The best university Applications

Harvard University

Although Harvard is known for its top-notch teaching staff and its endless opportunities, we firmly believe that one of our main strengths is the exceptional diversity of our community.

Here, you will find information that will help you learn more about Harvard College, from our extensive financial assistance program to our holistic admissions process.

IMPORTANT: Harvard College is the undergraduate school of Harvard University. For information on graduate school programs (medicine, law, business administration, education, etc.), please consult the school directory to contact the appropriate office.

If you wish to communicate with a Spanish-speaking representative to learn about undergraduate studies at Harvard, contact the minority recruitment program (UMRP). Note that the UMRP offers information specifically about Harvard College, and not about the graduate schools.

• Paying for your studies

Once a student is admitted to Harvard, we work with your family to ensure they can afford the cost of attending college. We are interested in the best students, beyond their economic situation. Therefore, we commit ourselves to fully comply with the financial need during the four years. International students have access to the same financial assistance as their American peers, regardless of their citizenship status. In fact, around 60% of students receive scholarships according to their need with an average cost of $ 12,000 per year. 20% of our families pay nothing. No loans are required as part of our financial assistance; The help we offer is in the form of scholarships.

We take as a basis two fundamental principles:

• Admission to Harvard does not take into account the ability to pay. This means that your financial need will not affect the possibility of being admitted Financial aid depends entirely on financial need, not on merit

Our student financial aid officers collaborate with families to determine what their financial need is and what payment they will have to make. For many families, this represents between 0% and 10% of family income. The student will also be asked to contribute the cost of their education with employment during the school year and summer.

Check out our net price calculator to get an idea of ​​how much a Harvard education will cost you. In less than five minutes, you will have an estimate of your financial aid package and the payment that would correspond to your family. We think you will be pleasantly surprised.

Applications

 

Each Harvard College applicant is carefully evaluated. There are no formulas to be admitted, but we hope that this information will help you understand what we are looking for in our holistic admission process.

 

Proficiency in the English language

 

Students must have a solid knowledge of the English language, including the ability to understand and express ideas quickly and clearly. It is not compulsory to take the aptitude test in English language (TOEFL) or other language proficiency exams. If you have already taken them, you can present your qualifications as part of the application, but it is not mandatory.

 

 

Visit

 

Attend an admissions briefing and a tour.

Visiting Harvard is a great way to learn about daily life in college, to meet current students, and to explore Cambridge and Boston. It is easier to experiment than to describe the intangible aspects of the Harvard community, the atmosphere of Harvard Yard, and the warmth and enthusiasm of its students.

We know that many students do not have the possibility to visit universities before submitting their applications. Therefore, we hope that our website serves to highlight the vast opportunities of Harvard and the outpouring of its community. You can also take a virtual tour to preview Harvard from the comfort of your home.

 

Cultural diversity

 

The Ethnic Minority Recruitment Program (UMRP) is sponsored by the admissions office. Our program encourages talented students from ethnic minority groups to apply to Harvard College for the purpose of expanding the diversity of future classes. The UMRP program, staffed by current students, answers questions about life at Harvard College and the application process. They also coordinate visits to the campus, as well as tours and special information sessions. Contact the UMRP program for more information on cultural diversity at Harvard.

Stanford University

HOW DO I GET AN ADMISSION IN STANFORD

Each year thousands of parents around the world dream that their children will be admitted to the most prestigious universities in the world, convinced that an education in these academic centers will guarantee them a successful professional career and a future full of the best opportunities. There are a number of universities, such as Stanford, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Yale, Penn and some others, that illuminate the faces and dreams of these parents, knowing that an education in these centers will change the lives of their children, will provide them with a spectacular network of contacts for the future, and will give you countless professional opportunities before you even finish your degree.

But it is important to understand how difficult it is to get an admission to Stanford or centers of the same academic level and above all, be aware that success in life does not depend on being admitted, or not, in these universities. Many of the students who go to these universities go unnoticed by life, while many others, who study in many other university centers, have a global impact on their activities. Many families make the mistake of thinking that it is only worth studying at Yale or Stanford elite universities, not knowing that there are dozens of highly educational sites in the United States and that in some fields of study there are universities that are better academically than the most recognized sites by name.

Universities like Stanford can open many doors to your children, allow you to show off in front of other parents, classmates and friends, but the most important thing when you value an international education is not only to be realistic with the profile of our child, but also to find the university that is really ideal for the student, evaluating academic, social and financial variables. It is important to realize that only a few students from all over the world (most of them with perfect academic records or with histories that show that they are phenomena) go through the hard admission process, with what is normal, even if our son is very good student and have done many things in his baccalaureate years, is that he does not get admission to Stanford, Yale, Princeton or similar universities. And for this reason it is also very important to have different alternatives when you start the process of evaluation of universities, to have a Plan B or a Plan C in case you do not get the admission in university that you have chosen for your child, well be Stanford or another. In fact, with the numbers that are handled, it is very good not to trust the admission in this type of universities and to consider a range of options that guarantee a good university for the future of the student in the USA.

I HAVE NOT GOT ADMISSION IN STANFORD, WHAT ALTERNATIVES DO I HAVE?

There are many parents who think that their children can study in these types of universities, even if they come with a remarkable academic record and have not excelled in any extra-classroom activity. In most cases, the parents are not realistic with the profiles of their own children, not wanting to understand that the possibilities of getting admission are practically nil, and not letting them evaluate many other universities that could be more suitable for their children and even more. beneficial for your futures.

The bad news is that, it's really hard to get admission into Stanford or TOP universities with more and more competition inside and outside the US, with thousands of young people with perfect academic records applying and with more and more admission ratios. low. But the good news is that nothing happens if you do not get admission in this type of universities, since there are hundreds of universities that can also help you achieve your personal, academic and professional goals. In addition, they can also bring countless benefits to students and can be a better choice for most young people. Yes, there are hundreds of success stories of graduate students from Stanford or Harvard, but there are also thousands of success stories that come out year after year from the more than 4,000 universities that exist in the US. And all this without including all the benefits that an education and international experience has in young people from 18 to 22 years old.

HOW IS THE ADMISSION PROCESS IN STANFORD

The admission process in Stanford and first level university centers is very complex, starting with the preparation with two, three or even four years in advance. Admission ratios at most academic centers such as Stanford range from 5-15%, and the majority of students applying for access have perfect academic records, very high scores on the SAT and in the Subject Tests, extracurricular activities, and voluntarily or and other personal projects that demonstrate ambition and that speak in a very positive way of extraordinary experiences at an early age.

The ratio of admission for students of all outstanding is even lower, since a good number of seats are already occupied by those students who have shown exceptional talent in their years of 'High School' and who stand out for their profiles in front of the rest . Athletes also have special treatment when it comes to getting admission, since they already show something different in their lives and bring a lot of value to the campus and diversity. They still need a good academic record but are not competing against thousands of students in the admissions process, nor do they have to prove anything beyond what they have already shown to the sports coaches who want them on their teams.

Incredibly, at Stanford, 69% of the applicants who had had all outstanding and a perfect SAT of 2,400 points were not admitted, probably because the department that manages admission to the university did not consider that they could add much value to the campus, beyond of his intellectual talent. They already have a lot in Stanford. What they really look for are those extraordinary students who have already demonstrated special actions in their life and who add value to the diversity of the campus.

Admission at Stanford

WHAT TYPE OF STUDENTS GET AN ADMISSION IN STANFORD

To get admission into Stanford, the first step they take is a holistic assessment of each student, focusing on the academic excellence, intellectual vitality and personal context of each individual. They will value very intelligent students, who have excelled intellectually or with some other talent, and who have demonstrated that they are ready to do great things. They look for the next Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg, people who can change the world in the future.

The most important point in the evaluation of students is academic excellence, based on the preparation they have received, the results they have obtained and the potential they have to be successful people. At Stanford, they want young people who have given their best during the baccalaureate years, who have outstanding grades, who do very well in the entrance exams and who have not been satisfied with the academic experience.

The second point is the ambition and intellectual vitality of the student, valuing his commitment, his dedication and his interest in wanting to do extraordinary things with his life. The letters of recommendation and the 'essays' (written essays) that go into the application for admission, will give a lot of information about the candidates. Stanford wants to see in his candidates curiosity, enthusiasm, energy, commitment and / or ambition in the activities carried out, regardless of the field of action or 'expertise' of the student. They want to have people that stand out, that are extraordinary in the activities they do, whether in research, in volunteering, in technology, in entrepreneurial projects or in sports.

There are many students with a perfect academic record who do not get admission to Stanford, mainly because in doing this holistic analysis, the managers see that they could contribute little to the student community. And there are others, such as athletes, artists or entrepreneurs, who with worse grades (compared to that vast majority of perfect academic results) have higher chances of admission to Stanford, Yale, Columbia, etc., by giving a higher value to the university, bringing different knowledge and experiences and helping with the diversity that a university like TOP needs.

STATISTICS ON THE ADMISSION PROCESS IN STANFORD

It is really difficult to enter this type of 'top' universities, especially in recent years, due to the large increase in applications for admission that they receive and that make the ratio of admissions lower each year. In the following table we can see the admission ratios for 2016 of some of the most recognized universities in the USA.

University Ratio Admission # of students # of applications

Brown 9.6% 1,485 28,742

Columbia 7.4% 1,391 31,818

Harvard 5.9% 1,661 34,285

Princeton 7.9% 1,300 26,664

Yale 6.8% 1,355 26,664

MIT 7.81% 1,485 19,020

Stanford 4.8% 2,114 43,997

ADMISSION RATIOS FOR THE STANFORD 2016 CLASS

The admission ratio for freshman students in Fall 2016 was 4.8%, with 2,114 admitted from 43,997 applications. The Stanford website offers a series of statistics on the admitted, which allows to understand the academic profile and, above all, shows how many students can have perfect results on the SAT or at school, but nevertheless most have not been admitted finally at Stanford.

WHAT NOTES WERE THE STUDENTS ADMITTED TO STANFORD IN 2016?

96% of the admitted students have had an outstanding average in the last four years of school.

GPA *% of applicants% of those admitted

4.0 or above 4.0 58% 75%

3.7 - 3.99 28% 21%

Below 3.7 14% 4%

* (The GPA is the Grade Point Average, the average grade, and the highest grade is a 4.0, although students who do classes with greater difficulty can get an even higher grade)

WHAT CLASSIFICATION DO YOU HAVE, COMPARING THEM WITH STUDENTS FROM YOUR SCHOOL?

95% of the students were in the top 10% of their class at school.

Rank% of applicants% of those admitted

Top 10% 78% 95%

11% - 20% 13% 4%

Below 21% 9% 1%

WHAT RESULTS HAD THE SECTION OF CRITICAL READING OF THE SAT?

Half of the admitted students obtained a result in the Critical Reading section of the SAT from 700 to 799. 22% of the admitted students had a perfect result.

Result% of applicants% of admitted

800 10% 22%

700 - 799 36% 49%

600 - 699 34% 24%

Below 600 20% 5%

WHAT RESULTS HAD THE SAT'S MATHEMATICS SECTION?

Half of the admitted students obtained a result in the SAT mathematics section from 700 to 799. 28% of the admitted students had a perfect result.

Result% of applicants% of admitted

800 18% 28%

700 - 799 40% 49%

600 - 699 28% 20%

Below 600 14% 2%

WHAT RESULTS HAD THE SECTION OF 'WRITING' OF THE SAT? *

55% of those admitted had a result in the written part of the SAT from 700 to 799. 20% of the admitted students had a perfect result.

Result% of applicants% of admitted

800 9% 20%

700 - 799 38% 55%

600 - 699 34% 20%

Below 600 20% 5%

* The Writing section does not exist in the new SAT that came into force in 2016

WHAT STANFORD AND OTHER UNIVERSITIES ARE REALLY LOOKING FOR

The main objective of this type of universities is to create value, to be known for "producing" students that will make a difference in the world, that will change things in society and in the future. These universities want to attract and admit those young people, students who want and can change the world, and who are willing from an early age to focus on their dreams and passions, to sacrifice and work hard on their goals, and to achieve extraordinary things. To do this they have to evaluate what these 17-year-old boys and girls have achieved in the past, which is the variable that can most predict their success in the future.

WHAT DO YOUNG PEOPLE HAVE TO DO TO GET AN ADMISSION IN STANFORD?

Proving something they have done in an extraordinary way, something that stands out at a national or international level, that completely differentiates the student from the rest of the applicants who enter the process. Yes, the students of all outstanding, with very good grades in the SAT and in the Subject Tests, and with extracurricular activities that demonstrate passion, sacrifice, commitment and hard work, have many possibilities of being admitted, but nevertheless, those that stand out really in some activity are those that really have more chances of getting admission.

How to be extraordinary?

Are you an athlete of the best in the world in your discipline?

Are you a blogger or Youtuber with thousands of followers?

Have you created any company? Or a volunteer foundation?

Have you done projects or have you received internationally recognized awards?

Have you developed a technological project?

Have you published any of your essays, poems or other works?

Have you invented something?

If the student has done any of these things, it will show that he is someone extraordinary, someone with enough talent to add value to his future colleagues at Stanford and to make a difference in the future. When evaluating the past of the students, an athlete, a musician, an entrepreneur, an inventor, an engineer or a Youtuber can demonstrate that they are already successful people, who have managed to stand out in an important way, who have dedicated a great part of their lives to achieve those successes, who have worked hard and made many sacrifices to get what they have achieved, and with that ambition and a university education, they can achieve what they set out to do in life, helping to change the world. It is much more important for these universities to get this type of young people, even if they do not have everything outstanding, than for students with a perfect file that has not yet shown anything out of the ordinary, of which there are already thousands in the US and internationally. .

The more you prove that you are very good at something, the more you compensate for the weaknesses that the student may have in an academic record or in the results of the SAT. The main objective is to stand out in something to make the difference with the rest of the students who are applying for admission.

Admission at Stanford

stanford.edu

IN SUMMARY, WHAT DO YOU NEED TO KNOW TO HAVE GREATER CHOICES TO GET AN ADMISSION IN STANFORD?

It is a dream to enter Stanford but it is not a failure not to get it. There are dozens of universities of the highest academic level in the USA. They also provide many other benefits to the student. You have to turn to the application and the process, but you also have to prepare other options where you can have more possibilities of admission.

You have to start preparing the admission process years in advance. The sooner you can start preparing the student, especially in developing some extraordinary talent that can make a difference, the better. Do not waste time on activities that do not excel, but focus on that talent that can show that it is someone special and can get to Stanford.

The academic part is very important. The student must be outstanding, students who can not show their intelligence or have several notables in their academic record do not count. Nor are shortcuts useful. The more difficult and complex your classes are and the higher the level, the better seen it will be by the final evaluators.

If the student is notable and is not a phenomenon in any activity outside of academics, you should be aware that it is not the academic level sought by these universities and that it is impossible to get admission. Better not waste time or fill with hope with something that is impossible.

You can not think only of the academic part, it is very important to demonstrate that the student can contribute much more than just good grades, and for that it is imperative that he demonstrate activities and actions that are relevant and extraordinary. It has to be very good, exceptional, a star of sports, music or art, an entrepreneur or a precocious engineer with projects already developed. If you are one of these individuals, with a good academic record, you will have more options to be admitted than any other outstanding student who does not contribute anything else to Stanford.

It is very good that you do many activities apart from the studies but not because you belong to a greater number of associations or groups you will have more possibilities of admission in Stanford. It is much more important to transmit passion and talent and excel in any activity in which you have participated. You should focus and dedicate your time and effort to a particular activity that you like, that you are passionate about and that is very good.

Yale University

Yale University is located in the historic city of New Haven in the state of Connecticut. This port city has 125,000 inhabitants and is 120 kilometers northeast of New York City and 200 kilometers southwest of the city of Boston. Founded in 1701, the university consists of twelve faculties: The Yale College, the faculty of licensure; the faculty of postgraduate studies in arts and sciences; and ten professional faculties. The College is the heart of the University and provides humanities and science instruction. More than 2,000 undergraduate courses are offered each year in nearly sixty-five faculties and academic programs, forming a curriculum of extraordinary variety and depth. Faculty faculty members are dedicated to teaching undergraduate students, a commitment for which Yale has been recognized for a long time. Many of Yale's most distinguished teachers teach introductory courses.

The History of Yale

Yale's roots go back to the 1640s when a group of members of the colonial clergy took the initiative to establish a college in New Haven to preserve the European tradition of humanistic education in the New World. This mission was fulfilled in 1701 when the concession was granted to the educational institution. In 1718, his name changed to "Yale College" in gratitude to the Welsh merchant Elihu Yale who donated the proceeds from the sale of nine bales of products, 417 books, and a picture of King George I.

Yale College survived the War of the American Revolution intact (1776-1781) and by the end of its first hundred years it had grown rapidly. The nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought the establishment of the graduate and professional faculties that would make Yale a true university. The Yale School of Medicine was founded in 1810, followed by the Faculty of Theology in 1822, the Faculty of Law in 1824, and the Postgraduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in 1847 (which, in 1861, awarded the first doctorate ( PhD) in the United States), followed by the Faculties of Art in 1869, Music in 1894, Forest Engineering and Environmental Studies in 1900, Nursing in 1923, Drama in 1955, Architecture in 1972, and Administration in 1974. The University began admit women at postgraduate level in 1869 and undergraduate level in 1969.

Residential Schools

Yale College was transformed in the early 1930s through the establishment of residential colleges. Taking as a model the medieval English universities such as Oxford and Cambridge, this distinctive system divides the undergraduate population into twelve separate communities, each with around 450 members. This allows Yale to offer its students the intimacy of a small school environment while providing the vast resources of an educational research center. Each school is located around an interior courtyard and occupies up to a whole block of the city. The foregoing guarantees the environment of a welcoming community where residents live, eat, socialize, and practice a variety of academic and extracurricular activities. Each school has a teacher preceptor and a dean, in addition to a number of resident members of the faculty called "fellows." Each school also has its own dining room, library, seminar rooms, recreation rooms, and other facilities.

Yale Today Yale has evolved to become one of the best universities in the world. Its more than 10,000 students come from all fifty American states and from 110 different countries. The faculty constituted by women and men, many of them leaders in their respective fields, represents a rich demographic diversity. The central campus now covers 170 acres (69 hectares) that extend from the Nursing Faculty in the New Haven Center to the residential and tree-lined streets around the Faculty of Theology. The 225 buildings at Yale include contributions from distinguished architects from all periods of its history. The architectural styles range from the New England Colonial to the Victorian Gothic High, and from the Moro Renaissance to the contemporary. Yale's buildings, towers, green areas, inner courtyards, sidewalks, gates, and arches create what one architecture critic has called "the most beautiful urban campus in America." The University also maintains nearly 600 acres (243 hectares) of athletic fields and nature reserves that are only a few minutes by bus from the city center.

Yale has taken an investment program in its largest facilities since the thirties. A new group of buildings for the Faculty of Art has just opened, as well as new environmental science laboratories, an athletic center, and a student residence. Massive renovations of historical academic buildings as well as residential schools have been carried out. In the next decade the University will continue investing in improvements to the facilities for the benefit of students and teachers.

Library

Worth mentioning is the university's library system, which has more than eleven million volumes in both general and specialized fields, as well as several collections of specific topics, files, recordings, maps, and other artifacts. This is the third largest library in the United States and the second largest university library in the world. Although centrally cataloged, the system is comprised of forty locations distributed throughout the campus, which range from the Gothic and majestic building of the Sterling Memorial Library, which contains about half of the entire Yale collection, to the modern building and Geometry of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, which protects more than 800,000 irreplaceable books and documents.

Galleries and Museums

The extensive collections of the University also enrich life and research on campus. The Yale Art Gallery, founded in 1832, contains a collection that has become one of the leading public art museums in the United States. Its two connected buildings contain ancient, medieval, Renaissance, oriental, pre-Columbian and African art, archaeological material, works of the great European and American masters of virtually all newspapers, and a rich collection of modern art. In addition, the Yale British Art Center, which opened in 1977, contains the largest collection of British art and illustrated books outside of the United Kingdom.

Yale's Peabody Natural History Museum, founded in 1866, contains one of the largest scientific collections in North America. Among its heritage are extensive mineralogical and ornithological collections of the University, the second largest collection of dinosaur artifacts in the United States, and the largest and most intact Apatosaurus in the world. The Peabody Museum is really a museum where public exhibitions, research, conservation, teaching, and learning are coordinated in a dynamic educational juncture.

Institutions such as the Art Gallery, the British Art Center, and the Peabody Museum contain only a portion of the treasures in the collections of Yale University. From the paintings of Picasso and the remains of terdactyls, to a tenor viola of 1689 in the Collection of Musical Instruments, Yale resources are available for the enrichment of diverse communities. However, even considering the magnitude of these university services, Yale's greatest resource is undoubtedly its people. Just as students are inspired by the example and teaching of their teachers, the faculty is constantly rejuvenated through the explorations and new perspectives of their students.

Science and Engineering

Yale is distinguished in the humanities as well as in the sciences. Many people are unaware that Yale is also one of the best scientific research universities in the United States. The faculties of biology, chemistry, molecular biophysics and biochemistry, physics, astronomy, mathematics, computer science, environmental science, geology and geophysics, and other scientific fields at Yale, are consistently among the best in the United States and the world. The resources and facilities available to undergraduate students in all of these areas of study, as well as in biomedical, chemical, electrical, environmental and mechanical engineering, are of the highest quality.

To support and strengthen its resources, Yale will invest more than 500 million dollars during this decade to expand and improve its laboratories and teaching facilities for science and engineering. It will also invest an additional $ 500 million in its medical and biotechnology research facilities.

Strengthening of the Yale International Programs

Yale's relationships with the outside date back to the early nineteenth century when some members of his faculty began conducting international studies and research. Yale has also been at the forefront of attracting foreign students: the first student from Latin America came to Yale in the 1830s and the first student from China to enroll in a college or university in the United States came to Yale in 1850.

Currently the University is actively engaged in international studies. Courses are offered in more than fifty foreign languages ​​and more than 600 courses related to international affairs. The Yale Center for International and Regional Studies has four decades of growth, and now offers six undergraduate and four master's programs, as well as several research activities. International capacity has been increased through the creation of four new research and pedagogical support centers: the Center for the Study of Languages, the Center for the Study of Globalization, the Center for International Finance and the International Institute of Corporate Governance.

Yale is proud of the growing percentage of international students studying on its campus. These students constitute sixteen percent of the total student body of the University. In some graduate programs more than thirty percent of the students come from foreign countries. More than 900 academics abroad from 110 countries reside annually at Yale. For example, the Fox International Fellowship Program facilitates the exchange of post-graduate students with seven recognized universities, including the College de México since 2001. Since 2002, the new World Fellows Program brings Yale every fall to new emerging leaders from different parts of the world