Take It and Enjoy It

This semester, about 600 first-years will decide whether to accept Advanced Standing. If the past is any indication, about half will decline. This decision to decline Advanced Standing by 300 Harvard first-years annually is both surprising and concerning.

Advanced Standing has been good to us. We have used it to get on-campus recruiting interviews since sophomore year, into lotteried Cores, concentration classes and sophomore tutorials early. We are getting Masters degrees along with our Bachelors in four years and are getting out of two Cores (three if you count the Science core exemptions--but that's another story). And we've taken fewer than four courses when we wanted a lighter workload.

But while our situation is a little different from most, we believe that for almost all eligible students, taking Advanced Standing is a good idea. This observation is based on having advised hundreds of first-years as Advanced Standing peer counselors over the past three years, having been through the experience ourselves and having talked to faculty, administrators and countless juniors and seniors about the role of Advanced Standing in the college experiences.

Of the 300 first-years who do accept Advanced Standing, roughly 30 will graduate early, 15 to 20 will earn a Masters degree through the four-year joint AB/AM program and another 30 will study abroad and come back with the credits to graduate with their entering class.

Why do so many first-years choose not to take Advanced Standing? Some believe that it will force them to choose a concentration early. It is true that you must fill out a Plan of Study form in February rather than in May. But as any senior will tell you, the Plan of Study is totally non-binding; most of us have no idea even what we wrote down back then (though seniors might be interested to know that they can find out by requesting to see their permanent record the next time they visit the Registrar). The Plan of Study is a useful exercise, but that's all it is. Being forced to think about your concentration early involves nothing more than reading Fields of Concentration accurately and perhaps talking to a head tutor. And some people find that looking at a concentration from the inside tells them exactly where they do or don't want to study for the next three years.

Other cons to accepting include such factors as ineligibility for spring term freshman seminars and the psychological toll of advancing your academic career faster than you think feels right. What truly disturbs us, however, is the number of rumors, most of which are fully untrue, about the costs of Advanced Standing. Many think accepting brings on disadvantages with fellowships and difficulty in being considered for Phi Beta Kappa. But these factors are relevant only if you plan on graduating in three years; the fellowships office at the Office of Career Services and the Phi Beta Kappa director will tell you that an Advanced Standing student planning on staying at Harvard four years is not at all disadvantaged. This is not the only faulty rumor. One first-year asked if it was necessary to pay several thousand dollars in "administration costs" to graduate early or study abroad with advanced standing. It's not. Another emphatically refused accepting out of fear of being forced to move off-campus in his fourth year, left to fend with the expense and hassle of finding a Cambridge apartment. But moving off-campus is not a necessary result of accepting Advanced Standing.

An incredibly large number of intelligent and well-meaning people assume that Advanced Standing requires one to leave after three years. That just isn't true. Many legitimately cite financial reasons for leaving early, but there is a great deal of confusion about this as well. One student stubbornly persisted in believing that if she stayed for four years, Harvard would limit or cut financial aid eligibility for her fourth year. Not the case.

In fact, the administration is committed to making sure that Advanced Standing affects as few non-academic aspects of your life as possible. And since there is precedent for almost anything you might want to do with Advanced Standing, It's really just a question of reaching out to the administrators, department staff, house tutors and other students who know about these things.

We can speak from experience. We participate in many undergraduate activities. We have plenty of time to argue over American foreign policy at dinner or to debate the aesthetic value of our napkin dispensers. We wouldn't trade that part of the Harvard experience for a Ph.D. But the beauty of Advanced Standing is that we never had to make that choice. Most Advanced Standing students stay for four years, and face virtually no external obstacles to participation or advancement.

An astounding number of students drop Advanced Standing in their third year. Yet in our experience dealing with Advanced Standing, we have never seen anything to indicate that there is any reason to drop Advanced Standing. There is something strange about intelligent Harvard students worried about making sure they do something that will have no positive effect on them whatsoever, and will only limit their options.

Master's degrees, better summer jobs, advantages in housing and Core lotteries, study abroad--the most compelling reason to take Advanced Standing is that it opens up more options. Every year, peer counselors, the Freshman Dean's Office and the Registrar get phone calls from anxious seniors wondering if they still have Advanced Standing. They do, and they can enjoy the benefits (usually taking fewer classes) their senior spring. And as they kick back, sip their drinks and leaf through their completed theses, they wonder why they wasted any energy worrying about the Advanced Standing decision three years before.

Gopal Garuda '99 and Lonne A. Jaffe '99 are peer counselors in the Advanced Standing office.