<p>Hello everyone! I am an international student and I was very lucky to be accepted to Harvard this year. Before I commit myself to the Harvard community, I would like to ask some curent students or alumni questions about Harvard. I know some of them are stereotypes, but sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason! Any help would be highly appreciated! Thanks in advance : D</p>
<p>So here it goes, </p>
<p>1, does Harvard foster a sense of community? I am not saying that I want a REALLY CLOSE KNIT community, but I do like students bonding and loving their school!</p>
<p>2, What do you think about Harvard's education quality? Is it true that most resources are devoted to grad students? i've heard some people saying that Harvard is a bad place for undergrad and is nirvana for grad students....</p>
<p>3, I am going on to grad school. Will attending Harvard be a plus? Since Harvard is so competitive and uses the curve grading system, I was worried that my GPA may not be so impressive. </p>
<p>4, Do people actually go to Harvard because of the name and not the overall undergrad experience? </p>
<p>5, Say if I take something like comp programming or international relations, do i need to have basic knowledge of the courses beforehand?</p>
<p>Thank you for your assistance. I really love Harvard but it would be so much better if I can get these annoying rumors off my mind. </p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>You can find lots more on this stuff by reading other threads on this forum, but basically:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes… but not exactly what you might expect. There is certainly a sense of community, but it is often in smaller segments rather than as a school. There IS school spirit here, but there is also house spirit, extracurricular spirit, etc… you will certainly feel like you are part of a community here, but you will be able to choose to a certain extent which community or communities you want to feel apart of. </p></li>
<li><p>Harvard’s educational quality overall is great… the idea that attention is all on grad students is basically a crazy falsehood that lingers because it seems to make some logical sense and is memorable. There are immense resources focused on undergraduate students, and so long as you take advantage of the resources offered you will get an education that is second to none.</p></li>
<li><p>I don’t know much about this, but going to Harvard definitely won’t hurt your grad school admissions. Classes are curved, but the average of the curve is usually quite high (B+ or so) which is partially due to grade inflation and partially due to the fact that people here work incredibly hard in most cases and are used to straight As. So long as you work as hard as you (presumably) have to get in, you should end up with a decent GPA…</p></li>
<li><p>Yes? I mean, I’m sure some people made the decision in this way, but the vast, vast majority didn’t. Its like that with any college really, I would say, in that their is a slight bias of students to accept the most prestigious school they were accepted to… and Harvard just happens to be one of the most prestigious school’s around. You would find the same phenomenon at any other college, though, and I would argue that it probably isn’t any greater at Harvard… there are so many excellent reasons to come here, and most people are here for one of those.</p></li>
<li><p>No! There are intro classes in both of those subjects that require no previous experience. Harvard knows that the high school experiences of its students run the gamut, and so you won’t have any trouble breaking into new fields without any previous experience. That said, there are some difficulties in certain intro classes where many students have taken similar material in high school but not fully to the level of the intro class, which might make grading a little more competitive with the curve system, but its really not that big of a deal.</p></li>
</ol>