A few days ago, Harvard University released the admission data of the class of 2027, only 3.41%, which became the second lowest in Harvard history. However, even with such fierce competition, more than 300 students who received offers "turned down Harvard" for various reasons. The courage of these students to do the opposite also makes us think: should we choose a school that suits us, or subconsciously choose an obvious "trophy" school?
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Wen 丨Kochagin edited 丨Jennifer
No matter how diplomas are inflated, some golden signboards are always golden signs, such as Harvard University, which was founded 140 years before the founding of the United States. Every application season for children in China, one of the most sensational news is how many Harvards have been recorded, and the Harvard that rejects tens of thousands of students every year.
With such a filter, it is difficult to understand that some students will turn down an offer from Harvard, right? A few days ago, Harvard Crimson, the journal of Harvard University, released the admission data of the class of 2027, revealing that 16% of students admitted to Harvard did not go to Harvard.
This also means that more than 300 students turned down offers from Harvard!
On forums such as "Zhihu" Quora in the United States, Bund Jun saw a lot of related stories to share. There are many reasons why students reject Harvard, and some of them are interesting and valuable, but they can give subsequent applicants some new understanding of the university and some new inspiration for choosing a school.
2027 Harvard freshman data,
Take a quick look at 5 key points
Let's take a look at the statistics of the class of 2027 undergraduate freshmen, and there are also a few points that are worth saying:
1. Harvard admission, no "spring"
Harvard's acceptance rate for the Class of 2027 is 3.41%, a slight increase from 3.19% last year. However, it would be outrageous to say that this is "Xiaoyang Chun". When it comes to college admissions, small fluctuations in the next year don't make sense — the 3.41 percent acceptance rate is the second lowest in Harvard's history.
Harvard acceptance rate for the Class of 2015 to 2027
The chart above is obvious, from the perspective of Harvard's acceptance rate in the past 13 years, it can be described as a steady decline; Most directly related to the decrease in acceptance rate is the expanding application pool year by year. This year, Harvard admitted a total of 1,942 freshmen, who stood out from a pool of 56,937 applications; Last year's application pool broke a record 60,000.
Historically, the 60,000 mark is likely to quickly become uncommon — you know, Harvard's application pool only exceeded 20,000 for the first time in 2003, and it was more than 30,000 in 2013.
But how has Harvard enrollment grown over the years? The answer is almost unchanged, stable at around 2,000. There is so much porridge.
2. Small victories for Asians
The proportion of Asians in the Class of 2027 is the highest in history, reaching 29.8%, more than 2 percentage points higher than that of the Class of 2026.
Although the Crimson did not directly explain the cause and effect, it mentioned the connection between this trend and the first major case in the US education field in recent years, the "Asian American suing Harvard Discrimination Case". It seems that the voices of Asian Americans on the issue of college admissions fairness in recent years still have a role.
图源：The New Yorker
As the percentage of Asian-American students increased, the proportions of black students (14.1%), Latino students (11.9%), Native American and Native Hawaiian students (2.3%) all declined.
3. The arts and sciences are more balanced
Judging from the survey of the professional aspirations of freshmen, Harvard is very balanced in what we usually call liberal arts and sciences, and it is worthy of being an established comprehensive university.
About 29.8% of freshmen intend to focus on social sciences; Another 30.2% of new students are interested in natural sciences; About 16 percent of freshmen said they were interested in computer science and engineering, while 16.3 percent planned to focus on the humanities. The remaining students have not yet decided.
4. Thirteen students transferred to Harvard
Yes, Harvard can also transfer. This year, 13 transfer students will transfer to Harvard from other universities this fall semester.
To be eligible to transfer to Harvard, students must have completed a full-time degree program at least 1 consecutive academic year but no more than 2 academic years at a college. That is, at least two years of undergraduate studies at Harvard.
In the United States, there are many examples of transferring to prestigious schools, especially the California system is more convenient, and studying well from community college to Top30 is not a dream. However, given Harvard's difficulty in applying, transferring is not necessarily a good way to save the country from the curve — the acceptance rate is basically no more than 1%.
5. More girls for 6 consecutive years
Among the Class of 2027, Harvard boys and girls will make up 47% and 53%, respectively. This trend has been going on for 6 years.
In the 70s of the 20th century, Harvard University began to gradually increase the proportion of female students enrolled, and adopted a series of measures to promote gender equality. In general, however, colleges and universities like Hapumaye have a similar ratio of male and female students.
In some ordinary colleges and universities in the United States, girls have a more significant advantage. For example, at the State University of New York at New Paltz and the University of Carolina, nearly two-thirds of the students are women.
Secondly, as mentioned at the beginning, about 84% of admitted students accepted their places this year, and we can calculate that at least 310 people turned down Harvard offers this year.
Although after more data comparison, Bund Jun found that the acceptance rate of 84% is not low. But it is surprising to see 300 or so students abandon Harvard. Let's take a look at some specific examples of what students who "rejected Harvard" think.
I don't want to be 60 years old and still pay off my school loans
A student named Richard Dahan came from a wealthy family, but he still gave up Harvard for financial reasons after receiving several acceptance offers, including Harvard.
Most ultra-elite universities in the U.S. are generous in providing need-based financial aid to applicants, especially home-country students like Richard. When Richard receives an offer from college, he also receives a financial aid package. "The offers are very close... The difference is less than $1,000 or so. ”
"Harvard is an exception," Richard revealed, adding that Harvard's funding is more than $10,000 less a year than MIT, Stanford, Princeton, Yale and Columbia.
1. Private universities in the United States are the top luxury
Corresponding to the quality of American universities, their education costs are also among the highest in the world. Many elite private universities, in particular, have exceeded $60,000 a year in tuition and fees — about the median household income in the United States.
And because the proportion of US government funding for higher education is gradually declining, university spending is gradually increasing, and tuition fees are still rising considerably. Obama, who attended Harvard Law School in the '90s, didn't pay off his college loans until 2004.
Over the past 50 years, U.S. college tuition has risen even faster than its inflation rate. According to a study released by the US education website My eLearning World, from 1971 to 2021, the average cost of attending a private university in the United States soared from $2,930 to $51,690 per year, an increase of about 4.6 times the inflation rate.
Richard is fortunate that the family is not stingy in investing in education, and his parents have been saving for future college expenses since the birth of their children, and it is not a big problem to pay for Harvard tuition in full;
But the only small problem is that he still has 3 siblings - it is not necessarily the financial crisis that can bankrupt the middle class, but it may be that all four children will go to college. In summary, this leads to the fact that the family has to consider the cost of college.
2. Choose a school with higher financial support
Richard wrote a letter to Harvard's financial aid department, explaining that Harvard was his first choice and that if Harvard couldn't match other schools in financial aid, he would be overwhelmed by financial pressures. However, Harvard did not accept his request, and this bargain ended in failure.
Richard complains that the situation reflects a potential problem at Harvard, which is that the interaction between Harvard's administration and students is more like a "deal" than a more supportive relationship. Focus more on student performance and achievement than on the student's individual needs. He felt that Harvard lacked support and care, and chose MIT next door instead.
Tom Stagliano, an aerospace engineer who also studied at MIT, also told an interesting story:
"A good friend of mine was applying for a PhD at Harvard, and he had an interview at Harvard and put forward some of his needs; Harvard asked him what he wanted, 'A good PhD program is still a sizable stipend.'" He stood up and walked towards the door, turned around and said, 'I want both,' and he accepted Yale's offer. ”
The above experience shows that many excellent students in the United States will use financial support as an important indicator when considering a university.
3. Is Harvard really slamming the door?
However, despite these individual complaints and a fair view, although every year students abandon Harvard offers because of "better offers," Harvard is already one of the most generous universities in the United States.
There is an admissions policy in the United States called "need-blind", which admits students without considering their financial status, and provides financial aid according to the financial needs of students after admission - there are very few schools that implement this policy, and there are only a few that can treat international students equally, but Harvard is one of them.
The Crimson Daily pointed out that Harvard announced the expansion of its financial aid program for the second year in a row, raising the tuition-free threshold of 75,000 knives last year to 85,000, which means that nearly 24% of students can enroll for free this year.
Oba President Ma If he had known about this good thing more than thirty years ago, he would have burst into tears. You know, there are still more than 3 million 60-year-olds in the United States who are still repaying college loans. The total amount of all-American loans is close to 1.75 trillion US dollars, which is the largest in the world.
In recent years, due to inflation and the general economic recession, the tuition fees of American colleges and universities are still rising.
Many public and private universities have set a third tier of fees for international students, which is very unkind, and it also reminds Chinese students to do enough information symmetry work, such as searching and comparing tuition fees with other fees of different universities, and determining which universities provide financial aid, scholarships and grants.
Escape the pretentious atmosphere
Harvard is interviewing students, and students are "interviewing" Harvard. In addition to financial factors, many students also rejected Harvard because of personal preferences.
"Turning back at Harvard is a great liberation." So says a young man named Kevin Cao.
Like many American high school students, Harvard was his dream school and dreamed of a glittering Ivy League degree. But Kevin said that after attending Harvard's pre-school activities, Kevin had no illusions about Harvard.
First, he found that many students at Harvard were somewhat "pretentious"; Second, he began to feel that universities invested more resources in graduate students than undergraduates; Finally, after asking himself where he could feel most comfortable, he chose the University of Virginia in his hometown. In addition to Harvard, he also rejected top schools such as Princeton and Stanford.
1. Have no interest in being in an atmosphere of privilege
To some extent, "pretentiousness" is not just a subjective feeling.
The American college application system has a small box that checks whether there are relatives who have also enrolled in this school, and if you choose Yes, this status is very likely to make the applicant "preferential treatment" in the subsequent admission process.
Private universities, in particular, give alumni children some care when admissions, and this legacy admissions are ubiquitous and cannot even be said to be an unspoken rule.
It is not only wealth that can be inherited, but also academic qualifications - Harvard University's 2025 inheritance admitted freshmen accounted for 31.9%.
Although in recent years, many universities such as Penn, New York University, California Institute of Technology and even Harvard have actively or passively declared that they want to reduce the proportion of inheritance admissions, these elite universities themselves do not have much incentive to break this "historical tradition", after all, in the same class of 2025, Harvard received a huge donation of more than $50 billion from alumni. Fairness is the face, and affordability is the inside.
Professor William O. Beeman, an American cultural anthropologist, also said that although Harvard has a need-blind policy, it still tends to attend wealthy preparatory schools or wealthy suburban schools such as Beverly Hills High School and Palo Alto High School in California.
"I know that some students have no interest in being in this privileged atmosphere, so even if they are eligible, they don't apply."
Professor Deresiewicz of Yale University put it even more sharply in his book The Good Sheep: "Harvard is not an ideal university, but a multibillion-dollar enterprise that happens to sell education." It has a lot of advantages, but I can't deny that something is lost in the process. ”
After Richard Dahan left Harvard for MIT, he felt MIT was more satisfactory.
He said that the superior episodes seen at Harvard certainly come to MIT, but "it usually doesn't last long because at MIT, everybody suffers together." Even for an immature 18-year-old, this cultural difference is obvious. This made my final decision a lot easier. ”
2. Be attracted by different campus cultures
In addition to prestige, what makes Richard feel different is the cultural differences between schools.
He felt that MIT had a stronger spirit of "Mens et Manus" (Latin for the combination of theory and practice) than other universities; In contrast to Harvard's motto "Veritas" (Latin, truth), MIT "is concerned not only with discovery, but also with progress." ”
When he attended MIT Experience Week before enrollment, he saw students hardcore building roller coasters next to their dorms.
图源：The Boston Globe
In addition, Richard appreciates MIT's collaboration more than Harvard's competitive culture.
Harvard courses are usually graded on curve scores, while MIT courses are not, so competition among Harvard students is more intense. MIT encourages students to collaborate in labs and course projects to explore new knowledge and solve real-world problems. This spirit of cooperation and practice-oriented educational philosophy is a major feature of MIT.
"As a freshman, I have been helped countless times by older dormitory classmates or club members who help me solve problems, sometimes until 2 a.m."
3. Choose a school, be sure to make yourself "comfortable"
But then again, the so-called preference is always turnip cabbage has its own love, there is no superiority, it all depends on personal choice.
Do not think that no one spits on MIT, go more. One technology critic said, "MIT is a factory of manufacturing technologists who are good at solving problems but don't necessarily know which problems are worth solving." ”
In fact, almost all schools have been shelled:
"Stanford has become an incubator for a certain type of entrepreneur in Silicon Valley who is more concerned with making money and disrupting industries than with solving real-world problems."
"Caltech is the place to go and be an outstanding scientist or engineer, but it's not a place to be a well-rounded person, or a responsible citizen."
"Yale is the place to learn how to succeed in a world of power and privilege, but it is not the place to learn how to use that power and privilege for the greater good."
……
Professor O. Beeman, who has taught at Harvard, Brown, Penn, Chicago and many other universities, pointed out that smart students should understand the strengths and weaknesses of all the schools they may apply to and choose the one that suits them best, rather than subconsciously choosing an obvious "trophy" school.
"For tech-inclined students, MIT, CMU or Caltech are better options; For drama (Harvard does not), students go to Brown University, Tufts University, or New York University; Creative writing? Try Bard College or the University of Iowa; Foreign language? Middlebury is better..."
In short, for a student's actual choice, the world ranking is the most important indicator on the surface, but in reality it may be quite a bit further back.
The "university ranking" in the hands of each applicant should look different, and must be based on various factors such as their own interests, professional direction, economic strength, life needs and career planning, and make a suitable choice for themselves; In addition to rational planning, but also look at the feeling - just like the relationship between people, feeling "comfortable" is king.
And universities, it is precisely because of diversity that they are wonderful.
Resources:
1.84% of Admits Accept Spots in Harvard College Class of 2027,The Harvard Crimson;
2.Harvard College Accepts 3.41% of Applicants to Class of 2027,The Harvard Crimson;
3.Why yes, that IS a roller coaster on MIT’s campus, Boston Globe;
4.Kevin Cao Harvard Essay: High School Senior Explains Why He Rejected Ivy League School For UVa, HuffPost;
5.Harvard Has Become More Racially Diverse, But Most Of Its Students Are Still Really Rich, bur;
6.The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?,Michael J. Sandel；
7.Why Do Legacy College Admissions Still Exist?， Forbes；
8.https://www.quora.com；
9. The Past and Present of American Student Loans, China Youth Network;
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