<p>This year a school assignment sample is required in addition to the app. We haven't done much writing in my English class this year except for a major poetry project. I am pretty proud of what I did for this. I would send it in except for two major problems:
1) My teacher didn't really comment on my work although the grades were good. All the comments were made on a single separate page and the only comment on my two-page biography is one circle over an ambiguous pronoun. I sort of doubt Harvard wants to see this, and feel guilty sending it in, considering in my AP History class the teacher comments on written work A LOT...but there was only one term paper assigned in that class and I got a C+ on it for both lateness and low quality.
2) I didn't do all of the project. My final grade for the project is something like C+, even though I scored perfectly on everything I did complete. But even on those some points were taken off for lateness (this is due to personal reasons/minor depression/study skills problems which don't exist so much anymore I hope, but are also the reason for my messed up History stuff)</p>
<p>I am considering saying that I am applying for a pre-college program that requires a supplement of classroom work, and asking if he would write some comments (!?) as well as put the INDIVIDUAL grade on the poem analyses. In effect I would be asking him to also ignore the four other poems I was supposed to analyze but didn't. But even if I had done them I could still choose not to submit them! Would either asking for additional comments or only submitting what I did be unethical? My other options are submitting the badly-graded History assignment or submitting something minor (which I am probably going to do)...</p>
<p>I think if you asked your English teacher to do that, he would write a big fat, red "INCOMPLETE" on it because that's irresponsible then and irresponsible now for this app as well since it asks for a school assignment graded. Harvard doesn't want to see that.</p>
<p>Don't submit a C+, late, low-quality term paper covered in comments, either</p>
<p>What does your transcript look like with these grades on it?</p>
<p>Also consider the large work-load required at SSP, and ask yourself if this is really the right way to spend your summer. Also ask yourself if you are doing this to get into Harvard. And if the answer is yes, then also ask yourself if you will be able to solve your study habit problems if you were to get in there.</p>
<p>I'm not doing this to get into Harvard; I'm really interested in the courses offered and of course SSP doesn't help Harvard admissions.
My transcript is ok; ~3.7 GPA from first quarter. I don't know 2nd quarter grades yet but they're of course much worse, which is why I want to submit my app before they come out.
I think if I got into SSP I would do okay. 2nd quarter was an anomaly. Thanks for your thoughts though. I will probably submit something minor from 1st quarter.
any other comments?</p>
<p>The paper I'm sending in has pretty much no comments on it because my teacher may not actually be able to read. I got a good grade on it, though, and my transcript is solid so I'm not worried. These programs have a very high acceptance rate so I wouldnt worry.</p>
<p>ditto to what patrick said...SSP is pretty much a cash cow for Harvard, so work something out, but if it's not an A+ that you send in, don't worry about it</p>
<p>yeah...don't worry about it. I applied about a month ago, and I really didn't know what to send in, either. My school is on a four period day, so all my core classes are one semester long. I had English first semester of sophomore year, and I am going to have English second semester of junior year. In between there, I only wrote papers for world history (they were like 10 page papers, with no comments...so that wasn't an option to turn it). So, I had to submit something from 10th grade English...all I had was 2 papers (didn't do great on either one, and they were kind of long) and a poem. I just gave the poem, even though it wasn't that great. I don't think it matters at all because I got accepted just a while ago, and I didn't have great short answer responses, etc.</p>