<p>I was looking at the Harvard supplement and saw their note on supplementary material. I have one thing that I think might be good to send in, but I would like some of your more qualified opinions. I'm very interested in mathematics, and I think this shows in my application. During junior year and the summer I worked with a professor at Drexel and ended up writing a 50 page paper. I will eventually give some kind of seminar on it at Drexel. Would this paper be the kind of thing that would impress the adcoms? If I sent it should i send the entire thing, or just the table of contents, an abstract, and an excert? Is it not necessary to send it if I get a recommendation from the professor i worked with?</p>
<p>I would say send it in. I sent in a copy of a research paper with all my applications, though mine was a lot shorter (~12 pages). 50 pages is a lot, but sending in an abstract and maybe an excerpt that shows originiality or your reasoning ability or something like that could only help your application</p>
<p>You might want to find out from your Drexel professor if he knows someone in the math dept at Harvard. If he does, I would ask if he could/would send a recommendation letter to both the admissions office AND a copy to his collegue, and you should send a copy of your paper to the same collegue as well as one to the admissions office.</p>
<p>Ok...I think I will definitely send the paper in some form. menloparkmom, you don't think it would be excessive sending in the entire 50 page paper? Also, I think I will send the paper into more colleges than just Harvard, because I have seen similar notes on other supplements. In this case, do you think I should ask the professor if he knows people in the departments at all of the schools I will apply to, or just the top ones?</p>
<p>i dont think they would read the whole thing, so whether it is 50 pages or not, i'd say: send the whole thing in.</p>
<p>If you send all of it, include a cover page that summarizes it to some extent and maybe highlight a particularly important sections for them to look at. That way they will be able to focus on the best part and they won't just skim over a lot of less important stuff.</p>
<p>Yes, I would ask him. My son did an intership his Jr summer with a well known geologist, who sent/emailed a letter of recommendation to collegues as well as the office of admissions at all the colleges he was applying to. Son supplied the stamped, pre addressed envelopes for the admissions offices. The result, although he did not get into his top top reach, which was a roll of the dice like Harvard, he was accepted at 12 universities, with scholarship $$ to boot. Don't put all your hopes in H., but have a well thought out list of colleges that are a good fit for you and which have in depth programs in the areas you are interested in, regardless of their "name".</p>
<p>yo pico....dont send in those 50 page long papers, or if you really want, send them to the particular department whose subject your paper is pertaining to, but ask them to notify the admission comittee that you have sent in the paper....</p>
<p>yo cow guts zepto zhenyu, they explicitly say not to send it to the department for some apps. I think they will look at it themselves and then send it to the department if necessary.</p>
<p>And thanks for everyone's input. I'm still not sure whether to send in the whole thing or not, but at least I know I should send it in for sure now. If I do send it all in I will take the advice to highlight a portion I think is particularly interesting.</p>
<p>What was the paper on?</p>
<p>quaternions</p>
<p>Cool. The Wolfram article was much more accessible than usual for advanced topics. For anyone interested:</p>
<p>wow.......so they want to read themselves?
anyway, maybe its better if you send the powerpoint you are gonna use for your seminar to them</p>
<p>I wouldn't send the entire paper - it is much more likely to get tossed aside in its entirety, without the reviewer even looking for an abstract. Just send an abstract, and indicate the length of the paper in the abstract, and tell them that the full paper is available on request. If they want it, they'll let you know.</p>
<p>send in an abstract..there's no way they're gonna read the entire thing.</p>
<p>Try to get it published on arXiv.org and send: abstract+URL.
PS. Don't forget to post URL here :D</p>
<p>thanks for all the advice. I think I will send in the table of contents, abstract, and excert. I will take chedva's to say that a full paper is available upon request too. I'll look into getting it published on that site.</p>
<p>ahh I have another question now, not about the same thing, but still relating to sending in supp. material. Harvard specifically mentions sending in such material in their supplement for common app. However, I cannot find specific information on sending in my paper for Princeton, MIT, Duke, or Harvey Mudd. Do you guys know what I should do for these schools?</p>
<p>I also have a question about sending in supplementary recommendations. I can't find any specific information regarding such recommendations for Harvard, MIT, Duke, or Harvey Mudd. Do you guys know what I should do about these schools? Is there some general way to do this for common app schools? Furthermore, I know I will send at least one recommendation (the one from my drexel advisor) to all of the schools that I can, but I might also send one from the governor's school for the sciences. Do you think this is a good idea? If a school does not explicitly say you can only send one extra rec, is this acceptable?</p>
<p>From the Duke supplement:</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you have participated in any significant research activity outside of school, please provide a brief description and limit your response to one or two paragraphs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hey arp, what I would recommend is to email the admissions offices of Harvard, MIT, Duke, and HMC with your question.</p>