Better chance to get into Harvard/ MIT (Boston, Andover: 2013, top schools)
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This is a loaded question with way too many variables. I suggest you call the admissions departments of both schools and ask them to send you the demographics of their 2017 and 2018 entering freshman classes. The vast majority of students admitted to either school do not come from the Greater Boston area.
What gives your children a good chance of getting into Harvard/MIT is made up of many things:
Good grades in progressively more difficult classes
good SAT/ACT scores
demonstrated commitment to two or three activities - sports, national honor society, robotics, Scouts, volunteerism, not just a member but a leader
a good story that makes them stand out.
Maybe? It is an extremely marginal boost at best. Harvard has an acceptance rate of around 5%. That’s alresdy excluding all the people who either had no shot or no interest in going to Harvard. It’s a small change to a small chance. It’s not worth obsessing over.
If you have a middle aged or younger kid and you have not already been told by a few professionals that your child is profoundly gifted, you should not plan your life on getting them into Harvard or MIT. I’m not saying your kid won’t go to Harvard, just that obsession with going to Harvard will probably stunt their growth. Help them grow and learn and if they do that we’ll be happy. The Harvard/MIT stuff will happen naturally if it’s going to happen.
IMHO all things being equal (i.e. highly qualified child), you have a better chance of getting into Harvard / MIT if you're from Wyoming or Montana vs. the Boston area. The top schools are really after geographic diversity. In the Boston area high schools, the challenge is differentiating yourself from your overachieving peers, let alone folks from across the globe.
A good test to see if your kid can get into Harvard/MIT is to apply to the Winsor School, Roxbury Latin, Phillips Andover, Middlesex, Nobles, or Groton (depending on where you live). If they can't get in they probably are not getting into Harvard/MIT,
Hello everyone,
Is study from boston middle/ high school(public/ private) give you better chance to get into Harvrad/ MIT?
Please share your opinion
Thanks in advance for your time and information.
A better chance than what? What are you comparing it to? A high school located elsewhere in the U.S.? Generally, I'd say no, because they want geographic diversity, as mentioned in the post above. There are certain schools that are 'feeders' to Harvard, so in some sense, a student at one of those schools *might* have a "better chance" than a similar student elsewhere. But not all of those feeder schools are in Boston.
A good test to see if your kid can get into Harvard/MIT is to apply to the Winsor School, Roxbury Latin, Phillips Andover, Middlesex, Nobles, or Groton (depending on where you live). If they can't get in they probably are not getting into Harvard/MIT,
This is a great gauge, if they cannot test into a school such as boston latin, then they need more tutoring.
However peer group probably helps alot, going to a school full of hard working geeks will help to elavate the childs standards compared to going to a very average school with many distractions...
Harvard and MIT is quite different. For Harvard, there are several feeder schools, and Harvard Crimson has written about it. I saw in some discussion forum there is historical connection between Boston Latin and Harvard, for instance.
MIT has a quite different philosophy. For example, it has no legacy program because they want to be objective in assessment. That said, that same set of school that send a lot of kids to Harvard typically send a lot of kids to MIT as well (Stuyvesant, Thomas Jefferson, Boston Latin, Lexington, Philips Andover, etc).
All these are quite irrelevant though. If you are brilliant enough for MIT, you shine no matter where you are. You are making your school great, not the other way round.
All these are quite irrelevant though. If you are brilliant enough for MIT, you shine no matter where you are. You are making your school great, not the other way round.
My wife is a college admissions consultant. So, I feel like I'm pretty immersed in this discussion on a regular basis with her. I think you put it quite well when it comes to the type of student that Harvard and MIT are looking for. They want students that will make their school great. Not the other way around.
It's not enough to have a 4.0 GPA and a perfect SAT score even. You can't just have extracurricular activities. You extracurricular activities have to demonstrate an interest. For example, if you want to apply as an engineering major your extracurricular activities better demonstrate your love for engineering. Plus, you should have some inventions or even patents under your belt as well if you're applying to a competitive major like that. It's a serious uphill battle to get into these schools.
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