<p>Ya, there are two types of Comps now, competitive and non-competitive. Non-competitive means that if you finish the comp you get to join the organization. Most groups use this policy, i.e Harvard International Review, The Crimson (I think), etc.. Then some groups select their members from those who complete the comp, but not all of those who complete the comp are taken, i.e Advocate Poetry and Fiction boards, The Lampoon (I imagine), etc..</p>
<p>I have a question concerning placement
1st of all, i'm thinking about taking AP chem, psychology, stats, and french exams this year
i was wondering how harvard does placement exams, r they different from AP exams. also, is there any pros to me taking these APs, since i dont get credit for them? do they serve placement purposes?
thx</p>
<p>"if one wanted to try one's hand at journalism, or singing, etc, for the first time?"</p>
<p>There's always a non-competitive way to participate in an activity. You just may not be able to join a particular group.</p>
<p>I think the question about placement was asked earlier and answered, but if not....</p>
<p>Take the exams, do as well as you can. They won't serve any placement purposes officially, but they give you a way to measure your ability. At Harvard, you can almost always choose to ignore your placement results. French is the only one of those classes which will require a placement test. I've heard the test is very similar to the AP test.</p>
<p>Do you get the impression that Harvard is more focused on sciences and math than the humanities?</p>
<p>Do you get the impression that Harvard is more focused on sciences and math than the humanities?</p>
<p>Not at all. I actually have no idea where anyone would get an idea like that - the school is very balanced in terms of students' academic interests. To give you an idea, here's a sampling of some of the departments at the school, and the number of students who were concentrating in them as of December 2007:</p>
<p>Chemistry & Physics - 34
History & Literature - 162
Social Studies - 312
Visual and Environmental Studies (includes things like photography, drawing, etc.) - 84
Applied Math - 121
Biology - 110
Chemistry - 91
Economics - 769
English - 257
Government - 495
History - 220
Mathematics - 86
Molecular and Cellular Biology - 117
Physics - 70</p>
<p>Apart from the preponderance of people in the Economics department, you can see that students are pretty well distributed. Neither the sciences nor the humanities have any sort of dominance on campus, and neither is more highly valued. Students understand and appreciate that we all have different interests and strengths, and the nice mix virtually guarantees that you'll have friends who can help you out on the areas you may be less interested in/adept at. </p>
<p>To learn more about each concentration, including requirements and the number of students in the department, visit this page:FAS</a> Handbook for Students: Chapter 3: Fields of Concentration</p>
<p>Not sure how up to date the requirements are, but it's a good jumping off point to get a feel for each of the different fields and what will be asked of you.</p>
<p>@hanna: sweet, that's the answer I was after, thanks</p>
<p>@co11ege: yeah, well, as i see it, Harvard being Harvard, the burden of proof lies on the side of saying 'no' to the best uni in the world (in before: waaah not for undergrads. but name + proximity to top grad schools + calibre of students + brilliant faculty must count for something). </p>
<p>convincing has been: princeton's undergrad focus, alleged competitiveness and dullness among H students, an impersonal institution with lack of access to faculty there, and so on. buuut it seems everyone who actually goes to or has been to Harvard either denies the pernicious stereotype that's been made of it or says that such things exist yet not in a big way / one can happily make do around them. like in this thread: honestly appraising the good and bad bits, and thereby showing the myths to be exagerated at best, hollow at worst. </p>
<p>also, princeton NJ is a bit of a cow pasture :P</p>
<p>Are there a lot of big classes? According to USNWR 75% of classes are under 20 and 9% above 50, but I was looking at the Q guide and it seemed most classes (except a few obscure language classes) had an enrollment of 100 or larger. I'm trying to decide between Harvard and Middlebury, and my main misgiving about Harvard is the large class size.</p>
<p>natalia, a lot of smaller classes don't make it into the Q guide. The smaller the class, the less useful a survey becomes.</p>
<p>First of all, thank you all for taking the time to answer our questions. You are doing a great service to both students and Harvard by attracting the "correct" people to the university.</p>
<p>Anyway, I was looking through Harvard course lists, and I'm really unsure about life science 1a, 1b, and 2. They look like a good introduction to Harvard/college-level science, but at the same time, by matriculation I will have finished AP Chem, AP Bio, and AP physics...</p>
<p>I guess more generally, my question is: how "introductory" are introductory classes? Are they assuming little to no background knowledge in that area , or are "introducing" topics after AP level?</p>
<p>how "introductory" are introductory classes? Are they assuming little to no background knowledge in that area , or are "introducing" topics after AP level?</p>
<p>Take a look at this post: <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062223214-post17.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1062223214-post17.html</a></p>
<p>You'll take a bio/chem placement test during freshman week that puts most people in LS1a/1b, but recommends LPS1 (a sort of intro-intro class) for some, and for a small gruop recommends skipping right into MCB52.</p>
<p>I know people who had a prize winning project at Intel and went to RSI and took LS1a. Most people do not skip, especially if they are pre-med. I would imagine that the people who skip 1a are those who have been working towards the goal of becoming a chemist/biologist from a young age.</p>
<p>"
Anyway, I was looking through Harvard course lists, and I’m really unsure about life science 1a, 1b, and 2. They look like a good introduction to Harvard/college-level science, but at the same time, by matriculation I will have finished AP Chem, AP Bio, and AP physics…</p>
<p>I guess more generally, my question is: how “introductory” are introductory classes? Are they assuming little to no background knowledge in that area , or are “introducing” topics after AP level? "</p>
<p>Lots of people have finished ap physics, bio, and chem before coming to harvard and still take ls1a, 1b, and 2. First of all, physics has no relation to the ls’s. if you think you are far ahead on physics you can start off first semester with physics 15 or physics 16, both advanced and deep intro courses. if you’ve finished chem and bio, again, a huge number of others have as well, and almost nobody skips life sci in their freshmen year. A very small number of people skip (<10 a year probably) to MCB 52, there are a series of placement tests to pass you out in the beginning of the year. but you have to remember that there are international olympiad-level bio and chem students here. For the most part i would not worry about the life sci’s being too introductory level because your situation is not very uncommon. i haven’t heard remarks about life sci being too easy like you sometimes hear for other intro level courses, ec10 comes to mind. i think that life sci may re-cover some ap material because not everyone in the classes has taken ap, but it definitely covers far more material than the ap’s do.</p>
<p>^^LOL</p>
<p>^yeah…I’m used to translating down the difficulty from the course description, because my hs tries to make everything sound “college level,” but the classes are obviously not. So when I read that most Harvard students should/do take the LS classes, I wasn’t sure if they really meant what it literally said.</p>
<p>And yeah, definitely no way I would be one of those <10 people getting placed out of LSab…</p>
<p>thanks :)</p>
<p>I’m homeschooled, and I haven’t got any qualifications in subjects like Biology, History or Chemistry (though I have Maths, Further Maths, and Physics A-levels). I am taking the SAT IIs in those subjects later this year; however, if I get in, should I take some AP exams next year?</p>
<p>i am aware that profs in science and engineering teach both grad and undrgrds, does that mean that they are less accessible to undergrds thanks for posts, very helpful</p>
<p>That is true of every department at any research school (i.e Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Princeton). Does it mean that they’re less accessible then at a LAC, maybe. But I think it depends much more on each individual professor then on the department or school.</p>
<p>I’m homeschooled, and I haven’t got any qualifications in subjects like Biology, History or Chemistry (though I have Maths, Further Maths, and Physics A-levels). I am taking the SAT IIs in those subjects later this year; however, if I get in, should I take some AP exams next year? </p>
<p>APs don’t count as course credit, so I don’t think they are extremely useful for Harvard. If you know the material, it’s not very important to bring AP scores with you. The exception is if you want to take advanced standing here.</p>
<p>Does anyone know anything about the Holden Voice Program?</p>
<p>[The</a> Holden Choirs at Harvard University](<a href=“http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~holchoir/voice.html]The”>http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~holchoir/voice.html)</p>
<p>Do you take voice lessons with one of the teachers listed above, or can your subsidy be used with any voice teacher? Any comments on how good the teachers are?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>What college maths should I take beforehand if I want to take math 55?</p>