2009-2010 Harvard Application Thread

If people find it at all helpful, I've been making notes on my experience interviewing at HMS, where I'll be starting this August, summarized here:
http://harvardmedgirl.blogspot.com/

Thank you, Shemarty, for setting up these threads for new applicants!!

Oooh cool. Thanks!

DNAbaby said:

If people find it at all helpful, I've been making notes on my experience interviewing at HMS, where I'll be starting this August, summarized here:
http://harvardmedgirl.blogspot.com/

Thank you, Shemarty, for setting up these threads for new applicants!!

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What is your secret of getting accepted by HMS?

longhorn09 said:

What is your secret of getting accepted by HMS?

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Haha. That a pretty hard question. I doubt there's a "secret", but I'm anxious to see the answer.

I want to apply (and hopefully get accepted) to Hahvahd in 2011!

Hey fellow Harvard Applicants!

So I did some research on secondaries this morning and here is what I found:

Harvard's secondary is available via email. There is no screen for applicants. More info can be found here. Just for reference, last year someone posted the secondary prompts on July 17th. Post whenever you hear anything.

Best of luck this year.

sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, but what's this HST and New Pathways thing people are talking about? do you apply to them separately or what?

The New Pathway program

The HST program

ksmi117 said:

The New Pathway program

The HST program

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hehe thanks babe I have a bad habit of coming to SDN before I go to google hahaha

ksmi117 said:

The New Pathway program

The HST program

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lol, I remember reading those two pages last year and still being confused. I ended up not knowing what the difference was when I got there for my interview, but no one else seemed to know either. But they clear it up pretty nicely at the interview. Here's a quick summary of the basic differences (as far as I can remember):

First of all, NP classes are separate from HST classes (there might be a few exceptions, but otherwise they're separate).

NP is more of the traditional MD program. It's called the New Pathway because it was called that back in the 80s or something when it was actually new. I think they're in the process of changing the curriculum so that it actually is new again. Or maybe they just finished changing the curriculum, I can't remember exactly what they said. All NP lectures are recorded so lecture attendance isn't mandatory. There are small group things too, I think those are problem-based or w/e. Also, all grading is P/F (at least for the first two years). There is no AOA at Harvard, and I believe there is no ranking. All the NP people I met seemed really relaxed.

HST is a very different approach to medical education. From what they told me, they try to make every effort to teach medicine from first principles, so it's more conceptual and less memorization. Now, obviously, you can't do that for things like anatomy, but they do it as much as possible. There is more emphasis on medical science and research, so that is incorporated into the coursework. You might go through a recent paper on the subject your covering in class. From what I remember, classes are much longer, you're in class for something like 6-8 hrs a day (I may be wrong, but I seem to distinctly remember this). NP, on the other hand, is mainly morning lectures and occasional afternoon small group meetings. Also, I'm pretty sure you are graded in HST (other than just P/F), and lectures are NOT recorded, so you'll have to go to class. Since there is a big emphasis on research, I believe HST either strongly suggests or requires some sort of research project, and a large portion of HST students are working on more than one degree. Also, HST is affiliated with MIT, and you will have some of your courses in Cambridge, so that is another issue, since Cambridge isn't exactly close to HMS (I mean, it's not THAT far away, and there's a bus that takes you from HMS to MIT and then to Harvard).

HST students told me that they were a little more stressed than the NP people. However, they all seemed happy with it, and so you just have to know if it's the right fit for you.

If you apply NP, there's no secondary essay. If you apply HST, there's a secondary essay which asks why you want to do HST. You can apply to both, and you can be interviewed for both or only one of them (or none of them).

Incidentally, although I'm reasonably sure about most of what i wrote, I was just writing what I remembered from the interview days. Anyone who knows better, feel free to correct me.

And, if you do interview at HMS, you might notice that they don't exactly have the most welcoming interview day. I felt like they kind of didn't even want us there. Anyway, don't get discouraged. I wasn't able to go to the second look weekend, but I hear that it was much much better.

sleepy, you are my hero. Just saying.

Sleepy pretty much nailed it. Please don't get discouraged on interview day. It was probably my worst of the cycle.

Revisit, however, was amazing and when you meet your classmates at HMS you'll realize how much everyone has to offer each other and how many different backgrounds people come from.

There's no reason not to apply to both NP and HST if you have something reasonable to write for the HST essay (ie research experience, interest in academic medicine). Good luck!

Hey future applicants! I interviewed at both programs (didn't get in ). From what I remember from interview day(s), everything sleepy said is accurate. I just want to add a bit.

The programs are different in size. NP is about 135 students whereas HST is only about 30. If you get into HST, you will definitely get the advantage/disadvantage (depending on how you look at it) of a really small, tight-knit class since you spend so much time together. Although if you are in NP, you'd still be divided up into societies (think Harry Potter) that are roughly the same size as the HST program. To my knowledge there are no Quidditch matches between societies.

NP is heavily PBL-based whereas HST is strongly lecture-based.

Like sleepy mentioned, MIT isn't immediately adjacent to the Harvard Med campus but I wouldn't consider this a serious negative for HST. The shuttle probably takes less than 20 min to get to Cambridge and your entire class would be going there at the same time. MIT is a great resource for HST, especially for those of you who are really interested in the physical/mathematical/biomedical aspects of medicine.

From what I've heard, there is NO difference in the clinical year training for NP or HST. Someone please correct me if this is wrong. One thing that surprised me when I interviewed at HMS was that they have recently changed the 3rd year core rotations to all occur at 1 hospital (you get to rank your preference). At first this turned me off because HMS has access to some really phenomenal hospitals and students would not get to experience all of them as a M3. However, faculty seem to be in support of the change. Their thinking is that by doing all of the core rotations at one hospital, they minimize the time/awkwardness of students adjusting to a new place every few months. Thus, there is more time spent focusing on clinical learning and increased familiarity with the hospital system for students. Makes sense.

I personally thought that the HST students were much more satisfied and stimulated with their med school experience. The NP students I met seemed kind of apathetic. Granted I only met 5 or so NP kids so take my impression with a grain of salt.

HST absolutely has a research focus. They straight out told us on interview day that HST tries to graduate academic physicians (i.e. a combination of clinical practice, research, and teaching). If you are not at all interested in research, I don't think there's a point in applying to HST. Before interviewing I assumed that HST students only conducted basic science research with a focus on physics, math, bioengineering. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that HST students also participate in clinical research.

HST requires that you take calculus-based physics and differential equations as prerequisite courses. I wasn't sure if my calculus course which involved diff eq was sufficient to satisfy their requirements, but when I asked they said it was fine. So if you are in a similar situation, ask before enrolling in an extra course. Unless you want to take an additional math course just for fun...

As for the actual interview, in my experience, they couldn't have been more different. NP is 2 one-on-one faculty interviews, very relaxed and friendly. HST is a group interview (2 faculty and you). My HST interview was incredibly stressful, probably the worst of my entire interview season. They will grill you on the minute details of your research, so make sure you know it back and forth! Like sleepy mentioned, HMS does little on the interview day to recruit you because they really don't have to recruit anyone. I've heard that this is not indicative of the students' experience at HMS.

Let me know if you guys have any other questions. I have also worked in the Longwood Medical Area for about 2 years total now (at a Harvard hospital) so I can also comment on that.

linguini said:

As for the actual interview, in my experience, they couldn't have been more different. NP is 2 one-on-one faculty interviews, very relaxed and friendly. HST is a group interview (2 faculty and you). My HST interview was incredibly stressful, probably the worst of my entire interview season. They will grill you on the minute details of your research, so make sure you know it back and forth! Like sleepy mentioned, HMS does little on the interview day to recruit you because they really don't have to recruit anyone. I've heard that this is not indicative of the students' experience at HMS.

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See, I had the opposite experience with my interviews. I had one NP interview, since I was also interviewing for the MSTP, but it wasn't exactly my best interview. I mean, it was more intimidating, but I think that's also because I was more used to MD/PhD interviews which are mainly about research, so this interview focused less on the research stuff and more about the MD stuff. I loved my HST interview. It was one of the best interviews I had during the entire time. Although apparently my impressions were completely backwards, since I got rejected from HST but got NP. Oh well, go Penn!

sleepy425 said:

See, I had the opposite experience with my interviews. I had one NP interview, since I was also interviewing for the MSTP, but it wasn't exactly my best interview. I mean, it was more intimidating, but I think that's also because I was more used to MD/PhD interviews which are mainly about research, so this interview focused less on the research stuff and more about the MD stuff. I loved my HST interview. It was one of the best interviews I had during the entire time. Although apparently my impressions were completely backwards, since I got rejected from HST but got NP. Oh well, go Penn!

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So I guess the moral of the story is don't try to predict how your HMS interviews will go. Haha

And yeah, yayyyy Penn!

loving this thread already... so many helpful peeps! good luck to everyone

Hi applicants!

My very best wishes with the application process! Secondary applications are about to start pouring in, so you'll be very busy with the writing. I recommend that you start reading for your interviews right now to build up your baggage of interesting things to say. You'll be meeting with very different people during the interviewing season, and there is no way to predict who will be interviewing you. I posted a number of things I read for my interviews here: http://harvardmedgirl.blogspot.com/ under "good reads for your interview"

I had two interviews at HMS, both were faculty members but a number of people had one faculty and one student member of the committee. I consider myself very lucky that I got two faculty members, because I found it more difficult to interview with students. One of my interviewers was a surgeon who wanted to talk about his Blackberry Storm more than anything.

I'll continue posting interesting things about HMS on my blog. I think it really helps with the interview process if you know unique things about the school -- for instance, I read an article about medical education written by Dr. Jules Dienstag from HMS before I interviewed. Somehow this article came up during one of my interviews at HMS. Turned out that my interviewer was really good friends with Dr. Dienstag!

DNAbaby said:

Hi applicants!

My very best wishes with the application process! Secondary applications are about to start pouring in, so you'll be very busy with the writing. I recommend that you start reading for your interviews right now to build up your baggage of interesting things to say. You'll be meeting with very different people during the interviewing season, and there is no way to predict who will be interviewing you. I posted a number of things I read for my interviews here: http://harvardmedgirl.blogspot.com/ under "good reads for your interview"

I had two interviews at HMS, both were faculty members but a number of people had one faculty and one student member of the committee. I consider myself very lucky that I got two faculty members, because I found it more difficult to interview with students. One of my interviewers was a surgeon who wanted to talk about his Blackberry Storm more than anything.

I'll continue posting interesting things about HMS on my blog. I think it really helps with the interview process if you know unique things about the school -- for instance, I read an article about medical education written by Dr. Jules Dienstag from HMS before I interviewed. Somehow this article came up during one of my interviews at HMS. Turned out that my interviewer was really good friends with Dr. Dienstag!

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Thanks for all the advice. Best of luck as you start school!!

Wow, this thread is pretty helpful. Huge thank you to all those coming back to give advice and good luck to us all!

longhorn09 said:

What is your secret of getting accepted by HMS?

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No secret. As a junior in college I turned down an offer of admission to a mid-tier medical school because I wanted to develop more as a researcher and a scientist. I took a job at a major pharmaceutical company as a scientist (it helped having a Master's degree which I was able to get from my undergraduate college along with my BS) and got to work on my application to HMS. In my experience it is important that your file tells a complete story - who you are and why you do the things you do. Start with your childhood experiences leading into how you became who you are in your PS (talk about your qualities, mention interesting things about your family, etc). Support your PS with extracurricular activities. I was very interested in science and medicine, but not so much in international global health issues. My extracurricular activities reflected commitment to science which I tried not "dilute" with less relevant ones. Finally, your interview should enhance your story -- it would be a huge surprise to my interviewers, I suspect, if I knew little about current issues in science and medicine. I read huge amounts of books, blogs, and journal articles to get in shape. I also practiced for about a month with my friends and my husband.

ksmi117 said:

Hey fellow Harvard Applicants!

So I did some research on secondaries this morning and here is what I found:

Harvard's secondary is available via email. There is no screen for applicants. More info can be found here. Just for reference, last year someone posted the secondary prompts on July 17th. Post whenever you hear anything.

Best of luck this year.

Click to expand...

Just a thought, I filled out my HMS secondaries (for NP and HST) in late September, much later than the rest of my secondary applications. Even though it was nerve wrecking to wait, I had a much better idea about how to do a good job writing secondary applications by the time I finally wrote my HMS essays. In fact, I received feedback on my other essays from early interviews which gave me some more material to chew on. It really does not hurt your chances to do it as late as possible.

DNAbaby said:

Just a thought, I filled out my HMS secondaries (for NP and HST) in late September, much later than the rest of my secondary applications. Even though it was nerve wrecking to wait, I had a much better idea about how to do a good job writing secondary applications by the time I finally wrote my HMS essays. In fact, I received feedback on my other essays from early interviews which gave me some more material to chew on. It really does not hurt your chances to do it as late as possible.

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I thought harvard didn't really have much of a secondary...

For those of you who were accepted or interviewed last cycle, did you all turn in a rec letter from all the labs you had worked at before?

LAman10 said:

I thought harvard didn't really have much of a secondary...

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If you apply HST, there is an essay that you have to write, explaining your interest in HST.

twoinone said:

For those of you who were accepted or interviewed last cycle, did you all turn in a rec letter from all the labs you had worked at before?

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I turned in a rec letter from 2 of the 3 labs I worked in. The lab I didn't send a letter from was just because my brother-in-law was the PI of the lab, and it wouldn't be appropriate. Plus, I only worked with him for a summer, whereas I worked with the other two for like 3 years when I applied. Also, I applied MD/PhD, so you really need to provide recs from all labs for MD/PhD.

shemarty said:

If you've taken time off after college, you get to write about what you've done since then. It seems like DNAbaby had a lot of great experiences after college, but this prompt wouldn't apply to class of 2010 college graduates.

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That's exactly right, thanks Shemarty! Congratulations on your UCSF acceptance!!

I had letters of recommendation from 4 science faculty from my undergraduate school, 1 from volunteering, 1 from my philosophy professor (a non-science rec is required for HMS), 1 from my current job. Make sure that you submit a rec letter from every lab you ever worked at -- huge pain, start working early on that.

twoinone said:

For those of you who were accepted or interviewed last cycle, did you all turn in a rec letter from all the labs you had worked at before?

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I did submit all letters. I almost didn't submit the secondary because I had to bother 2 extra people to write me letters!

That being said, I know a few people who did not submit letters from all of their labs and got in.

zpiff said:

I did submit all letters. I almost didn't submit the secondary because I had to bother 2 extra people to write me letters!

That being said, I know a few people who did not submit letters from all of their labs and got in.

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I've worked in 4 labs (3 of them were summer stints in various research programs). I submitted LORs from 3 of the labs. One of the summer labs I didnt' submit an LOR from because a) I don't feel like the PI liked me too much or thought I was that smart--I kinda went into the lab with too little of a foundation in science, and b) it's hard to get a hold of the guy and I was having some trouble doing it.

Anyway, I only worked there for like 10-11 weeks, so do you think it will hurt me not to submit an LOR from him?

LAman10 said:

I've worked in 4 labs (3 of them were summer stints in various research programs). I submitted LORs from 3 of the labs. One of the summer labs I didnt' submit an LOR from because a) I don't feel like the PI liked me too much or thought I was that smart--I kinda went into the lab with too little of a foundation in science, and b) it's hard to get a hold of the guy and I was having some trouble doing it.

Anyway, I only worked there for like 10-11 weeks, so do you think it will hurt me not to submit an LOR from him?

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Are you going to put this experience in your AMCAS? It sounds like you probably dont need to. If you chose not to, then I wouldn't worry about the letter.

LAman10 said:

I've worked in 4 labs (3 of them were summer stints in various research programs). I submitted LORs from 3 of the labs. One of the summer labs I didnt' submit an LOR from because a) I don't feel like the PI liked me too much or thought I was that smart--I kinda went into the lab with too little of a foundation in science, and b) it's hard to get a hold of the guy and I was having some trouble doing it.

Anyway, I only worked there for like 10-11 weeks, so do you think it will hurt me not to submit an LOR from him?

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I would probably not submit this one.

It says on harvard's site that you can submit up to 6 letters, can you submit more than 6 or will they just not read them if you do?

Does a rec from a theoretical/applied math professor count as a science rec? Do they really have strict guidelines on where you get your recs from or essentially are they just telling you to diversify your recs and get all your research recs?

Hey all! Just posted a bunch of interview questions and feedback here http://harvardmedgirl.blogspot.com/ , hope it helps! The first thing I was told by my Harvard interviewer was "You have very personal recommendation letters". I think they do read letters carefully. At Yale my interviewer said she has not read my letters prior to the interview, but that she will as soon as I left (odd, I know...)

DNAbaby said:

Hey all! Just posted a bunch of interview questions and feedback here http://harvardmedgirl.blogspot.com/ , hope it helps! The first thing I was told by my Harvard interviewer was "You have very personal recommendation letters". I think they do read letters carefully. At Yale my interviewer said she has not read my letters prior to the interview, but that she will as soon as I left (odd, I know...)

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You are my new hero.

Because of you, I am adding Harvard to my app list. I had completely written it off, but I am motivated by your example.

Thank you.

flip26 said:

You are my new hero.

Because of you, I am adding Harvard to my app list. I had completely written it off, but I am motivated by your example.

Thank you.

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My very best wishes to you! Let me know if you have any questions.

DNAbaby said:

Are you going to put this experience in your AMCAS? It sounds like you probably dont need to. If you chose not to, then I wouldn't worry about the letter.

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well I did get a poster from this research, so I cited that in my AMCAS and my PI's name in the "contact" for that entry. I didnt' cite a separate research experience for this lab though. The main reason I didn't really pursue this letter was because I already have 6 letters, and this would be a 7th and would put me over harvard's limit..

shemarty said:

I sent more than the limit, because I didn't want to toss any of my letters. If you think that the letter contributes something unique to your application, you can include it even if it pushes it over the limit. I dunno if they stop reading when they get to 6, or if they read everything in the packet.

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Yeah that's what I was thinking haha but I think this letter might actually detract from me because it will probably be mediocre in comparison to the other letters, which should be 'great' to 'excellent.' So I was just kinda looking for a backdoor out of getting one from this PI

I have 6 letters already, one from my current PI with whom I also worked as an undergrad summer intern. However, I do have a summer research experience after freshman year listed on my AMCAS with another professor. Would I need to ask him for one more and send it in as an additional letter? My committee packet already has 6 letters and I cannot add any more to that.

DNAbaby said:

Make sure that you submit a rec letter from every lab you ever worked at

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Out of curiosity, why do you say that?

impressionist said:

Out of curiosity, why do you say that?

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It's a requirement. http://hms.harvard.edu/admissions/default.asp?page=researchapply

ksmi117 said:

It's a requirement. http://hms.harvard.edu/admissions/default.asp?page=researchapply

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Ah, thanks very much for the heads-up. Is there a single place to find schools' letter requirements (I thought I heard so), or do you have to scour individual websites?

impressionist said:

Ah, thanks very much for the heads-up. Is there a single place to find schools' letter requirements (I thought I heard so), or do you have to scour individual websites?

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Haven't heard of one. If you are patient, all the threads here should be updated with prompts and LOR reqs. That is if people let me and shemarty know when the secondaries are released.

ksmi117 said:

Haven't heard of one. If you are patient, all the threads here should be updated with prompts and LOR reqs. That is if people let me and shemarty know when the secondaries are released.

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Awesome. Hope you don't mind one last question, but do you know of any other school with this LOR policy? (I just checked about 10 schools and they didn't have any detailed specifications like that)

Thanks for your help.

impressionist said:

Awesome. Hope you don't mind one last question, but do you know of any other school with this LOR policy? (I just checked about 10 schools and they didn't have any detailed specifications like that)

Thanks for your help.

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Harvard's the only one I've heard of. Always here to help. Or try to anyways.

DNAbaby said:

No secret. As a junior in college I turned down an offer of admission to a mid-tier medical school because I wanted to develop more as a researcher and a scientist.

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What a badazz. Most people on here would have their head's explode after reading something like that. But I like it. You knew what you wanted and you weren't afraid to go for it. Good luck in med school.

more LOR questions:

-short story: PI is too busy to write me one, can't get a hold of him. Have an average relationship with him. Will Harvard care if I don't submit this?

-currently working in a research lab for summer and have been here for 2 weeks. do I need a LOR from here? i'd feel weird to request one esp. since he's pushing me to do PhD.

counting ALL LORs incl. the above two, i'd have 8...i think that's pushing it.