<p>It obviously depends on the courses, and how good your high school may or may not be at AP stuff, but the entire course idea is completely different from AP format, really...it's not overly-difficult, meaning your classes can be managed, especially with the amount of free time you have, but it really does take some discipline. It also takes a realistic assessment of your skills regarding studying adn retention of information. Some people there really didn't have to study much, and got all their work done paying close attention in class, but others had to study quite a bit to get a good result. Then there were the fools who had breezed through high school classes, so they didn't work hard, and ended up bombing their courses...I'd recommend above all starting the courses working very, very hard, determining what's the best balance after that, and going from there. It's really just so different from high school in its entire mindset.</p>
<p>What other activites are there to do? Besides the entire studying and class thing. I'm excited about classes but its also summer time. Are there fun things to do during the day and night?</p>
<p>haha, of course. each weekend harvard will screen two movies for free, there are weekend excursions everywhere from shopping in kittery, ME to martha's vineyard, a new england revolution soccer game, rock climbing, canoeing, kayaking, newport, RI, hiking in new hampshire, excursions to visit colleges like dartmouth, brown, amherst, yale, and MIT, etc. And those are just some of the PLANNED trips...you live in cambridge, the subway system is cheap as hell, and goes EVERYWHERE, you can do whatever you want in boston. Walking around cambridge, oddly enough, is one of the most interesting/relaxing experiences one can have. There are so many street performers that there's always somethign new to see (I watched one guy do an entire variety show ending with him hanging upside down from a board held by members of his audience while he juggled machetes.)</p>
<p>I'm only naming a pittance of the numbrer of things you can do. Harvard subsidizes free performances of full out orchestras, and all sorts of other performers (I saw a sweet concert that blended interpretive dance with indian music with oriental music with middle eastern music with some aspects of western/classical as well...it was ridiculously cool). A few of my friends went to a backstreet boys concert in the area, a bunch of other ones went to a ben folds and rufus wainwright concert, the july 4 celebration on the charles river in boston is unlike any you'll ever see (think 500,000lbs of fireworks...so large you feel the explosion pushing your shirt into you...the show was at 10:00pm, we went the night before for the preview night to listen to the pops orchestra play, which was sweet, and some band called "big and rich" with "cowboy troy" performed too...not overly fond of that music, but apparently they're quite good...we got to the river on july 4 at 4:30, and still had to hunt for a half hour just to find a place we could sit down...over half a million people lined that river by the time the fireworks went off...)...few of my friends took a trip to NYC and just wandered around, a few others went to a Broadway show there (slightly more expensive...). There's always a week of showing "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" in the theater, with live action in front, and the theater is literally a 30 second walk from harvard yard, and was right behind my dorm. A large group of my entryway (20 people, maybe) actually crossdressed and everything and went over there in all sorts of lingerie I don't care to remember (i with the smallest notions of public service in my future, decided that that was a bad idea, considering the pictures that could get out, haha). That's just a sampling, let me know if you need more. Trust me, you're never truly just bored...</p>
<p>Hey my sn is questionboy89 if any of you wanna chat jus lemme no....im taking one of the biology lab 8 units so the whole summer, and i really need a running partner for like a 10 mile a day run, and maybe lift some.....other than that i cant wait for this summer, i really hope its as good a program as people have said it is....o ya people so do people hook up at this summer thing.....might we get a girl/boy friend out of this too lol....</p>
<p>Ahhh Hanumang thats exactly what I wanted to hear, it sounds amazing, always something to do. God knows how awful being bored is. Im sort of worried Ill be too busy studying for some crap-hard class to enjoy it, though, ha. What do you know about the intramural sports? I think I read somewhere that we can participate, thatd be cool. </p>
<p>OK so I technically havent decided if Im going yet, since my financial aid application isnt in, but questionboy, I run cross-country!! And I would love to (try) running all those miles with you every day and Ill definitely be lifting. Thatd be awesome because I was just thinking that itd be cool to have someone to go to the gym with and whatever, cuz it gets boring by yourself. Id have to warn you that the most Ive ever run is about 6 or 7 miles, so I dont know if I could keep up with you but if youre interested hit me up, Ill try to get at you on im, and Ill let you know for sure when I get my fin aid info back </p>
<p>yeah, you can do intramurals in any number of sports, some of the dorms actually took them rather seriously. My entryway got along so well that we never really bothered really getting into intramurals, it was more fun just hanging out with one another, but it's definitely something that's an option for those that wanna do it.</p>
<p>Oh yea, hows the food there?</p>
<p>i've had some dining hall experience, and through that i can surmise that harvard's dining hall is definitely above-average. Of course, by the end of 8 weeks the food becomes somewhat repetitive, but they do shake things up more often than most, offer a full salad bar, and have people who will actually listen when you make suggestions. Boston has infinitely many places to eat, and cambridge itself is completely packed with places, from Au Bon Pain to 4 indian restaurants within a quarter mile to malaysian to korean to pizza, etc. Don't worry about food, you'll manage. (Hell, my obsessively healthy roommate from california managed to get tofu into every lunch and dinner for 8 weeks...)</p>
<p>Thats true they have really nice places to eat. I personally like all the tiny little places that are in Harvard Square. I ate at this really nice Mexican place and it was pretty cheap to. I hope they have tennis, any one of you guys want to play with me? I'll lift with you guys if you want. My only plans are not to get board this summer. So hopefully between classes, homeworkd, studying, lifting, tennis, and running I won't get board.</p>
<p>Haha nah I didnt think Id have a problem with the food, I love to eat. I was just wondering because you always hear about people complaining about the food at so-and-so school. But man does the dining hall look ah-mazing!! thanks for letting me know bout the sports </p>
<p>sorry, tennispro- I do every sport but tennis. Seriously. So yea, youll have to count me out on that one lol.</p>
<p>Best pizza in the world (unless you're from NY or Italy) - Pinnochios. I can't wait...</p>
<p>hey does anyone know how to access the housing, student information, etc. that page? because the button that says "back to main menu" has disappeared from the page where it shows step 1-5 and previously there were 5 steps for me, but now there's only 3 as step 4 and 5 disappeared! does anyone know what happened?</p>
<p>No idea h18, I just did my thing last weekend and it was working fine. Try calling them up or you can just send it the forms. The people their are nice I called them up cause I had a problem and they were helpful. Oh random werid question but we can wear whatever we want to classes right? There isn't like a dress policy or w/e and are there any formal events?</p>
<p>haha, enough people enjoyed the novelty of wearing pajamas to class...i can't imagine you'd wanna wear something that would antagonize your professors, but no, there is no dress code (I go to a catholic high school, so this was particularly nice for me). There is a dance (I wandered through it, wasn't all that big), and there are somewhat formal events like concerts that one might go to. then of course, you and your friends might go out on the town, or go to the cambridge dance (not a harvard thing, it's out at the cambridge city hall). So bringing nice clothes wouldn't be a bad idea, but you're in no way obligated to wear them, as far as i can remember.</p>
<p>oh yeah, tennispro, there's a tennis tournament one day there, and for any runners, there was a competition one morning as well (two of my dormmates won those), running along the charles river for 5k and 10k, I believe, so those're nice little activities for you all to get into.</p>
<p>thanks tennispro! im going to try e-mail them and probably phone them monday night my time...which is like 24 hours later...</p>
<p>i got in too.....my application was complete on the website on last monday and i had my decision in two days......i wonder if its really hard to get in</p>
<p>Its not. At all.</p>
<p>it may not be hard to get into but im sure the courses are challenging, i mean if you go and you dont put in the work then you wont have a good grade....</p>
<p>yeah, well, look at it this way. the admission rate is so high because the vast majority of the kids applying are technically capable of doing well there. Trust me on it though, the vast majority of the classes could not even be remotely construed as easy, and a few (Chem-8units, e.g.) could easily be taken as near-impossible without a great deal of work. Regardless of what class you choose, you're gonna have to put in the effort. It's not worth nearly $8,000 for a summer of displaying to the colleges you're applying to that you lack the dedication to do well in a college environment...</p>