Harvard Transfer Supplement

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
1

Harvard’s original transfer supplement was “please explain in some detail your reason for wishing to transfer to Harvard College” which in my opinion, allowed for a lot more wiggle room in what to write about.

Now the two main prompts about transferring specifically is “Please indicate your field of specialization and briefly outline your academic plans at Harvard College” and “What are your current postgraduate/career plans?”

While I do have solid academic reasons, I also like the student life there and and I’ve gone to visit the campus again in the fall where I’ve talked with many students about their studies. Is there any section where I can write about how much I enjoyed more than just the academic offerings at Harvard since the prompts don’t allow for this? I would put it in the additional info section but to my understanding, that was for some personal items not reflected in the application such as details of circumstance…

2

Harvard switched prompts for a very specific reason. I suspect that too many students were writing about prestige, student life, residential housing, co-curricular activities, pretty cobblestones, nice weather (some people like the cold and snow) – and were not focusing on their ACADEMIC reasons to transfer. I suppose you could add OTHER REASONS I WANT TO GO TO HARVARD on the Additional Information section of the Common Application, but then you’d come off as a student who is having trouble following directions. IMHO, as Harvard only accepts about 12 transfer students a year, you need to give Admissions what they want. Answer the question without enumerating about all the other stuff.