Applicant #s for Princeton vs Harvard

Applying to College
1

<p>I just saw that Princeton had over 26,000 applicants while Harvard had over 30,000. I'm not trying to compare the two schools in any way, just curious as to the reasons people think Harvard got more than 4000 applications than Princeton. They are both extremely well-regarded, top schools that anyone would be excited to attend.</p>

<p>What's the reason for so many applying to Harvard? The only thing I can come up with is maybe prestige and Harvard is ......................Harvard, but that wouldn't account for over 4000 more applications right?</p>

2

<p>Maybe those 4,000 got in EA at Yale, Stanford or MIT and are trying to hook the big one before making a final decision.</p>

3

<p>

“Hey, ma! I wanna go to Harvard! Let me apply for the kicks!”
vs.
“Hey, ma! What is Prince-tone?”</p>

<p>Not hard to find 4,000 of those in a class of over 3,000,000 nationally.</p>

4

<p>I think it probably Princeton’s smaller size. It seems that nationally, a bigger school naturally gets more applicants. UCLA has what, 30,000 undergrads and 60,000 applicants. Stanford has 6,000 undergrad and 32000 applicants…</p>

5

<p>More people think they can get into Harvard.</p>

6

<p>Harvard has better name recognition, especially internationally. More people know about it, more people apply.</p>

7

<p>I’d agree with monstor - I know many under-qualified people who applied to Harvard “just to try” but have never heard the same with Princeton.</p>

8

<p>^ agreed. I don’t know many people that are like “let me just apply to Princeton for the hell of it”</p>

9

<p>

</p>

<p>You are right, the bigger the school the more applicants they get. But more people also apply to UCLA because of its higher admissions rate compared to HYPMS. It must be that Harvard just has the bigger name. Anyone know why and when Harvard’s prestige and name began? Nevermind I’ll just google it.</p>