Each spring, Harvard University sends out rejection letters to roughly 94% of its applicants. The school’s astonishingly low acceptance rate (this year marked a record low at 5.3%) leaves many highly accomplished high school seniors at a loss at how to compete in an environment saturated with valedictorians and perfect SAT scores.
Like many top universities, Harvard claims to use a “holistic” approach to the admissions process that stresses diversity of backgrounds and experiences in addition to test scores. However, in the last two decades, a group of victims has emerged from this particular stress on diversity, and now they’re starting to fight back.