Harvard alum taking questions

Veritas06
Wed, 02 Mar 2011 12:47:19 +0000

What do you feel is Harvard’s best and worst quality?





BEST - the people, by far
WORST - weather, if you’re not a big fan of snow/sleet/New England grayness





How flexible did you feel Harvard was concerning their students’ outside activities? Say, for example, I am chosen for the next World Championships in my sport and must take a week off to compete - does Harvard allow for some leeway with their students’ extracurriculars?





It’s not so much up to Harvard as it is up to the STUDENT to ensure that you’re balancing and managing your time to make room for your extracurricular obligations. Harvard is not a “hand-holding” school; you are expected to keep up with your coursework in addition to whatever you’re doing extracurricularly, without anyone telling you what to do. So if you need to take a week off to compete, you may be able to negotiate deadlines with a professor, but it’s expected that you’ll be able to balance missed coursework with your competition travel. If it’s unfeasible, then you can always take a semester off to pursue your sport, then return to campus to go full steam on your coursework. If you are performing at the level of world-class athlete, Harvard would expect you to be able to balance the demands of training/competition and schoolwork - after all you have spent years training/competing while earning the high grades required to be admitted to Harvard, thus time management should not be an issue once you reach college.