SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips

Each year, Harvard receives nearly 40,000 applications from high school hopefuls. Only 5% of them get a Harvard acceptance letter.

For example, in 2015, Harvard College accepted 1,990 applicants from a record 37,307 applications for the Class of 2019. That’s a 5.3% admission rate.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of applicants get a rejection letter. “I am very sorry to inform you…”

When I was in high school, I was one of the lucky few to apply Early Action and receive an acceptance letter in the mail. This validated years of hard work and made me giddy like I'd never been before for what came after high school.

Here’s my complete, official Harvard acceptance letter.

Here's a scan of the original admissions letter sent to me by the Office of Admissions at Harvard College. (Thanks to my dad for keeping it around). 

This is for Early Action, though I'd bet the Regular Decision letter looks similar.

Even though I was admitted to my other top choice schools (Princeton, MIT, Stanford especially), I ultimately decided to attend Harvard. Unlike Princeton and MIT, it had leading graduate schools in every discipline (medicine, law, business), which made me believe it had the broadest set of opportunities and the most diverse community. Because of my interest in medicine and science at the time, it also had the broadest, richest research community. At the end of the day, I also felt like I would regret not attending Harvard more than any other school.

After this letter, I'll give you tips on what it takes for you to get an acceptance letter like this for yourself.

OK....Now What?

You probably have a reason for looking at this acceptance letter. Let me try to help you out.

If you just received a rejection letter from Harvard, I'm sorry. When admissions officers say it's a really hard decision when it comes down to the wire, they're speaking the truth. 

The good news is that your future is almost entirely up to you. There are Harvard graduates who end up floundering in life, and there are graduates from hundreds of other colleges (and people who don't even go to college) who end up accomplishing amazing things. You're in control of your own fate. So if you're disappointed about a Harvard rejection, I hope you pick yourself up and excel from this point forward. Here's a guide on good study habits to excel in academics.

If you're in high school (or even earlier) and want to apply to Harvard, I hope this acceptance letter inspires you to want one of your own. 

Make no mistake, it took a lot of hard work to get to the point where I had a great chance at getting admitted to Harvard and passing their admission requirements. I had to strategize carefully and be ruthless about where I spent my time so I could balance a high GPA, challenging coursework, test scores, and demanding extracurricular activities.

To help you out, I've written everything I know about succeeding in high school and college admissions. If you want your own Harvard acceptance letter, these are must-read guides:

1) How to Get Into Harvard and the Ivy League

This is my foundational guide to help you understand what top colleges like the Ivy Leagues are looking for. Here you'll learn:

• what kinds of students are most attractive to Harvard and why
• why being well-rounded is the kiss of death in top college admissions
• what a Spike is and why an effective Spike will get you into every college you apply to
• how you can develop a Spike of your own

I'm not saying it's easy, because it's not. But far too many students have the wrong idea about what kinds of students colleges are looking for.

In the process, they waste far too much time on things that aren't important and do nothing to increase their chances of admission. Even worse, they end up miserable and constantly stressed.

That's why I wrote this guide. Read it and you might totally change your application strategy before it's too late.

2) My Complete Successful Application to Harvard, Including Common App and Supplement

To complement my "How to Get Into Harvard" guide, I share my entire college application, page by page, word for word. You'll see the exact application that the admissions committee at Harvard saw, including the Common Application, my transcript, personal essays, letters of recommendation, and Harvard supplement.

I also provide commentary on every piece of my application. You'll see what was really important to get me into Harvard, and other things that weren't. You'll even see mistakes I made in my application.

I've never seen anyone else provide this level of detail, so this is a special treat.

3) How to Get a 4.0 GPA and Better Grades

Your coursework is one of the most important aspects of your college application. Not only do you need great grades, you need great grades in what Harvard says is "the most demanding college-preparatory program available."

Thus it's no surprise that a lot of high school students are stressed out by coursework and the demands of college applications. Do you feel like you're taking too many AP courses and struggling to stay afloat? 

Consistently, I see that the biggest problems are with mindset, habits, and strategy. I've written a comprehensive guide with my complete set of strategies in how to excel in high school coursework.

I take you through three levels of detail, from top-down:

• Mindset and Psychology: Do you have the confidence to know you can improve with hard work?
• Overall Planning and Habits: Do you get the most out of every hour? Do you understand what teachers care about, and how to give them what they want? Do you know how to combat procrastination?
• Individual Class Strategies: How should you be treating English and science classes differently?

I learned a lot of these lessons the hard way, throughout high school and college. This is the guide I wish I had before starting high school.

Take the time to read it and you might save hundreds of hours of time and get even better grades.

4) How to Get a Perfect SAT Score / How to Get a Perfect ACT Score

In addition to coursework, the other major numbers piece to your application is your SAT/ACT score. Simply put, this number is so important because it compares you on even ground to every other high school student taking the test.

Top schools like Harvard expect you to be in the top 1 percentile of the country. If you're not, you'll cast serious doubt on your academic ability.

In my perfect SAT and perfect ACT guides, I share the major strategies that you'll need to get above a 1400 on the SAT and 32 on the ACT.

Also, check out my series on getting perfect scores in each of the sections on the SAT/ACT:

SAT 800 Series: Reading | Math | Writing - Learn important strategies to excel in each section of the SAT.

ACT 36 Series: English | Math | Reading | Science - Learn how to get a perfect 36 on each section of the ACT.