<p>I'm transferring to Harvard in January, and I want to be a social studies concentrator. An application is required for the major, and I was wondering if anyone knew how competitive admission to the major is. Thanks!</p>
<p>Hmm I've never heard of anyone transferring midyear. Weird, but cool, I guess.</p>
<p>As for social studies--it depends on the year. In the latest admissions round, supposedly barely over half of applicants to the concentration were accepted--but a huge amount applied this year, I guess.</p>
<p>If you don't get into it the first time, you can always take the same sorts of classes and then apply for it later on.</p>
<p>You should be fine though.</p>
<p>And there's always History & Science...obviously the best concentration EVER. ; -)</p>
<p>I think the 'barely over half' thing may have been a malicious rumor . . . I heard it too, then heard it wasn't at all true from friends who'd been accepted. Not sure, though.</p>
<p>Anyway. Yeah, I think in general, these application-only concentrations (Social Studies, Lit, Hist & Lit, WGS, [hist & sci.?]) don't like turning people away. </p>
<p>The general rule of thumb seems to be that you'll be accepted if they feel you're 'right' for the concentration in the sense that you understand that it is interdisciplinary and are genuinely interested in the area of study.</p>
<p>The point of the application, as I understood when I was applying to honors only concentrations, isn't to keep people out of the program. The Hist and Lit program emphasized that you should be able to prove that you can write, which meant submitting a writing sample, and more importantly to show that your plan of study didn't fit in anywhere else in the college, so you should be able to justify why you should be in the program.</p>
<p>Ahhh yes that's exactly what this application asks about and they ask for writing samples too. I was weighing this with a joint history and government concentration.<br>
As for the transferring in January thing, you check a spot on your application saying you're applying for fall 06, spring 07 or either. I checked either since it would increase my chances, so... I'll be there in January!</p>
<p>History and Science:</p>
<ol>
<li>No, it is NOT a joint concentration.</li>
<li>It is a undergraduate degree granted by the Department of the History OF Science.</li>
<li>It's cool and so flexible with requirements.</li>
</ol>
<p>Social Studies...I agree with lindseylujh, it's not to keep people away, it's to make sure that people "fit" with the concentration. I wouldn't worry too much about it; if you like, you could always make an appt. with the Soc. Studies office (it's in the Quad library...Hilles, I think it's called). I'm a Social Studies concentrator...it's not overly hard to get in, at least from my friends' and my experiences.
Good luck!</p>
<p>Wasn't there a Crimson article a while back about a highly critical internal report of the department, notwithstanding the extremely high reputation of its concentrators?</p>
<p>one thing to look at is i think that there's a mandatory sophomore full-year tutorial for all social studies concentrators. i'm not sure if this would cause problems for you and i don't know how it works with transfer students in general, but most students (from what i've heard) declare social studies before beginning their sophomore year. maybe there's a way around this. keep in mind that i'm not a social studies concentrator.</p>
<p>The social studies concentration allows junior year transfers, whether from other colleges or from other concentrations and I've heard them make a point that this is perfectly do-able and that taking 2 tutorials at once is feasible.</p>
<p>Yeah, concentrations will find ways to accommodate transfers. Psych requires a full-year sophomore tutorial, but they have a one-semester accelerated version that junior transfers can take.</p>