Harvard Summer School (SSP) Courses

[babybean]

I’ve been looking through threads about Harvard SSP, and it seems as if lots of people are saying that they got low grades (Ds and Fs) in particular courses. Applications haven’t started yet for next summer, but I was wondering if anybody knew of specific courses the program has that most students don’t come close to failing (or if there are any courses people recommend definitely not taking). I don’t want to take an easy course, but I don’t want it to be so challenging that I don’t understand the coursework at all and simply fail out of the class. Thanks everyone!

[gibby]

Please see post #1 from this thread: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/harvard-university/1779480-summer-school-to-program-for-high-school-kids-harvard.html

The reality though is that Harvard Summer school classes are real college classes compressed into a tight time frame. Because the classes cover the same amount of material in half the amount of time, the work load is significant; some classes expect students to read 400 to 500 pages of material a week, with a paper due every class. Very few high school students can keep up with the work load and get A+'s, let alone get a recommendation from their professor.

In other words, DO NOT expect to find any summer course at Harvard that is “easy” – no matter what course you choose, it will be at least double, sometimes triple, the amount of work load you are now experiencing in high school. So, be forewarned.