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I am currently a high school sophomore and am definately gonna go to summer school in the 11th grade. However, i found out that harvard offers courses to sophomores as well. Do you think i should also attend this summer? I heard that they assign more supervisors to sophomores and that they give a curfew. I am worried about this ruining the social side of the school and that i will be stuck studying through my whole vacation. I would also like to know about whether all of the students who go to summer school in their sophomore year aren't very social and study the whole time.

If any of you have gone to the HArvard SSP, I would be very glad if you could clarify these issues for me, since application time is coming up.

By Chrisy (Chrisy) on Wednesday, December 31, 2003 - 02:21 pm: Edit

hi, i attended harvard ssp my junior year, so i don't really know any sophomores who have attended. but i really don't think you'll have any social problems. for me, the social environment was more stimulating than the academic one. your harvard ID will get you into most clubs (they assume you are 18+), but no matter what, there's always something to do at harvard square.

By Footballer (Footballer) on Thursday, January 01, 2004 - 10:57 am: Edit

when you say "in" your junior year, do you mean at the end of your sophomore year or end of your junior year?

By Chrisy (Chrisy) on Thursday, January 01, 2004 - 07:55 pm: Edit

end of junior year.

By Libsters (Libsters) on Thursday, January 01, 2004 - 11:07 pm: Edit

Cornell offers Summer School to sophomores --- I went and I had a BLAST!

By Libsters (Libsters) on Thursday, January 01, 2004 - 11:10 pm: Edit

The people who were at Cornell were very social --- some of them were like ditzy totally non-academic people so I had no clue why they were there if they didn't have ANY interest whatsoever in studying ... but @ Cornell there was def. social life .. and Cornell is only 3 weeks ( which is less then 1/2 of vaca), one class, so it's not that bad! = )

By Chrisy (Chrisy) on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 11:30 pm: Edit

hummm, some (most) people at harvard were ditzy too. so i didn't believe the dean of admissions when he told us that the acceptance rate to the summer school was the same as the acceptance rate to the college. i still don't, but most people i know got into stanford. about 75%. orgo was the hardest class followed by bio.

By Mstee (Mstee) on Friday, January 02, 2004 - 11:57 pm: Edit

My son went to Harvard summer school this past summer after his jr. year of high school. He is not very social, but was much more involved socially there than he has been anywhere. He thought the younger students (sophomores) seemed less focused and more prone to get into trouble than the older kids. His courses, discrete math and creative writing, were rather easy, he thought. He had classes at four or so in the afternoon four days a week, so he basically slept until noon every day. What a life! If he had it to do over again, he would take a different (harder) math class. He noted that the kids that took biology had to study a lot more than he did. He had never gone to camp or any summer programs before, and had never been to Boston, so it was a great experience for him.

By Footballer (Footballer) on Saturday, January 03, 2004 - 04:35 am: Edit

Thanks a lot to you all for your help

By Footballer (Footballer) on Sunday, January 04, 2004 - 06:32 am: Edit

Hey, just a last question... do you guys remember if they offered business studies courses to ssp students?

By Chrisy (Chrisy) on Sunday, January 04, 2004 - 06:10 pm: Edit

i don't think so, but i'm not sure.

By Huntsmanhopeful (Huntsmanhopeful) on Sunday, January 04, 2004 - 10:49 pm: Edit

Ok, I was at HSS for the summer. I was a rising senior, but I can tell you about what it is like if you are a rising junior. 2003 was the first year they offered the program to rising juniors. They had a curfew, I think it was 11pm on weeknights and 12:30am on weekends. The juniors also live in a seperate dormitory. It sounds like it sucks, but it really doesn't. My friends told me that they were allowed to go wherever they wanted within the dorms after hours (they had a dorm that was all connected) and the curfew really didn't matter. Even so, there really isn't much to do in Cambridge during the summer except hang out. Everything is closed by curfew, so the juniors aren't missing much. It was a blast, highly recommend it. Also, with the classes, they let you take anything as long as you meet the prerequisite. They didn't stop me from taking Multi-variable Calculus even though there weren't many high school students taking it, and for business courses, I had friends taking economics and business without ever doing any business course beforehand. They let you take anything, they let you shop classes for a week, and it's really up to you to figure out if you fit in with that level. They don't baby you.

By Lilqtdncn (Lilqtdncn) on Monday, January 05, 2004 - 12:34 am: Edit

So are students right before their junior year eligible to apply for HSS? And do any of you who have went applied to Harvard College in your Senior year?

By Huntsmanhopeful (Huntsmanhopeful) on Monday, January 05, 2004 - 06:43 am: Edit

Many people applied to Harvard from HSS. Some got in, others got deferred. It's still a toss-up like any application process.

By Chrisy (Chrisy) on Monday, January 05, 2004 - 12:51 pm: Edit

from what i saw, there was quite a few high school students taking multivariable. and i don't know anyone who got into harvard, although we all applied. some at princeton, stanford... but never at harvard

By Writer (Writer) on Monday, January 19, 2004 - 02:43 am: Edit

I went to Harvard Summer 2003. I think you should hold off until you are a rising Senior. The Juniors got the crappiest dorm on campus, and they seemed to be significantly more supervised than the rest of us. I took one course on Enlightenment era authors, and another on war crimes, and I thought they were both just killer. Boston is a rockin' city too, there is a ton of stuff to do. I've heard that Cornell has a cool program for kids going into Junior year, so my advice would be to go to Cornell this summer and go to Harvard the next. I thought there would be a lot of nerds and that I would miss my friends at home all summer, but it turned out to be the best three months of my life. The people, the city, and the general atmosphere are like nothing else. Go for it!

By Lilqtdncn (Lilqtdncn) on Monday, January 19, 2004 - 05:36 pm: Edit

Hey Writer,
Are you planning/did you already apply to Harvard college? What were some of the best things about it, because I'm not sure which SSP I want to go to because there are a ton!