too, obeys a simple majority rule.
But the full committee can be fickle. It often changes its mind, revisiting and occasionally rescinding its decisions to accept — or reject — borderline applicants.
The flexibility of the process preserves “the possibility of changing decisions virtually until the day the Admissions Committee mails them,” according to the 2013 interviewer handbook.
STEP 5: FINAL DECISION
In mid-December, Harvard will inform early action applicants of their fate. In late March, the College will do the same for regular decision candidates.
Though this year’s class is heading into the process with a much more detailed knowledge of Harvard admissions than any applicant pool in recent memory, they share at least one trait with decades of their peers.
Until that email pops up in their inbox, all they can do is wait.
