Harvard, C/O 2017, Applicants Thread (2013-2014) Forum

[sup_stan]

I never said they were going to give out all 850 before May. Not sure what your point is, I get the concept of the WL and using that to manage class size. I think our only point of disagreement is about the number of the 850 that will come from the wait list. All I'm saying is we can't really know that. 200 is too high, 25 is probably too low. Where it ends up in between is anyone's guess. My projections are based on the most relevant data we have. We can't really do much more than that other than speculate.

If your current estimate is 617 JS2s already given, and you project about 225 left with only 25-50 left for the WL, and WL happens in either April or May, then effectively you were assuming almost all of the presumably 850-900 offers went out before May.

The point here is, I think the size of the FB group should be a more accurate indicator of JS2s already out than your extrapolation, which does not account for differences in LSN representation between direct admit and WL-admit. The difference between 360 and 617 is not a trivial divergence, and it needs an explanation. That was why I proposed that HLS would admit roughly 600 people before May, and let the actual number of withdrawls and deferrals post-deadline or ASW dictate how many they would need to admit in total and also off the waitlist. This method also gives better yield percentage and ensures that they will not over-admit.

So I am basically projecting 360-400 JS2s that already went out based on FB out of the total of 850 (if we can assume that). You seem to project more than 600 that are already out out of the total of 850. That is where our difference lies.

I am not writing this to be a contrarian nor am I being dispolite, I am just trying to gauge my chance at a direct admit before May. Again, any argument is welcome, I can surely be wrong.

[lawschool22]

We have had the discussion about the Facebook group a while back, and iirc it seemed to be lower than the actual admits, by a fair bit. For a point of comparison, the Georgetown group currently has 158 members. Do you think that is an accurate indicator of the current admits? I think it is plausible that a measurable number of people do not join the group. I'm just using that as an example to show that the variability in who joins the Facebook group (and when) seems to be higher than what gets reported on LSN (which we can measure).

Something that would help is if you knew how many were in the group last year. Then we could calculate a percentage and apply that to the 360 to get a projection. But that would still be marred by the WL->admit issue.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at in the first paragraph. I'm saying there are probably 550-600 admits at this point. We could see around 150 more between now and May 1. Then the rest will likely come off the WL (maybe 100 or so, but that seems high).

I wouldn't let this discussion discourage or encourage you either way. I think your chances of getting in are the same no matter what we project. Use myLSN and you can get an idea. Have you had a JS1 yet? If not I would prepare myself for a likely WL at this point (depending on when you applied). If you have, then your stats would tell you the likelihood more Than this projection.

[esther0123]

BUMP for some replies: my original question was..
...so if I took Dec LSAT, should I have at least heard about JS1 if I was in consideration? No word = probably rejected/held?

When did you apply? Some people get JS1s off the waitlist as well.

i submitted mid november with my october score (retook december) and went complete on December 3rd. Later took december and was informed that it would be included in my file review.

[drawstring]

No word = probably rejected/held?

Probably.

[sup_stan]

We have had the discussion about the Facebook group a while back, and iirc it seemed to be lower than the actual admits, by a fair bit. For a point of comparison, the Georgetown group currently has 158 members. Do you think that is an accurate indicator of the current admits? I think it is plausible that a measurable number of people do not join the group. I'm just using that as an example to show that the variability in who joins the Facebook group (and when) seems to be higher than what gets reported on LSN (which we can measure).

Something that would help is if you knew how many were in the group last year. Then we could calculate a percentage and apply that to the 360 to get a projection. But that would still be marred by the WL->admit issue.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at in the first paragraph. I'm saying there are probably 550-600 admits at this point. We could see around 150 more between now and May 1. Then the rest will likely come off the WL (maybe 100 or so, but that seems high).

I wouldn't let this discussion discourage or encourage you either way. I think your chances of getting in are the same no matter what we project. Use myLSN and you can get an idea. Have you had a JS1 yet? If not I would prepare myself for a likely WL at this point (depending on when you applied). If you have, then your stats would tell you the likelihood more Than this projection.

The first paragraph is in response to you saying you never said all of the 850 would go out before May. I was trying to demonstrate using your old estimate, almost all of them will be out by May, which was what I was trying to say. I have already posted time and time again about why I think that would be unwise from their perspective.

I have good reasons to think the hls group will cover most of the admits already, simply because every admit is invited to join the hls group right after admit, and I would speculate that the number of people currently set on hls would be much higher than gtown.
Even using last year's hls held thread as a measure, the hls fb group tracked actual acceptances rather closely based on actual timeline.

Again, 400 js2 left and 200 left have a big difference.


Sent for iPhone, please excuse any typos.

[lawschool22]

I'm just saying I would be shocked if there are only 360-400 people admitted thus far.

[Quest4Knowledge]

One last point. This is all obviously speculation, but I'm at least trying to base my numbers on LSN data and past history. I welcome any other projections, but please try and base it off numbers instead of "I just feel like there have to be xxx JS2s left"

That's fair, my estimate of ~400 is based on the fact that I think the Facebook group is a better estimate of how many acceptances have been handed out, seeing as it is a) run by HLS, b) they supposedly invite all JS2's to the group, and c) not a self-reported sample.

Like you said though, it's all speculation - just wanted to qualify where I got the 400 from.

Edit: Appears a similar discussion has already occurred above - don't mind me.

[rseaney]

We could probably ask admissions via email, I think they might tell us. Just:

"Hi HLS, I was wondering how many waitlist offers were extended last year. Thank you"

That said both stan's and LS22's metrics obviously have some inherent flaws (which both of you have noted and acknowledged). I'm a bit more inclined to agree with stan because 1) I imagine that the vast majority of those accepted a. have facebooks and b. accept FB invitations when they come from HLS, and 2) because I think the LSN data is problematically unrepresentative.

[rseaney]

300 people get accepted to H and dont matriculate...

I'd guess like 180 btwn Y and S, 90 to CCN etc w/$$, and maybe like 30 or so do other things (defer, go to PhD programs, wha'err)?

[teampeeta]

No word = probably rejected/held?

Probably.

I would guess held. If they already knew they'd reject you, then they would've probably sent you the same ding e-mail they've sent others. No reason for them to sit on your application if they're sure they won't take you. I'm choosing to believe we're all still alive until I'm told otherwise.

[lawschool22]

We could probably ask admissions via email, I think they might tell us. Just:

"Hi HLS, I was wondering how many waitlist offers were extended last year. Thank you"

That said both stan's and LS22's metrics obviously have some inherent flaws (which both of you have noted and acknowledged). I'm a bit more inclined to agree with stan because 1) I imagine that the vast majority of those accepted a. have facebooks and b. accept FB invitations when they come from HLS, and 2) because I think the LSN data is problematically unrepresentative.

Do you know how many were in the Facebook group last year at the end of the cycle? Not being rhetorical.

[drawstring]

We could probably ask admissions via email, I think they might tell us. Just:

"Hi HLS, I was wondering how many waitlist offers were extended last year. Thank you"

Go ahead man

[rseaney]

We could probably ask admissions via email, I think they might tell us. Just:

"Hi HLS, I was wondering how many waitlist offers were extended last year. Thank you"

That said both stan's and LS22's metrics obviously have some inherent flaws (which both of you have noted and acknowledged). I'm a bit more inclined to agree with stan because 1) I imagine that the vast majority of those accepted a. have facebooks and b. accept FB invitations when they come from HLS, and 2) because I think the LSN data is problematically unrepresentative.

Do you know how many were in the Facebook group last year at the end of the cycle? Not being rhetorical.

I don't, that would be a good indicator.. although it may actually be useless cuz some folks probably left the group after they decided on other schools and whatnot. I do seem to recall having read ITT somewhere that there were significantly less than 850 tho

EDIT: Great news actually. I just looked and there are 644 in last year's FB group presently, which is almost one hundred more than actually matriculated. Even when you add 30 or so transfers we're still looking at a minimum of 50ish non-matriculates still in the group (brilliant networking move, I'd say). So, considering that a substantial portion of non-matriculates also probably left the group after selecting other schools, I think we can reasonably infer that the FB group is closee to representative of total acceptances (at least 80%). Since there are 359 currently admitted on the 2017 FB page, I'd say that 430-460 is a fair guess.

Also LS22, I don't know if you already adjusted for this, but for Harvard Class of 2015 there was a 25% acceptance rate for LSN applicants, and only a 16% acceptance rate from the total pool.

[rseaney]

We could probably ask admissions via email, I think they might tell us. Just:

"Hi HLS, I was wondering how many waitlist offers were extended last year. Thank you"

Go ahead man

i'll consider it haha while i think it's a very reasonable question i definitely don't want to bug them. I'm actually kinda surprised this isn't publicly accessible information

[Quest4Knowledge]

300 people get accepted to H and dont matriculate...

I'd guess like 180 btwn Y and S, 90 to CCN etc w/$$, and maybe like 30 or so do other things (defer, go to PhD programs, wha'err)?

I'm not sure if there's any data on this, but I've heard that HLS is very lenient with their deferral policy, (especially so with KJDs) and that you would have >30 students deferring.

This wouldn't change projections though, because the # of people deferring is likely similar on a year-to-year basis, and those who defer from previous years would now be in the incoming class.

[Quest4Knowledge]

The following isn't very useful, but I found it interesting so I thought I'd share.

This is from LSN as of yesterday:
The lowest LSAT to get accepted this cycle is a 162 (3.8 GPA). The highest LSAT to get rejected this cycle is a 174 (3.33 GPA)...but if I recall correctly, there was a poster in this forum who had a 176-178 who was rejected - can't remember exactly when.

Conversely, the lowest GPA to get accepted is a 3.58 (176 LSAT), and the highest GPA to get rejected is a 4.09 (162 LSAT).

[IrishJew]

BUMP for some replies: my original question was..
...so if I took Dec LSAT, should I have at least heard about JS1 if I was in consideration? No word = probably rejected/held?

When did you apply? Some people get JS1s off the waitlist as well.

i submitted mid november with my october score (retook december) and went complete on December 3rd. Later took december and was informed that it would be included in my file review.

Here's my two cents, and you can take it or leave it.

I'm not sure how they handle retakes, but I wouldn't assume rejected at this point. (And held and rejected are not the same thing). It sounds to me like you really went complete in early to mid January when they got your scores (I don't know if they did anything with you app before then because I'm not sure what you told them when, but if I understand correctly some schools will simply not look at your app and wait for the new score if you tell them you're retaking).

How long they take to review your file and offer a JS1 probably depends on a lot of factors. E.g. how borderline are you and how "cookie cutter" is your app. Personally, I've gotten into a lot of places but interviews and decisions have taken longer than other people, which I attribute to my application's being very non-standard (PM me if you want to talk about that).

And if you were "held," (or whatever the internal equivalent is), then it means they are still considering you; it's not the same as being rejected.

Bottom line is that you may have only gone under review 5-6 weeks ago, in which case I think a pending JS1 is still possible.

[lawschool22]

We could probably ask admissions via email, I think they might tell us. Just:

"Hi HLS, I was wondering how many waitlist offers were extended last year. Thank you"

That said both stan's and LS22's metrics obviously have some inherent flaws (which both of you have noted and acknowledged). I'm a bit more inclined to agree with stan because 1) I imagine that the vast majority of those accepted a. have facebooks and b. accept FB invitations when they come from HLS, and 2) because I think the LSN data is problematically unrepresentative.

Do you know how many were in the Facebook group last year at the end of the cycle? Not being rhetorical.

I don't, that would be a good indicator.. although it may actually be useless cuz some folks probably left the group after they decided on other schools and whatnot. I do seem to recall having read ITT somewhere that there were significantly less than 850 tho

EDIT: Great news actually. I just looked and there are 644 in last year's FB group presently, which is almost one hundred more than actually matriculated. Even when you add 30 or so transfers we're still looking at a minimum of 50ish non-matriculates still in the group (brilliant networking move, I'd say). So, considering that a substantial portion of non-matriculates also probably left the group after selecting other schools, I think we can reasonably infer that the FB group is closee to representative of total acceptances (at least 80%). Since there are 359 currently admitted on the 2017 FB page, I'd say that 430-460 is a fair guess.

Also LS22, I don't know if you already adjusted for this, but for Harvard Class of 2015 there was a 25% acceptance rate for LSN applicants, and only a 16% acceptance rate from the total pool.

I hope you're right. Although I would question whether or not people actually leave groups once they're in them (I probably won't leave mine because I'll just forget), and in any case those people would probably be offset by transfers, more or less. I think you'd be better to be a bit more conservative and go w/ 75% (644/858). This leads to an estimate of 479 admitted students, which is fair. I still think that is a little low (maybe some people have yet to join), but an estimate of 475-575 admits seems reasonable (I've conceded 617 seems a touch high).

[NoDayButToday]

.

[Theopliske8711]

I think for those of who have not heard, we are being held until the February takers send in their apps. I assume that once they have a picture of what those apps look like, we will hear back. Keep the faith!

[love4life29]

What's the fastest reported turn around after having a JS1?

[caiti]

We could probably ask admissions via email, I think they might tell us. Just:

"Hi HLS, I was wondering how many waitlist offers were extended last year. Thank you"

That said both stan's and LS22's metrics obviously have some inherent flaws (which both of you have noted and acknowledged). I'm a bit more inclined to agree with stan because 1) I imagine that the vast majority of those accepted a. have facebooks and b. accept FB invitations when they come from HLS, and 2) because I think the LSN data is problematically unrepresentative.

I can't promise that I am representative, but I was NOT invited to join the HLS FB group. (And it's not because my FB is hidden or something; I've gotten invitations from other schools.) There is instead a link on the front page of the admitted students website, which makes me think that they're just letting people who care to join the group do so, instead of inviting everyone. If that's the case, then I would bet a fair few haven't bothered to join. So I would guess that the LSN numbers are better, because you have past data to compare it to. (And even if HLS does invite a lot of people, I would bet that I'm not the only one that never got an invite to join the group.)
Anyway, point being that I don't think the FB numbers are better than the LSN ones, although I know that isn't better to hear.

[Kimikho]

What's the fastest reported turn around after having a JS1?

If it's anything less than 49.344 days I'll cry.

(JK probably a day or two, for TRULY exceptional candidates. I'd say ten days for just the regular exceptional ones. Also, I wish I hadn't put a JS1 counter in my app tracker.)

[Quest4Knowledge]

I can't promise that I am representative, but I was NOT invited to join the HLS FB group. (And it's not because my FB is hidden or something; I've gotten invitations from other schools.) There is instead a link on the front page of the admitted students website, which makes me think that they're just letting people who care to join the group do so, instead of inviting everyone. If that's the case, then I would bet a fair few haven't bothered to join.

Interesting, this definitely does change things. Are you a recent admit by any chance? Perhaps they do invite everyone, it just takes a while for them to get around to it.

The current number in the group would still be low though, because it doesn't account for recent admits in the last few waves.

Edit: And if you're not a recent admit, then I agree that a large group probably haven't joined - and the # of JS2's handed out is much higher.

[wtrc]

What's the fastest reported turn around after having a JS1?

If it's anything less than 49.344 days I'll cry.

(JK probably a day or two, for TRULY exceptional candidates. I'd say ten days for just the regular exceptional ones. Also, I wish I hadn't put a JS1 counter in my app tracker.)

Last year there were a couple 2 day turnarounds, iirc.