<p>For those of you who sent research abstracts, how long was it, and also was it purely scientific or did you put it into generic terms so anyone could understand?
Thanks.</p>
<p>I sent my full paper along with my application. It wasn't technical (that is, it's not the version we'll be publishing), it was in more general terms (it was actually the version that I submitted to Siemens/STS), but still nothing you'd expect an adcom to want or be able to fully read and understand. They forwarded it to the astronomy department (which is something I should have done myself). So, that's my recommendation. Well, at least if your paper's good. If it's not that great (and especially if it's not publication-quality), the paper will probably not help your case much since the people who would read it--the department of your field--would not see it favorably. Otherwise, my recommendation is to send two copies, one to the adcom with your school mailing, and one to the proper department.</p>
<p>Then again, I was deferred, so maybe you shouldn't be listening to me :p</p>
<p>what program did you do for research?</p>
<p>It was a Summer Student Program at Beckman Research Institute/ Cancer Center. I did work on diabetes.</p>
<p>
[quote]
They forwarded it to the astronomy department (which is something I should have done myself).
[/quote]
How do you know the adcom forwarded your paper to the astronomy department? Or is that what Harvard (and Yale/Princeton?) does with all research abstracts?</p>
<p>My son (current freshman) specifically sent only his abstract, rather than the full paper. His was in the medical field, and he felt that the adcoms would find the whole paper more of a burden. He felt that they would ask for it if they wanted it, and he didn't want his ap to have tons of pages--his resume was already fairly long, plus he had a cover letter which discussed the status of review by the publisher. His abstract was the technical one that went on his actual published paper (at the time of the EA ap, he had not yet written the more lay friendly one that he later used for his presentations--had he had it, I don't know which he would have opted to send).</p>
<p>edit: perhaps an issue to consider regarding whether to send the paper itself is whether or not it would be reviewed by a Harvard College faculty member. My son's would have had to be reviewed by a very specific dept of the Medical school.</p>
<p>Ginny--My guidance counselor was talking with my regional director, who mentioned that they'd forwarded the paper to the astro department, and that the appropriate people were looking it over.</p>
<p>I think the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences got my app because they called about me before decisions came in. I don't know exactly what they looked at or anything though.</p>
<p>I didn't get a chance to send in a full abstract. Unlike you guys I did my work for a corporation. The paper is unpublished and they're being proprietary about it until they file for the patent so I chose not to divulge much. I just gave the title of the paper and a one-sentence summary of the results and my contributions to it.</p>
<p>Very cool ;) Harvard isn't well-known for its engineering, especially considering certain bastions of the field right down the Charles, so they probably saw you and wanted to grab on to you! That's great ;)</p>
<p>Yeah I think that's one advantage I had over other applicants, and it was one of my selling points. It's funny because at most schools, engineering has a more competitive crop of students than science and liberal arts, but at Harvard it's not as elite a program as at MIT so they tend to get stronger science and liberal arts applicants. I'm still considering MIT but I really like the environment at Harvard. I appreciate the diversity of majors.</p>
<p>BTW, added an edit, Guitar. ;)</p>
<p>I wonder if social engineering could be considered "engineering" LOL. Probably not.</p>
<p>Probably not, lol. But hey, if engineering helps, I wonder if astrophysics could be considered "engineering"........</p>
<p>:p</p>
<p>I can't believe I didn't realize this before! My paper must've been forwarded to the Engineering department because it is mostly bioengineering. I thought I would not be able to get the engineering advantage (if indeed Harvard tries to grab all the engineering students it can) because I had put down Physics as my prospective major. But I probably received the engineering edge after all, since my paper is in that field. That probably helped me a lot...</p>
<p>Haha, well the major advantage, I think, is that from the web site, it sounds like there are less than a hundred comp sci students in the whole school (for computer science, just under 20 faculty, approximately 5:1 student to faculty ratio).</p>
<p>And I know you guys are just playing, but for anyone who's interested, the division seems to break down into roughly these categories:</p>
<p>Applied Mathematics
Biomedical Sciences and Engineering
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Engineering Physics
Environmental Sciences and Engineering
Mechanical and Materials Sciences and Engineering</p>
<p>I sent a full paper (20 pages). It was scientific, but not with a huge amount of terminology (i.e. a professor of biology shouldn't have any trouble understanding it).</p>
<p>Well if your paper was in bio, I would hope that a professor of biology should understand it no matter how much terminology you put in it.</p>
<p>I think they'll be glad to read a paper in the behavioral sciences, notably political science. Everyone here seems math.engineering bounded (well a majority of course--but my statement has no validity whatsoever =))</p>
<p>What if they dont think the research is that impressive. Will I be penalized in my decision?</p>
<p>I'm deferring a year for two special projects. I'm wondering if I should send in the abstracts to get a recommendations from the school of education and a prof of sociology.</p>