A prospective student visiting Harvard

Elanorci
Sat, 08 Jun 2013 16:09:43 +0000

Congratulations on your admission!

The only classes in session this month will be Summer School classes, and those will only start on June 24; if you visit before then, there won’t be any classes. If you’ll be in town for Summer School classes, you can visit the Summer School course catalog to see what classes there are ([Summer Courses at Harvard | Harvard Summer School](http://www.summer.harvard.edu/courses)).

Please keep in mind, though, that Summer School courses are, by and large, NOT all that similar to courses during the term. Many of them are mostly populated by high school students; the teachers are often not normal term-time lecturers; the material is highly compressed. Given this, I’m not sure you’d get a lot out of visiting the summer courses, at least in terms of seeing what your own experience will be like.

Campus atmosphere is also VERY different during the summer (I’m a rising senior and I’ve spent both of my summers on campus – I love it because it’s so much more relaxed!). As you’d expect, most students are off-campus, and even those who are still there are much more relaxed and doing very different things. Extracurricular groups aren’t meeting, etc.

Basically, I think it’d be really hard to get a representative idea of what your Harvard experience will be like from a summer visit.

If you want to get the most out of your time here, I’d recommend:

a) Gaining basic familiarity with campus! Take a campus tour like you were planning to, but keep in mind that they’ll mostly show you Harvard Yard and maybe one upperclass House. Look around the River/Quad, where the upperclassman Houses are! You might also explore Harvard Square (shops/restaurants) and maybe even some of the greater Cambridge/Boston area; this will put you miles ahead of most freshmen in terms of familiarity with the area, and might make you feel more comfortable when you move in.

b) If you have particular academic interests that you want to get a jump on, you could certainly chat with some faculty, since professors are still on campus.

c) If you contact the admissions office, they could probably set you up to talk with a student who will be on campus so that you can chat about their experiences and ask them any questions you might have.

In short, I think there’s something to be gained from your impending visit in terms of gaining familiarity with campus and getting questions answered – but please keep in mind that it likely won’t give you an accurate picture of what campus life is like like a term-time visit would, because everyone is gone and the campus atmosphere is so different.

Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions! Hope you’re excited for the fall :D