<p>I am just entering grade 11 and have this rather vexing dilemma in selecting between Economics and Biotechnology. Both are extremely scoring and interesting. I’d be highly obliged if you could tell me which among the two aforementioned courses would appeal more to Harvard/ Yale in my application?? Thanks a ton!!</p>
<p>Whichever correlates the most to your career interest, duh. And if they both do not, then just pick the one you have a deeper interest in. It may inspire you to do more activities related to it, which will ultimately have the effect of building your application.</p>
<p>I didn’t get an interview but a lot of friends in my area did…is this a bad sign? Should I just give up all hope now? I live in a fairly populated area in the US…</p>
<p>^ I’m not a current student, but I think I know the answer to that one. The way interviews are assigned is supposed to be purely logistical and independent of the strength of your application. However, I’m told in some cases that truly special applicants are given interviews over other mediocre applicants when it gets to crunch time.</p>
<p>Think about it – it’s important that Harvard treats each applicant fairly. It’s going to try to provide interviews to every applicant, regardless of caliber. Don’t worry about not getting an interview. You’re probably fine. But fret about your application and be realistic with your chances.</p>
<p>To the poster who was asking about religious life, alas, Harvard has lost a major figure when Rev Peter J Gomes died recently. Although he would have retired after your first year, I am sorry you will not have had the chance to meet him. He was a remarkable man and a committed Christian. Harvard is poorer for his passing (you can webcast his memorial service through Harvard’s website on 4/6 and Itunes I-University has a number of his sermons downloadable for free…). However, there is an amazing variety of religious services in the Cambridge/Boston area. Harvard students, like most college students, are a bit lazy about losing some precious snooze time on Sunday mornings, but you can and will find people with whom you will interact and worship. One of the best attended services is Compline on the occasional Thursday night at 10 at Memorial Church-- it is packed. Hillel is always crowded with a variety of Jewish events and its Kosher Kitchen, there is even a Chabad House too. Unlike Yale, Roman Catholics do not have their own separate chapel but are part of a regular parish, St Paul’s, which also houses the Archdiocese’s choir school. Bottom line-- if you become less observant while at Harvard, you can’t blame the University.</p>
<p>DwightEisenhower:</p>
<p>Are undergraduate Harvard emails “.harvard.edu” or “.college.harvard.edu”?</p>
<p>@college.harvard.edu</p>
<p>Current juniors were the last class to use @fas.harvard.edu. Current sophomores were the first to get @college, but they still have a useless @fas that automatically forwards emails to @college. I’m not sure if current freshmen or future freshmen have this dummy @fas too.</p>
<p>Can you list the classes you’ve had (perhaps by subject?) and about how many students were in each one, if you remember? Also whether the class was upper-division or not.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Everything appeals to Harvard equally. It’s your call what you want to do.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t know what upper-division means. </p>
<p>Freshman Fall:
Math 21a “Multivariable Calculus” probably like 200 took it but it was taught entirely in sections of about 20
Gov 20 “Foundations of Comparative Politics” lecture of 400ish I think, with weekly sections of 11 or 12 students
Arabic 162 “The Arab World in the 19th Century” lecture of 30ish, with weekly section of about 10 students
Spanish 50 “Writing and Performance” taught entirely in section which had about…10 people</p>
<p>Freshman Spring:
Lifesci 1b “Genetics, Genomics, Evolution” (or something like that), lecture of 300ish? not sure. weekly lab/section of about 16 students
Expos 20 (required freshman writing class, my topic was “Modern Immigrant Fiction”) with about 18 students
Arabic 170 “The Arab World in the 20th Century” lecture of about 20, weekly section of about 10
Freshman Seminar “Comparative National Security of Middle Eastern Countries” with about 12 students</p>
<p>Sophomore Fall:
Lifesci 2 “Evolutionary Human Anatomy & Physiology” lecture of 200ish, weekly lab/section of about 14
History 1891 “Understanding the Middle East since 1945: The Basic Socioeconomic and Political Structures” Lecture of about 50, weekly section of about 20
History 1927 “Islam and Modernity in Central Asia” Lecture of about 20, weekly section of about 10
Arabic A (Beginning Arabic), maybe like 80 who take it as a whole but class is taught entirely in section, mine had like 12 students</p>
<p>Sophomore Spring:
Arabic 175r “Understanding Modern North Africa”, lecture of 5 students (which is bizarre)
History 1877a “History of the Near East, 600-1055”, lecture of about 40 with weekly section of 8 students
Arabic A (second-half of beginning Arabic), 6 students in section
Sophomore Tutorial in Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations, which has 8 people in class</p>
<p>Only a matter of time until my secret identity is gone. </p>
<p>Anyway, my schedule is hardly typical except that I took some popular “freshman classes” such as Gov20, Lifesci1b, Math 21a, etc. My sophomore spring schedule is unique because my classes are tiny, which I think is a good counterexample to the incorrect notion that Harvard classes are all huge and you never get to meet professors.</p>
<p>Let’s see if I can remember all my classes. Bear in mind that as a transfer, I had a lot of core and concentration requirements to get out of the way, so I had a lot more “intro” classes than most juniors:</p>
<p>Junior fall:</p>
<p>Shakespeare, the Later Plays with Marjorie Garber: Probably 400, section of 18, my wonderful TF is now a professor at Bowdoin [Aviva</a> Briefel (Bowdoin)](<a href=“http://www.bowdoin.edu/faculty/a/abriefel/index.shtml]Aviva”>http://www.bowdoin.edu/faculty/a/abriefel/index.shtml).
Abnormal Psychology: 100ish, section of 18
Cognitive Psychology with Daniel Schacter: 100ish, section of 18
Accelerated Sophomore Seminar in psychology: 10ish.</p>
<p>Junior spring:
History of Life (RIP Stephen Jay Gould): 150? Section of 18
Sex, aka Human Behavioral Biology with DeVore & Hauser: 500ish, section of 18
Madness and Medicine with Anne Harrington: 90ish, section of 18
Phonetics and Phonology: 20ish</p>
<p>Senior fall:
Elementary Japanese: Maybe 35, section of 8 or so
Mood Disorders: ~12
Af-Am 10 with Cornel West: 150? Section of 18
Race and the American Legal Process (RIP Judge A. Leon Higginbotham, a legend): ~48</p>
<p>Elementary Japanese: same as fall
Jews of Eastern Europe with Jay Harris: 150ish, section of 18 (my only bad TF)
Eating Disorders: ~12
Matter in the Universe with Robert Kirschner: 300? Section of 18</p>
<p>Given requirements, these were all my first choices – the only class I could not get into was a senior seminar with Anne Harrington that took only 12 History of Science concentrators. I prioritized legendary professors over small classes; you can easily make the opposite choice.</p>
<p>How safe/unsafe is the campus at H? How prone are students to take a T jaunt to Boston? And how safe is Boston, in your opinion?</p>
<p>thanks</p>
<p>What was your GPA unweighted and weighted? IB or AP? Extracurriculars? Athletics? Awards? What kind of recommendations? What did they ask you in your interview?</p>
<p>THANK YOU.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I just answered this question for someone else via PM, who asked about the shooting that occurred (2?) years ago. I’m lazy so I’ll just copypaste:</p>
<p>I’ve thought about this too, and as far as I know there’s nothing unique to Harvard that made such a tragedy possible. The shooter was an outside acquaintance of a Harvard student, and I don’t see why anything would have been different if the girl had attended Yale or BC or a state school or whatever. </p>
<p>Harvard in general is safe although it is located in a city which means people need to take obvious precautions. People can get mugged if they’re walking around at 3 am alone, but you can hardly blame Harvard for students making that kind of decision. </p>
<p>There are Harvard police stations all over the Yard, and blue-light emergency phones everywhere that are ubiquitous on college campuses nowadays. Though I walk outside at 3 am occasionally, I take precautions that everyone should take in a city environment, e.g. stay on well-lit streets, be aware of people around you, don’t listen to music, etc. I never feel unsafe, though at the risk of being sexist, I should qualify that a 6 foot tall male might have different habits than a female in this regard.</p>
<p>I don’t know how well I answered your question, but there is no reason to think Harvard is any less safe than any other city campus. The Harvard police department presence is strong and security is a top priority. But, again, since Harvard’s in a city, you have to take precautions that you may not need to take at Dartmouth or something.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“There’s so much to do in Boston!” is something that people say but it doesn’t really materialize, at least it hasn’t for the students I know. I mean, yes, there are touristy things to do in every city and there are restaurants in the North End and there’s Chinatown but that’s hardly enough to merit going into Boston every week or even once a month. Of course, this varies by student, and I’m from Massachusetts so none of it is new to me at all. But, despite my roommates being interested in going into Boston, they have enough things to do on campus. This is true of most students.</p>
<p>I also can’t (legally) go to clubs or anything so maybe there’s more to do when you’re 21 if you’re tired of beer pong on campus.</p>
<p>The parts of Boston that anyone would go to are pretty safe, again as long as you take obvious city precautions. I don’t know why anyone would go to Dorchester or South Boston (which is not the same as the South End btw) after midnight, but I wouldn’t advise doing that.</p>
<p>Hey Dwight, I took Expos on Immigrant Fiction too! With Michelle, right? I liked watching Namesake and having Indian deli for the class. lol</p>
<p>^:) </p>
<p>I’ve found Harvard to be incredibly safe considering that it is in an urban-ish environment. There are Harvard police stationed all around the Yard even at 3am in the morning. I also take the T very often, and have found it to be extremely safe and convenient. Much more so than, say, the subway system in NYC.</p>
<p>As for Boston, it would depend on the area. Some places are very nice while others are a little sketchy. But like others said, normally there’s no reason to venture that far from the Harvard campus.</p>
<p>The high school I attended had a strange way of calculating GPA, but I suppose if you translate it to the more conventional scale it should be something like a 4.0. The only few AP courses I took were in senior year and I didn’t even know what IB was until I heard about it later on CC. I haven’t read any of my teachers’ recommendations, though I know that one of them was about two short paragraphs in length. During the admissions interview, I remember I was asked where and when I would like to go if I were to be transported backward/forward in time, and how I had liked my school/classes. It was more like a normal conversation than a question-and-answer session.</p>
<p>Haha, are you guys answering questions out of charity or boredom?</p>
<p>Do you ever seriously feel as if you don’t belong on campus? like everyone’s blowing you out of the water personally, intellectually, and extracurricularly? I read the Crimson article “I am Fine” and was wondering what your thoughts are about that kind of depression.</p>
<p>Thanks so much Hanna and Dwight!
So it seems that one can have that pretty small classroom environment if s/he seeks it out. I know I definitely “learn better” in seminars with discussion rather than huge lectures. But it seems, Dwight, most of your large lectures were “taught” in sections (what do you mean by this? Was it TA led?). I asked this question mostly because I am rather torn between University and LAC. I feel like the culture at a LAC, since it is probably a bit more homogeneous, could be more inhibiting, whereas at a U one really can find one’s own niche. And I also am worried about diversity of classes at LACs–I have some fairly esoteric/specific academic interests, and I worry that at a LAC the courses offered would not satisfy me. But on the other hand, I do sort of like the community feel aspect of a LAC (does Harvard’s house system provide a similar sort of community feeling?) and the smaller, discussion-based classes, as well as the emphasis on teaching rather than research. I like making friends in class; is this very difficult in lectures? Thoughts? Did you current Harvard students consider LACs? Thanks so much for any input; you guys are being really helpful and I really appreciate it.</p>
<p>@Dwight: by upper-division I meant those classes you take when you’re fairly deep into a discipline; the higher-level classes. I only asked this because obviously these higher-level classes will tend to be smaller, whereas intro classes are more likely to be large lectures. It would be misleading to compare the sizes of the two… but since you just listed the specific classes you took and what grade level you were, I could get a definite sense of the level of the classes, as it were, and didn’t need you to specify upper- vs. lower-level, since you have been even more specific. Sorry for the essay haha.</p>
<p>And felix, you ask excellent questions–it’s like you’re taking the words out of my mouth.</p>
<p>Haha, thanks quomodo!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I liked the Namesake and Oscar Wao a lot, but we never got any Indian deli! She clearly liked you guys better, or wanted more points on the Q guide.</p>