I’m a 7th grader and I want to know what I can do now to help my chances of getting into Harvard

Answered

Hi! It's a little early, but I would recommend a couple of things:

1. Start planning your high school courses

This could help you balance out your workload according to the classes your school offers. You can create a four-year plan on Google Sheets and try to maximize the APs and Honors courses you take as the Harvard applicant pool is very competitive.

2. Experiment with different ECs

Try to start seeing what ECs you can put on your application. Try to get a few really good ECs rather than many standard ones to stand out among the other applicants. If you're involved in a sport/instrument/etc that you're passionate about, focus on it while you still have time so you can use that as your spike activity.

3. Start learning a language

Some languages such as French or Chinese have more than 4 levels, so I recommend starting next year so you'll be able to take the AP before/during senior year (learned from experience). If you can't take a language class next year, try learning over the summer or outside of school so you can level up to French 2/Chinese 2/etc when high school starts.

4. Look at college applications that got accepted into Harvard. (here's ten successful essays + a review of each: https://www.thecrimson.com/topic/sponsored-successful-harvard-essays-2021/)

There are college applications available from people who got accepted into prestigious schools such as Harvard and Stanford that you can read to get a scope of what GPA, SAT/ACT score, AP score, etc to aim for and some sample college app essays.

5. Read!!

Seeing that tests like the SAT involve vocabulary and English Honors classes require you to write essays and reports, read more challenging books to broaden your vocab. You can check out some nonfiction books too (Malcolm Gladwell's books are pretty good seeing you're interested in psychology; his books have good vocab too so win-win).

6. Get involved in community service

Start researching and getting involved in volunteering and community service now to get a head-start. You can list them as an EC and there are also a few awards related to the number of volunteering hours you did. (Ex: The President's Volunteer Service Award - https://presidentialserviceawards.org/eligibility)

You can also check out some of the Collegevine blog posts about getting into Harvard:

https://www.collegevine.com/blog/search/harvard

7. Get more familiar with the college application process

It really helps if you have siblings older than you to help you with the college application process. I was so confused as a freshman and took a while to research everything such as Early Decision, Spike activities, etc. It's good to know the parts of the college application process early on so you can prepare for it and know what to do, but even as a freshman it wasn't too late for me, so don't worry too much about it.

Best of luck!!