<p>I live a few miles from Harvard, and pass by there almost every day. The campus is beautiful. Harvard Square, though, is as much a part of campus as Harvard Yard. If you don't like that, then it's probably not the best choice.</p>
<p>On the other hand, Harvard is very much a university in ways that Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton, and even Yale aren't. Harvard has twice as many GSAS (grad) as CAS students, and their professional schools are also huge. If you go to Harvard, you will not have full access to professors and other university resources in the same way that students at the other schools you're applying to will, simply because there are so many graduate students competing for those same resources.</p>