<p>For regular deadline applicants that submit research papers to Harvard, what does Harvard do with it? I mean, which all papers sent to the faculty members? Do I need to have a certain level of school grades/SAT scores or something? I ask because I have 2 math papers to submit and they matter a great deal to me. They have been published in journals and the results are new. I want the faculty to see it as it is <em>the</em> most important part of my app. I have taken care to mention it everywhere possible on the CommonApp. So what do I do to maximise my chances of having my papers reviewed at Harvard and considered by them when they make their decision?</p>
<p>Thank you! </p>
<p>Especilly Gibby, T26E4 and others familiar with Harvard, please help :)</p>
<p>Also, why do they ask for the journal name on SlideRoom? I mean what do they do with It? Almost no high schooler is gonna have work published in Acta or Annals or Duke or something, haha. So why do they ask?</p>
<p>As a general rule, Admissions Officers are NOT experts in computer code, scientific research, musical performance or artistic ability. If you submit a supplement, Admissions has the option to forward whatever has been sent to them to the relevant academic department for review. The department will evaluate your submission and send their comments back to Admissions. </p>
<p>It’s important to remember: NOT ALL supplements are reviewed. Admissions only forwards supplements for review if they are really, really interested in a student from reading their transcript, test scores, teacher recs, essays, and EC’s. So, here are two scenarios that every student who submits a supplement faces: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Admissions is interested in you and they forward your supplement to the relevant department for review. The department reviews the material and writes “Nothing really special here, about average ability for a high school student.” Admissions then puts your file on hold due to the tepid review, as they want to wait and hear back about other supplements that have been sent for review.</p></li>
<li><p>Admissions is interested in you and they forward your supplement to the relevant department for review. The department reviews the material and writes “WOW, This kid is really special, not may other high school students can do THIS.” The Admissions Officer then puts your file into a pile to be presented to the full committee.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So, you need to follow Harvard’s directions and . . .
<p>Harvard is looking for those few kids – and make no mistake, they exist. If your research paper has NOT been published or at the very least has not won a state or national award, then you should probably not send it in, as your research paper is going to be compared to the published work of those few students that you are joking about.</p>
<p>Seriously? Annals of Mathematics/ Duke Mathematical Journal for a high school student? That’s bloody hell impressive given that most qualified mathematicians too find it difficult to publish in journals of such high repute and Impact Factor. These are top class journals (HoDs from HYPSM publish here) and count for much much more than ISEF/STS/Siemens/anything in terms of level of the paper. In fact such a kid would be ridiculously over qualified for anything related to high school. Even better than a perfect 42 on the Intl Math Olympiad. In fact, getting published in DMJ/Annals/Acta etc, should be an X-factor while applying for research positions also. </p>
<p>For such a student who does manage to have his/her work published in such journals, I doubt Harvard would even want to check other parts of the app: won’t they be directly admitted? Such kids would be all over the news and stuff. Unless ofcourse, they come off as intolerably antisocial on their essays or something, why would Harvard reject such a student?</p>
<p>Also, does that mean that with only a 2200+ SAT and 2 out of 5 B’s on my transcript, my published research papers would not even be sent to the Math dept? :(</p>
<p>The ugly truth is, plenty of other applicants will boast exceptional grades and outstanding test scores. Excellent grades inform an admissions officer that the application is worthy of consideration, which is significant. Consideration and admission, however, are two very different things.</p>
<p>College admissions committees view themselves as community builders. They are societal engineers who take pride in sifting through thousands, if not tens of thousands of applications, and carefully select each student who sets foot onto their campuses in the fall. </p>
<p>Campus recruiters look for students who demonstrate passion in a variety of areas, not just academics. They not only want to know if the student excels academically, but also if she or he displays qualitative characteristics such as integrity and leadership, qualities that will indicate whether he or she is likely to contribute to the social fabric of the wider campus community.</p>
<p>One of my favorite Admissions quotes is from “Acing The College Application” by Michele A. Hernandez</p>
<p>So to summerize: No one on CC can tell you if your research paper will or will not be looked at based upon your SAT score and grades, as so much depends on other “soft” factors, such as your essays, EC’s and teacher recs.</p>
<p>Yeah, that’s innovative research for a 14-year old but I was talking about the kids who do hardcore stuff. Pure math/science research: like stuff on PDEs or Quantum Mech or something. That’s the kind of stuff that gets published in Acta and the like. So are there kids like that too? My papers are not ‘projects’ as such. I’d seriously want to assess how my paper stacks up against the other papers coming in at Harvard, so as to decide if I should send it. </p>
<p>Also, are you saying that there is atleast a slight possibility that if my essays and ECs are good, they might have my paper sent to the dept?</p>
<p>That 14 year old started Harvard when he was 15. (He’s a math prodigy and took high school calculus at age 10. He also holds the record for being the youngest person to construct and publish a NY Times crossword puzzle.) So, yes, there are high school kids that have articles published in Acta and the like at Harvard.</p>
<p>If Admissions finds you an “interesting person” one who’s file is brought before the full committee (not all are), then yes, they will probably forward your paper to the relevant department for review.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link to the pdf file. Helps.
Oh, and do I necessarily need a Letter of Recommendation from a professor for my paper to carry any weight?</p>
<p>Your paper should speak for itself without a letter of recommendation from your professor, but if you feel a letter would add another dimension to your file, then sure, have your professor send it in.</p>
<p>@Gibby, if only I had a professor, haha. I don’t have a Letter but I heard from people that you need one. So I was pretty scared. Happy I don’t need one!</p>
<p>Oh and do I need a cover letter for my papers?</p>
<p>@dbadani And when you use @<someone>, that someone is the person you’re addressing the question to, not yourself. Maybe a typo but still. (Look at how I’ve done it here)</someone></p>
<p>You bring my attention to a very point though: @Gibby: do we need a cover letter? I thought there was SlideRoom? I saw it on the website yesterday only…</p>
<p>Sure, you could write a brief cover letter, as in:</p>
<p>Dear Harvard Admissions,</p>
<p>Enclosed is my research project that was published in the _________ journal that I am submitting as a supplement to my application for admission to the college.</p>
<p>Hi, just weighing here as an early admit this year (class of 2018)</p>
<p>I submitted a research paper as a supplement, though I don’t think it was necessary in the end. It was published in an peer-reviewed international journal and I was the first author. </p>
<p>I didn’t include the entire paper - only the abstract and the DOI.</p>
<p>The reason I say that it probably wasn’t necessary was because my PI had already mentioned in his letter of rec that my work was on par with his graduate students and we have multiple papers almost ready to publish right now. I’m in applied physics.</p>
<p>As a note to the Intel semifinalist comment, speaking as someone who has competed at a relatively high level in science competitions, the amount of actual publishable material is much less than you’d predict (<50% certainly, probably even less). So a better metric for deciding whether your work is worth showing to the admissions people is to ask a professor in the field whether he would give comments on it (if you don’t have a PI). If he finds it interesting, you’re golden. Otherwise, don’t send it in.</p>
<p>@hrmosp, amazing stuff. Now the thing is, I don’t have a mentor, I did it alone. So I won’t be able to get a Letter of Recommendation. Graduate level work at this age is amazing. Would you please link me to your paper if I PM you? Ofcourse, that’s if you don’t mind </p>
<p>Was the rec letter more important than the paper itself in your case? :o And, how did you get a mentor? I’m sorry if I ask too many questions; it’s because your case seems very interesting to say the least.</p>
because if I speak about the topics here, people can easily look me up.</p>
Just joking, PM me :3</p>