Summer School Does Not Buy College Admission

"One applicant compared herself to a rubber band, another one to a cello. Which one are you most like, and why?"

So began a Harvard Summer School seminar Monday night called "How to Write the College Essay," an event that filled Sever 113 with high school students eager to hear a former admissions officer share the tricks of adroit essay writing.

Many students sat through the lecture to help them survive their upcoming application process. But others were there trying to learn something far more specific: how to get into Harvard.

A 17-year old Greenough resident confidently pronounced after the seminar: "I will definitely apply to Harvard." Rumors circulate among the students in the Secondary School Program (SSP) that students have a higher chance of acceptance into Harvard after a stint at the Summer School.

But, Harvard administrators say, SSP students may have the wrong impression.

"They don't have a better chance nor do they have a worse chance. We've had that policy in place for a long time," says Dean of Undergraduate Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons '67. "In the past, we did an informal study. The only thing I remember about it definitively was that the admission rate for summer school students was very similar to the pool as a whole."

"Certainly any number of people do apply," he says. "One of the things we say pretty clearly to students is that Summer School wouldn't convey any advantage, nor would it be a disadvantage."

Fitzsimmons believes that some summer programs are used as recruitment devices to get people to apply, but "certainly Harvard has no conscious policy to do that."

"There's no question that some very, very good students have come to the Summer School and fallen in love with Harvard and Cambridge," Fitzsimmons says. "As a result of their experience, they applied to Harvard and were accepted." But that doesn't mean SSP students have an advantage in admissions, he says.

Aside from the attraction of the name, Harvard does bring the general college application process to the forefront of SSP extracurricular events. Besides the college essay seminar, an event entitled "How to Get into Harvard" was open to students--preceding the seminar "The Top 10 Reasons Why Not to Apply to Harvard."

The cautionary message is fairly clear. "We do not urge students to apply to Harvard," says SSP Director Elizabeth C. Hewitt.

"We run a big college fair to give the kids a chance to talk to 30 other colleges from as far away as Stanford and the University of Chicago," she says. "Secondary School Program students do not have a better chance of getting accepted by the College."

Nevertheless, many SSP students are open about their ambitions. A Canaday resident, enrolled in a hefty number of science classes, says she is looking forward to requesting recommendations from her professors. Already, she is considering the extracurricular activities she might pursue at Harvard.

Orchard Professor in the History of Landscape Development John R. Stilgoe says that of the SSP students he has taught over the years, many went on to attend the College.

"Some schools, like Choate, have already caught on to the fact that sending their students to Harvard Summer School and getting them a professor's recommendation will most likely get them into Harvard," Stilgoe says.

Seemingly, some high schools have discovered a ploy to increase their yearly yield of Harvard acceptances.

But at Philips Academy in Andover, Mass., the college counselors do not suggest summer school as a means to get accepted by undergraduate programs.

"We do not encourage students to go to Harvard Summer School as a wedge to get admitted," Director of Public Information Tana G. Sherman says. "We tell them 'no' because that's the information that we get from Harvard admissions."

"We urge students to do anything that shows productive expenditure of time. There is a misconception that summer school will give you a leg up," Robert S. Koppert, college counselor at the Dalton School in New York City says.

"One student going to Harvard in the fall took an intensive ancient Greek class at Harvard Summer School," he continued. "It really helped give her a sense of Harvard and she is eager to get her feet wet."

However, according to Koppert, this particular student was more interested in the prevailing college experience than the Harvard ties summer school would indicate.

"Those students who are less immersed in the culture of college admissions and are more naive, might think that summer school will help them get in," Koppert says.

Though rumors of easier college admission practices after completion of the Secondary School Program continue to float through the summer school, not every summer school student leaves Cambridge with Crimson ambitions.

After seven weeks of Harvard classes, a 17-year old native of Vancouver says that many of her peers who were seriously thinking of applying to Harvard in the beginning of the summer "are now saying, 'heck no.'"