<p>And in fact, Harvard National Scholars also get scholarship money when they stay at Harvard for graduate school. For example, if you go to Harvard Medical School, you will get thousands of dollars per year on top of any need-based grant money.</p>
<p>duke hands down, no contest here</p>
<p>harvard national scholar is on need based. There is no merit based award to attend the harvard </p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
The Harvard National Scholarship was established
in honor of Harvard’s 300th anniversary in the
early 1930’s with the goal of encouraging and
enabling a small number of the best students
from across the nation to attend Harvard, at that
time populated largely by students from the
Northeast corridor. The plan was to make Harvard
a more “national” and diverse institution by
including in its student body very promising
individuals from outside the New England area.
Today the National Scholarship is awarded to
students from certain states in the Midwest, West
and South to continue the tradition of providing
access to the College for students across the
country. Receiving this scholarship does not
affect the total amount of scholarship aid that
any student receives. (page 11)</p>
<p>Both the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Scholarship
and the Harvard National Scholarship are based
entirely on need; the amount you are eligible to
receive is determined by the relative strength of
your family’s financial resources. (page 12)</p>
<p>
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>"He attended Harvard University, where he was a "Harvard National Scholar" (one of the top 50 in an entering class of 1,200)"</p>
<p><a href="http://www.doctorhakeem.com/hakeemface.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.doctorhakeem.com/hakeemface.html</a></p>
<p>People can claim whatever they want, but it is from the haravard website. On other hand if someone from modest background makes it to harvard, they must have worked hard despite limiting fiscal resources. Nothing to be ashamed of once resources. A fact that only in USA that one can go attend one of the best school despite lacking fiscal resources. Bravo to this person.</p>
<p>"1991 - 1995 HARVARD UNIVERSITY CAMBRDIGE, MA Bachelor of Arts degree, cum laude, in Chemistry. Selected Harvard National Scholaraward given to top 5% of incoming first-year students"</p>
<p><a href="http://www.scoretop.com/forum/uploads/vamseenaidu/%5B/url%5D">www.scoretop.com/forum/uploads/vamseenaidu/</a> files/2005-05-27<em>030618</em>hbs2001resumes.pdf</p>
<p>... solely on the basis of academic promise: if a rich boy won, he would be designated a Harvard National Scholar but would receive only a token grant. ...</p>
<p>Last 12 years things have changed. I am sure what they are citing may be correct. But national scholar award is based on need in 2011 class. If you see the attached link it explains everything.</p>
<p>Maybe they changed the criteria when they revamped the financial aid scheme with Summers' new initiative</p>
<p>"I got the Trustee Scholarship from Penn which covered 33k, and it stated in their letter that it was a need-based scholarship"</p>
<p>It's not strictly need-based if the Trustee Scholarship awardees are selected based on academic criteria, rather than at random. If the Trustee Scholarship winners get their loan/job portion substituted with grant money instead, that is really a merit-based scholarship disguised as a need-based scholarship. It could just be a matter of semantics.</p>
<p>My sister in law got a merit scholarship from Harvard, but since aid is need based the amount of her merit scholarship was zero dollars. You have to wonder why they bothered to tell her she had been awarded the scholarship at all!</p>
<p>i think most people with perspective (read: not high school seniors, or younger) will tell you to go to Duke. Of course, you need to subtract out trolls like ske293 and the such. </p>
<p>Your Duke scholarship is an amazing opportunity and carries very high prestige. I would usually recommend Harvard if I thought the scholarship offering school was of significantly lower quality, but with you this is hardly the case. Duke will offer enormous opportunities - and with the scholarship, they will be the same as that offered by Harvard.</p>
<p>Just as a point of reference, a significant number of people in my class (at least 3-5) turned down the Robertson Scholarship at Duke to attend Harvard.</p>
<p>I think this is a decision where both choices are "the right choice." If finances are a substantial issue (i.e. if attending Harvard means taking out large loans), Duke is a clear winner. If finances aren't an issue, my choice is Harvard (but I do have a bias, as a current student there).</p>
<p>I'm an adult and I'd choose Harvard if money weren't an issue. I'd also choose Harvard if I thought there were a good chance that I'd be doing any work overseas.</p>
<p>The Duke scholarship is an amazing opportunity. If money was not an issue at all, I would choose Harvard. Cambridge is beautiful and Boston with all the colleges, different people, etc is just an awesome place to go to school. At Duke you will be more confined to the campus and....Durham ??? ( I am not even going to go there...) The people that you will be interacting with while attending Harvard will be part of the great experience that you will take with you for the rest of your life. Again, with money NOT being and issue and not getting picky about the academic undergrad experience either.</p>
<p>Clearly both amazing opportunities, based on med/humanitarian opportunities Duke is clearly telling up front that this is there for you as an undergrad, prob good research opps as well. If this is important find out what opportunities you will be offered at harvard. The less you pay now the more you can spend later on humanitarian travel as well as grad school.</p>
<p>Good Luck:D</p>
<p>
[quote]
i think most people with perspective (read: not high school seniors, or younger) will tell you to go to Duke.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's quite unfair to the several participants in this thread who have visited both campuses and know graduates of both colleges. It's hard to go wrong with a choice between Harvard and Duke-on-a-scholarship, but there are good reasons for a grown-up adult to advise the OP to consider attending Harvard.</p>
<p>"i think most people with perspective (read: not high school seniors, or younger) will tell you to go to Duke."</p>
<p>I'm a high school senior telling the OP to go to Duke.</p>
<p>Harvard only comes around once in one's life. Forget about money here, go to Harvard. I wish I had the chance to go to Harvard. I just have to try harder in the next few years to get in to grad school there. </p>
<p>GO TO HARVARD! you'll thank me later</p>
<p>Lot of people will tell you to go to Harvard for no apparent reason.</p>
<p>They will sell it for "prestige", and "once in a life time" kind of thing.</p>
<p>Not that it's bad, just don't let it obscure your judgment. You should </p>
<p>be the judge in this one, not some commercial commentators.</p>