‘Z-lister’ students admitted through secret back door at Harvard University: Report

A Harvard University admissions coach stated that the varsity uses a covert method called the Z-List to admit students with powerful connections but low SAT scores and GPAs, New York Post reported.

As a result of being encouraged to matriculate following their gap year, the students are referred to as "data ghosts," meaning that the incoming freshman class is unaware of their dismal academic performance.

In this manner, Harvard's excellent institutional rankings and academic averages are preserved.

“If Harvard doesn’t want the student hurting their US News and World Report ranking with their GPA and test scores, they admit them through the Z list,” Brian Taylor, managing partner of Manhattan-based college admissions firm Ivy Coach, told The Post. (While Harvard’s Law and Medical Schools both pulled out of US News and World Report’s college rankings, the university at large has not.)

“It often means that the student really doesn’t qualify for admission on their own.”

On the website of Ivy Coach, it is stated that approximately sixty students are selected for the Z list each year and receive a letter that essentially states, "We will be pleased to consider your admission in one year."

“They’re not reapplying,” Brian Taylor said. “They’re admitted, and they’re guaranteed a spot in a year.”

About every other year, according to Taylor, he sees a client who was admitted on the Z List; however, he believes that only a small portion of the students he works with are accepted into Harvard.

“It’s for people who are important,” he said. “We’ve had clients who have been admitted on the Z list who are close friends or family of major world leaders or major donors.”

Taylor claims that receiving a letter from the Z-List is ‘never a surprise’.

Inevitably, he said, it’s for students, who he tells at the beginning of the admissions process: “I don’t know if you’re going to get into Harvard, but the list is your only hope.”

He continues by saying there are a few very clear indicators that a student was on the list.

According to Taylor, taking a gap year between high school and college is a good indication that students may have been admitted to the Z list.

A spokesperson for Harvard did not respond to a request for comment, the publication said.

Although Harvard is the only university to have a ‘Z-List’, Taylor claimed that other prestigious universities take advantage of similar loopholes to admit students with low academic scores.

Exploiting the transfer process is the most popular method, he added.

Some schools use this method to admit lower-performing students because US News and World Report does not include transfer students' statistics in their ranking calculations.

Taylor claims Cornell takes advantage of a "guaranteed transfer" scheme, whereby applicants with poor GPAs or test results are advised to complete their first year of college elsewhere and then reapply.

They are assured admission to Cornell as a second-year transfer student if they maintain a specific grade point average during their freshman year, usually a B-average.

“I don’t think it’s right that Cornell does that. It’s not fair to their peer institutions,” Taylor asserted.

These students go elsewhere and do not spend money on their first year of college because they know they will be attending Cornell the following year if they just get As and Bs, he added.

A Cornell representative declined to provide a statement on the same, the publication said.

Nevertheless, not all extraordinarily wealthy students are getting in as data ghosts through backdoors. Taylor claims that some schools do take advantage of this loophole to admit worthy students, particularly veterans.

Taylor claims that two renowned universities are known for doing this: Columbia University, where the School of General Studies was founded to accept transfers from veterans, and Princeton University, which just started accepting transfer students.