Is SSP considered a prior application to Harvard?

<p>The Harvard Supplement asks you to disclose all previous applications to the College, Summer School or Extension School. The summer Secondary School Programs are part of the Extension Schools summer school. A very young woman (student) at the admissions office advised they are only interested in knowing whether one had applied to a degree program; this question is not meant for high schoolers who attended SSP, and those students can leave the question blank. Any other opinions? If you did answer in the affirmative, which is the correct answer --- Summer School or Extension School???? Any Harvard AdComs out there that would care to clarify this?</p>

<p>Listen to what the admissions employee told you. She’s right</p>

<p>Thanks, will do!</p>

<p>The young woman’s response doesn’t make sense, as both Harvard College and Harvard SSP share the same database. (If accepted to Harvard College, your Harvard SSP ID will be carried over. At some point in the process of reviewing your application, Mother Harvard will know you attended SSP, but omitted that information and will question why you did so.) If you are a high school student and attended Harvard SSP, you should indicate it on the supplement. After all, why would Harvard ask the question on the supplement – complete with a check box for SSP – if they didn’t want to know the information.</p>

<p>There is no check box for SSP. And, I was advised the SSP ID does not carry over.</p>

<p>The advice you received was wrong. My daughter attended Harvard SSP in 2008. She is now a sophomore at Harvard. Her Harvard ID number is the exact same number as her SSP. When she first logged on to her MY HARVARD account, her SSP course was listed there as well, along with the credits she earned. (BTW: I think one of the reasons my daughter was accepted to Harvard was that she listed her SSP course taken under the Summer School checkbox, had her transcript forwarded to the admissions office and had her professor write her a recommendation letter to the college.)</p>

<p>gibby, thanks for your reply! You know, it’s really frustrating when one receives such conflicting information! Thankfully, my son’s SSP transcript was submitted and he included a resume that lists SSP plus additional coursework completed at other colleges (+ their transcripts). However, he didn’t include letters from the teachers because they told him they could really only write very little — he was there in summer 2009 & it’s hard to remember students from 2 yrs ago. I’m going to call admissions today & see if I can get a person to talk to me today and get a definitive answer. And, I’m going to suggest that my S email the file room & explain that he didn’t check summer school b/c admissions advised him to reply in that way. BTW, if he had checked the summer school box, there was nowhere on the app where one could indicate it was SSP and where he could list his 2 courses; sounds like they’ve changed their supplement a bit since your DD applied.</p>

<p>SSP and the courses/grades can/should be listed under Summer Activities. If he is admidded, his HC ID will be the same as his SSP ID. However, only a small portion of the SSP students were admidded into HC each year and it is clearly indicated on the HC web that SSP participation will not really help a student get into HC by itself, although it does show one’s love of learning in some degree and it may also show one’s ability to study in a college setting if the selected couses are challenging and the grades are good.</p>

<p>Hparent, DS did list SSP & grades, course etc under Summer Activities. It’s interesting that if accepted, they keep the same ID as the SSP ID. It does make sense.</p>