Harvard c/o 2016 Applicants (2012-2013) Forum

[dawyzest1]

just finished with KB interview and from what I see it went OK. Fingers crossed and I think I may not get sleep again until I get that phone call or more likely a held/reject email. It sux not knowing that uGPA is that important back in college

lol with you there fuck undergrad GPA ~ all thats holdin me back

sux even more cuz I was one of those guys born blessed with the god of standarized test herself. My UG had a tough grading system, but it was no excuse for me not to get a 3.9+ since I aced GRE and LSAT with ease. How I wish I could just go back in time.

I had my JS1 yesterday and I've been surprised how much worse I've felt about the whole get myself into Harvard project AFTER clearing an important hurdle. I love trojandave's advice and will try as hard as I can to follow it and just relax.

[Searchparty]

just finished with KB interview and from what I see it went OK. Fingers crossed and I think I may not get sleep again until I get that phone call or more likely a held/reject email. It sux not knowing that uGPA is that important back in college

lol with you there fuck undergrad GPA ~ all thats holdin me back

sux even more cuz I was one of those guys born blessed with the god of standarized test herself. My UG had a tough grading system, but it was no excuse for me not to get a 3.9+ since I aced GRE and LSAT with ease. How I wish I could just go back in time.

There's a reason they make you take the LSAT - it tells a different story than your GPA. LSAT may tell your capability in a standard way, but doesn't test your long term capabilities (including perseverance and work ethic through your classes, which may be what you lacked since you seem confident in your capability to get 3.9... Which is exactly why they want GPA).


If you got a JS1, they liked your app already they just want to see if they like you.
Also, on your LSAC report they get a whole bunch of information regarding percentiles for your GPA for your UG, so if what you're saying is accurate - they understand that.

[liupang]

just finished with KB interview and from what I see it went OK. Fingers crossed and I think I may not get sleep again until I get that phone call or more likely a held/reject email. It sux not knowing that uGPA is that important back in college

lol with you there fuck undergrad GPA ~ all thats holdin me back

sux even more cuz I was one of those guys born blessed with the god of standarized test herself. My UG had a tough grading system, but it was no excuse for me not to get a 3.9+ since I aced GRE and LSAT with ease. How I wish I could just go back in time.

I had my JS1 yesterday and I've been surprised how much worse I've felt about the whole get myself into Harvard project AFTER clearing an important hurdle. I love trojandave's advice and will try as hard as I can to follow it and just relax.

kind of too late for me, cuz I've had like 10 cups of coffee the hour before get on skype.

[jbagelboy]

just finished with KB interview and from what I see it went OK. Fingers crossed and I think I may not get sleep again until I get that phone call or more likely a held/reject email. It sux not knowing that uGPA is that important back in college

lol with you there fuck undergrad GPA ~ all thats holdin me back

sux even more cuz I was one of those guys born blessed with the god of standarized test herself. My UG had a tough grading system, but it was no excuse for me not to get a 3.9+ since I aced GRE and LSAT with ease. How I wish I could just go back in time.

There's a reason they make you take the LSAT - it tells a different story than your GPA. LSAT may tell your capability in a standard way, but doesn't test your long term capabilities (including perseverance and work ethic through your classes, which may be what you lacked since you seem confident in your capability to get 3.9... Which is exactly why they want GPA).


If you got a JS1, they liked your app already they just want to see if they like you.
Also, on your LSAC report they get a whole bunch of information regarding percentiles for your GPA for your UG, so if what you're saying is accurate - they understand that.

Yea. The LSAC percentile report is awesome. probably the only reason I still haven't been canned

[edgeofthenight]

...

[Simplicity]

just finished with KB interview and from what I see it went OK. Fingers crossed and I think I may not get sleep again until I get that phone call or more likely a held/reject email. It sux not knowing that uGPA is that important back in college

lol with you there fuck undergrad GPA ~ all thats holdin me back

This.

My school used a +/- grading system, but it didn't give out A+'s. So a 4.0 was the highest attainable GPA. Students at other schools were able to earn a 4.33 for an A+. I didn't even know that was possible until I came to this board. Also, I was in an integrated master's program, so I took all of my undergrad major-specific courses with the same students, and the average GPA of those students entering the program was roughly a 3.8/4.0. Obviously, it's harder to do well when your courses are curved and every single person you're competing with is an overachiever, like we are.

And none of the above is apparent in my LSAC-calculated GPA or percentile report, since I'm compared against the entire school as a whole, not the students specific to my program.

Yes, I am bitching about this. The LSAC goes above and beyond to ensure that the LSAT is fair, but it doesn't do the same for GPAs.

[vzapana]

just finished with KB interview and from what I see it went OK. Fingers crossed and I think I may not get sleep again until I get that phone call or more likely a held/reject email. It sux not knowing that uGPA is that important back in college

lol with you there fuck undergrad GPA ~ all thats holdin me back

This.

My school used a +/- grading system, but it didn't give out A+'s. So a 4.0 was the highest attainable GPA. Students at other schools were able to earn a 4.33 for an A+. I didn't even know that was possible until I came to this board. Also, I was in an integrated master's program, so I took all of my undergrad major-specific courses with the same students, and the average GPA of those students entering the program was roughly a 3.8/4.0. Obviously, it's harder to do well when your courses are curved and every single person you're competing with is an overachiever, like we are.

And none of the above is apparent in my LSAC-calculated GPA.

Yes, I am bitching about this. The LSAC goes above and beyond to ensure that the LSAT is fair, but it doesn't do the same for GPAs.

There are measures in place to help you out. LSAC tells adcomms very specific school data, like how many law school applicants over the last 3 years got a 4.00+ cumulative LSAC GPA. If the number is zero, they more or less know that your 4.0 is roughly equivalent to another school's 4.00 to 4.33. Likewise, a 3.8 at your school wouldn't be very different from a 3.9 at some other schools. As for the master's program, they can read on your application that you are getting a grad degree, and they can see advanced coursework on your transcript. I don't really see why your gpa would pose a problem with Harvard, especially considering your above-median LsAT. It's probably the softs that will make or break you.

[Searchparty]

just finished with KB interview and from what I see it went OK. Fingers crossed and I think I may not get sleep again until I get that phone call or more likely a held/reject email. It sux not knowing that uGPA is that important back in college

lol with you there fuck undergrad GPA ~ all thats holdin me back

This.

My school used a +/- grading system, but it didn't give out A+'s. So a 4.0 was the highest attainable GPA. Students at other schools were able to earn a 4.33 for an A+. I didn't even know that was possible until I came to this board. Also, I was in an integrated master's program, so I took all of my undergrad major-specific courses with the same students, and the average GPA of those students entering the program was roughly a 3.8/4.0. Obviously, it's harder to do well when your courses are curved and every single person you're competing with is an overachiever, like we are.

And none of the above is apparent in my LSAC-calculated GPA.

Yes, I am bitching about this. The LSAC goes above and beyond to ensure that the LSAT is fair, but it doesn't do the same for GPAs.

There are measures in place to help you out. LSAC tells adcomms very specific school data, like how many law school applicants over the last 3 years got a 4.00+ cumulative LSAC GPA. If the number is zero, they more or less know that your 4.0 is roughly equivalent to another schools's 4.00 to 4.33. Likewise, a 3.8 wouldn't be very different from a 3.9 at some other schools. As for master's program, they can read on your application that you are getting a grad degree, and they can see advanced coursework on your transcript. I don't really see why you would have a problem with Harvard over your GPA, especially considering your above-median LsAT. It's probably the softs that will make or break you.

+ infinity.

LSAC KNOWS they can't account for variations in GPA which is one of the reasons we have the LSAT to begin with.

Also, I don't know how many schools have A+, but mine certainly didn't.

[wert3813]

just finished with KB interview and from what I see it went OK. Fingers crossed and I think I may not get sleep again until I get that phone call or more likely a held/reject email. It sux not knowing that uGPA is that important back in college

lol with you there fuck undergrad GPA ~ all thats holdin me back

This.

My school used a +/- grading system, but it didn't give out A+'s. So a 4.0 was the highest attainable GPA. Students at other schools were able to earn a 4.33 for an A+. I didn't even know that was possible until I came to this board. Also, I was in an integrated master's program, so I took all of my undergrad major-specific courses with the same students, and the average GPA of those students entering the program was roughly a 3.8/4.0. Obviously, it's harder to do well when your courses are curved and every single person you're competing with is an overachiever, like we are.

And none of the above is apparent in my LSAC-calculated GPA or percentile report, since I'm compared against the entire school as a whole, not the students specific to my program.

Yes, I am bitching about this. The LSAC goes above and beyond to ensure that the LSAT is fair, but it doesn't do the same for GPAs.

Just get it out of your system.

[amonthofsundays]

Yea the 4.33 for an A+ was a bit of a sticking point for me because my UG gave A- but not A+. Even students who weren't really gunning for the 4.0 or the 4+ seemed to be at a big advantage over my system because a few A+ in a few easy classes could go a long way towards pushing that middle of the road 3.5/6 into a much more competitive 3.7/8. Not that I can complain about my GPA but maybe it was fear of racking up a bunch of A- s by missing a few points in class that turned me into such a striver during UG.

[Searchparty]

Yea the 4.33 for an A+ was a bit of a sticking point for me because my UG gave A- but not A+. Even students who weren't really gunning for the 4.0 or the 4+ seemed to be at a big advantage over my system because a few A+ in a few easy classes could go a long way towards pushing that middle of the road 3.5/6 into a much more competitive 3.7/8. Not that I can complain about my GPA but maybe it was fear of racking up a bunch of A- s by missing a few points in class that turned me into such a striver during UG.

For my UG, it seems to be the consensus that they brought in + and - grades in order to make the system a little more difficult and to "curb" grade inflation. It seems as though adcomms take grade inflation into consideration, so I would think you wouldn't really be at too much of an advantage/disadvantage either way... Aside from the fact that they have to report your LSAC GPA, so if it just so happens it was inflated....

[Simplicity]

just finished with KB interview and from what I see it went OK. Fingers crossed and I think I may not get sleep again until I get that phone call or more likely a held/reject email. It sux not knowing that uGPA is that important back in college

lol with you there fuck undergrad GPA ~ all thats holdin me back

This.

My school used a +/- grading system, but it didn't give out A+'s. So a 4.0 was the highest attainable GPA. Students at other schools were able to earn a 4.33 for an A+. I didn't even know that was possible until I came to this board. Also, I was in an integrated master's program, so I took all of my undergrad major-specific courses with the same students, and the average GPA of those students entering the program was roughly a 3.8/4.0. Obviously, it's harder to do well when your courses are curved and every single person you're competing with is an overachiever, like we are.

And none of the above is apparent in my LSAC-calculated GPA.

Yes, I am bitching about this. The LSAC goes above and beyond to ensure that the LSAT is fair, but it doesn't do the same for GPAs.

There are measures in place to help you out. LSAC tells adcomms very specific school data, like how many law school applicants over the last 3 years got a 4.00+ cumulative LSAC GPA. If the number is zero, they more or less know that your 4.0 is roughly equivalent to another school's 4.00 to 4.33. Likewise, a 3.8 at your school wouldn't be very different from a 3.9 at some other schools. As for the master's program, they can read on your application that you are getting a grad degree, and they can see advanced coursework on your transcript. I don't really see why your gpa would pose a problem with Harvard, especially considering your above-median LsAT. It's probably the softs that will make or break you.

Maybe. But the TLS consensus seems to be that the admissions process is highly driven by the USWNR rankings, which is probably overblown, to an extent. Still, I doubt schools take all of that info into account as much as they should.

The fact that I have a grad degree is irrelevant. However, I was taking courses with these students while in undergrad (we get admitted to the program before our junior year and take most courses with one another after that), which definitely had an effect on my undergraduate GPA

And this doesn't have anything to do with Harvard, specifically. It's just a general complaint that seemed applicable to the discussion in this thread. I sound like a whiny bitch, though.

[arrggg]

I guess I lucked out a little with my UG. They gave out A+s, but they only counted as a 4.0 on our scale. Fortunately LSAC recalculates the GPA based on A+=4.33, so I got a little bit of a boost.

Interestingly enough, I think all of my A+s came from physics classes...

[arrggg]

Maybe. But the TLS consensus seems to be that the admissions process is highly driven by the USWNR rankings, which is probably overblown, to an extent. Still, I doubt schools take all of that info into account as much as they should.

The fact that I have a grad degree is irrelevant. However, I was taking courses with these students while in undergrad (we get admitted to the program before our junior year and take most courses with one another after that), which definitely had an effect on my undergraduate GPA

And this doesn't have anything to do with Harvard, specifically. It's just a general complaint that seemed applicable to the discussion in this thread. I sound like a whiny bitch, though.

I don't know if this is true for your major, but I think for my major, the grad courses' "curves" were very lenient. Whereas a UG course might hand out 20% As, the corresponding grad course might hand out 50% or more. That might make up for the presumably higher caliber students in the grad courses.

[04102014]

Just got dinged. Was held 3/14/2013. Balls.

[ph5354a]

Just got dinged. Was held 3/14/2013. Balls.

+1

Good luck to everyone still waiting.

[siredwrdross]

Just got dinged. Was held 3/14/2013. Balls.

http://nooooooooooooooo.com/

[WaitingandHopeful]

Ding just now. January hold. Not at all surprised. The hold was surprising because I should have been an auto ding.

[Searchparty]

Just got dinged. Was held 3/14/2013. Balls.

Oh, pobrecito!

[toothbrush]

Just got dinged. Was held 3/14/2013. Balls.

Oh, pobrecito!

poor little man

kidding. that sucks bro. sorry to hear it

[hohenheim]

Dinged as well. Mostly irritating because I sent them a LOCI this morning...

[applemaroon]

Dinged as well. Mostly irritating because I sent them a LOCI this morning...

Sorry buddy!

[ph5354a]

This was my first and only rejection. I'm not crazy about the way it feels, but I've had a good cycle. Now I just need for Columbia to tell me they're not giving me any money and I can go on with my life.

[sabanist]

how do I go about enveloping an entire thread in a hug?

Sorry guys.

[zara23]

dinged too about a minute ago. complete in nov, held in early feb. good luck to those still waiting!