Originally Posted by raptor_dad
Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
The thing is, by making it not an "official" hard limit, it permits age to be used as a factor in "holistic" admissions instead.


As I said de facto... if MIT has a few 14yo freshmen since ~1950 and Harvard has none under 16 at enrollment that suggests a unwritten rule.
Harvard has recently admitted someone below age 16, according to the article I cited:

Quote
Martin A. Camacho ’14 said he felt apprehensive about fitting in socially; he was not sure if he’d be accepted because he was a couple years younger than everyone else. He entered the fifth grade at age five and matriculated to Harvard at 15.

High school had been difficult, he said, but fortunately his social experience here at Harvard has been a positive one.

“I think people are much more respectful,” Camacho said. “High school was very hard to fit in socially for the first couple of years. Everyone would recognize that I was younger than them.”
Parents who worry about sending a young student to college should note that the high school environment may be worse.