<p>I'm quite happy with Stanford.</p>
<p>That's the point. </p>
<p>Byerly, as one ironic publication put it, "has posted literally thousands of messages disparaging Yale and Princeton and defending Harvards excellence."</p>
<p>I'm new to CC, but I would love to hear Byerly defend Harvard's undergrad program in comparison to Yale's :). </p>
<p>Yeah, I turned down the H-Bomb for the Y-Bomb. (And the P-Bomb and the S-Bomb, if such things exist.)</p>
<p>and Byerly will never answer for those that do in fact do that, other than to point to the 85% or whatever that don't.</p>
<p>Yeah... I thought it was pretty funny myself.</p>
<p>Zephyr is a freshman at Stanford who, as Byerly was unkind enough to point out, wanted to go to Yale but was rejected. For reasons I have yet to fathom, he still seems to find endless entertainment in hanging out on ccs Harvard board and posting inane, Harvard-bashing comments. I think he does it primarily to provoke Byerly.</p>
<p>Byerly is a Harvard alum, probably circa 1960s. For reasons I find equally or more unfathomable (Zephyr has the excuse that hes just a kid), Byerly always rises to the bait. But in between sparring with the likes of Zephyr, at least Byerly posts a fair amount of useful information. I cant recall Zephyr ever posting anything useful, at least not on the Harvard board.</p>
<p>Whenever the two of them go at it (a distressingly frequent occurrence), my advice is just to watch - if youre into that sort of thing - or ignore. Theres certainly no need to come to the defense of either. Each has proven more than capable of fending for himself. ;)</p>
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<p>probably circa 1960's</p>
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<p>That's correct -- early 1960's.</p>
<p>... and unlike some posters or lurkers here, the advice and counsel I dispense is *free" !! I am not "trolling" for customers (in the fishing sense of the word).</p>
<p>Of course some may argue that you get what you pay for!</p>
<p>What kind of gimp would pay people on an internet forum to give him information?</p>
<p>There is a whole cottage industry that has developed in recent years catering to the insecurites of college applicants and their parents ... everything from helping kids find the right "fit" to "editing" their essays, helping select their extracurricular activities and summer experience for maximum impact as part of the "package", and coaching them prior to interviews. </p>
<p>The sky is the limit for what some counselors charge to handle your "account."</p>
<p>But back to the Harvard Syndrome . . . Imagine asking a university Music professor about composers that s/he particularly likes. Is there one anywhere who would respond "Well, Beethoven was good; and so was Bach?" Any novice walking down the street could tell you that. So the "expert" is going to come up with a rationale that runs counter to common wisdom in order to demonstrate just how uncommon their own wisdom is. Not many people who feel they're knowledgeable about higher education are likely to offer the opinion "Gee, Harvard's a pretty good school." They think they'll look more insightful telling you why it's not so good after all. No one cares to display a keen grasp of the obvious.</p>
<p>Except, of course, for the most-well-known Harvard troll of them all. Even the Crimson takes notice!</p>
<p>zephyr... are you saying byerly was mentioned in a crimson article?</p>
<p>I might be saying that.</p>
<p>Hmm...I recall a Crimson article in which someone on another forum under a different name (NYsomething?) was mentioned, and it's been speculated that it's Byerly but I don't know, didn't really pay attention :p</p>
<p>That being said, I think we can all agree that Harvard, Stanford, and Yale are all AMAZING schools with amazing people and most people would be extremely happy at any of the three? No need for a flame war here.</p>
<p>Well said .</p>
<p>It is Byerly.</p>
<p>Anyone with care to examine NYCFan's identity, the "outing" incident or related events will find they are the same person.</p>
<p>Hmm, maybe. Although the NYC would sort of go against what it seems may be his area of residence (assuming he interviewed or otherwise knew the girl who got the likely?).</p>
<p>I think we're all spending too much time thinking about this :p Good night everyone!</p>
<p>By the way, happy 4000th post (well, 4001 now ;)), Byerly.</p>
<p>I think that Harvard syndrome can be generalized to life really. People always say "Well, that's great, but..." How else could they go on believing that they're just as good as everyone else. Face it, Harvard is at the top of the food chain.</p>
<p>On a side note, as an MIT student (and former Harvard admit), I really don't think that we have Harvard syndrome. We envy Harvard's campus (they have beautiful, tradition laden architecture, while we have modern art disasters, ie the Stata center), and lighter workload, but I'd say for most of the people here, MIT was their dream school. We're just techies, it's a different type of school.</p>
<p>STOP!!! Oxbridge, HYPS, MIT, UC Berk, ETC. (NOTE THE ETC.) are ALL top tier schools. Each has its weakness, and its strengths. But at the end, it puts them in a level that surpasses most other higher learning institutions. For example, Harvard's engineering SUCKS, but it's Law and Medicine schools (just to name a couple) ROCKS. I'm not that familiar with other schools to comment, but I'm sure that they all have strengths and weaknesses. So discussion on whether or not Harvard is superior to every other school in the world is for...lack of a better word, retarded.</p>
<p>Harvard's engineering program hardly "sucks".</p>
<p>It is very small, to be sure, but it very high quality in terms of the qualifications of its students, the qualifications of its faculty members and very selective as measured by the admit rate for applicants to its program.</p>