<p>
[quote]
I'd personally rather go to Oxford, Yale, MIT, or a slew of other schools over Harvard
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Talk about sour grapes.</p>
<p>^lol
and I wonder why Harvard has such a high yield...</p>
<p>We were just in Boston this weekend, and while there we visited Harvard and BC. We had already visited a good number of other schools, and honestly--apart from the prestige factor--Harvard was D's favorite. Every other college we've looked at had a big negative that kept her from being 100% thrilled with it. Visiting BC too was convenient because it kept D from looking conceited.</p>
<p>The universal reaction when Harvard gets mentioned seems to be to find fault somehow. "Aren't the Ivies ridiculously expensive?" (no one heard of their generous FA program?), "Everyone says Harvard is better for grad school. I wouldn't go there for undergrad", (and what if D isn't planning on going to grad school?) and then "Aren't the students really geeky? They spend so much time studying they have no social skills. " (yup, Harvard students must only have academic intelligence, never emotional intelligence.) and so on.</p>
<p>There are a lot of geeky students there.</p>
<p>DocT, I have to disagree respectfully.</p>
<p>TheGFG- I agree both with your assessment of people's reactions and with your condemnation of them. It is rather rude to attack someone's school, especially someone you just met. I don't know if I've ever responded to someone who said "I got to X University" by immediately listing all the flaws I had heard X University had.</p>
<p>Harvard is the top-ranked university in quite a few fields, and being accepted there reflects well on a student's accomplishments. </p>
<p>Still, one of the funniest conversations about colleges I've heard happened at UC, Berkeley, during a summer science research program; the participating students, college juniors from around the country, were just getting to know each other:</p>
<p>Student A: So, where do you go to school?
Student B: Harvard.
Student A: Yeah, I've heard of it.
(<em>defuses bomb for entire group</em>)</p>
<p>lol. yeah, i've heard of it. priceless. </p>
<p>i personally say it outright. i feel that people aren't usually that surprised because everyone who asks me basically knows me and how im ambitious. so they be like, "cool, where else?" </p>
<p>by the way a word of advice, if someone asks you where you are applying, don't try to slip harvard between some mediocre schools in your listing because it will look like an attempt to impress lol. also, don't say "harvard" and then pause for a long time eliciting a response lmao</p>
<p>I have no doubt there are geeky students at Harvard. Heck, there are geeky students at D's high school too--they're in her AP classes. But D's not in the least geeky, so I expect if she manages the feat of getting admitted, she'll find others like herself there. She'd be more of the flying-under-the-radar type mentioned above, who will likely elicit shock and resentment from all the nerdy kids who participated in every academic EC, and worse, she'll be subjected to the accusation she only got in because she's an athlete. That would be partly true, of course, but only in the sense of taking out some of the luck factor and not because she doesn't have the academic qualifications.</p>
<p>I'm characterizing a lot of the students based on my d who is a junior. She has dated extensively - including Harvard Business and Law students. The general impression she gives is that most are socially inept even compared to her high school.</p>
<p>Too bad we don't know the impression that Harvard students have of your extensively-dating D, DocT.</p>
<p>oooooooooo burn. </p>
<p>yeah its sort of annoying that these soccer moms are bragging about how cool their daughters are. pretty embarrassing actually...i hate it when moms say "nerdy" and "geek" when they have no idea what it means.</p>
<p>Not bragging, and not saying my daughter is cool, because I'm not so sure she is. She's probably too goody-two-shoes to be cool. I just meant that she doesn't come off as academically oriented, technologically savvy, or exceptionally intellectual. (edit: I should add that IMO, she sometimes sounds too dumb for how smart she really is, so I'm not saying her manner is good or better than any other way of being.) You are right in that I probably can't make an accurate distinction between the two words "geek" and "nerd", but at her school at least the word "nerd" is used for very studious kids with resulting deficiencies in social skills. The word "geek" is used similarly, though it tends to refer to students whose strong interest in math, science or engineering defines their personality to an extent that is considered weird by those not as technically inclined.</p>
<p>Well lets put it this way - she's not into hooking up and she never has to look for a date.</p>
<p>someone seems a bit arrogant</p>
<p>Perhaps her idea of social ineptitude is others' ideas of maturity and acceptable behavior, i.e. not 'dating extensively' only to discard one's boyfriends like tissues and bad-mouth them later.</p>
<p>There is a world of difference between a single date and a boyfriend - apparently a lot of guys and you don't get this. Not being able to carry on an intelligent conversation with a girl or asking a girl after a single date: "Can I be your boyfriend?" is not only socially inept but obtuse.</p>
<p>My D has found a wonderful group of non-nerdy, socially-adept friends at H. I have met quite a few of them, and she has shared pictures of most of them with me on facebook, so at least I can attest that they don't <em>look</em> nerdy or socially inept. She once commented that she noticed that many of the incoming freshman who seem nerdy at first, have transformed by the end of the year, presumably due to H's environment.</p>
<p>DocT, I highly doubt that Law School students are saying that. In no way did I say that a single date with someone made your relationship a boyfriend/girlfriend one. I was taking your statement - "that she has dated extensively" - as an indication that she has been in many relationships. Perhaps the misunderstanding is due to my definition of the term as having been in many, long-lasting relationships, something that you have just explained as untrue. I am, however, amused by the fact that you took my post as an opportunity to make a condescending remark instead of trying to reconcile our definitions immediately.</p>
<p>If your daughter cannot find any socially adept men, I think that reflects more on her than the Harvard student body as a whole. After all, I could claim (truthfully) that all the students I know who have attended Harvard (over 10) are the most mature, sophisticated, and socially 'normal' people, but it's not worth anything. Why is the anecdotal experience from your daughter more valuable?</p>
<p>What I've expressed is also the feeling of a lot of women besides my daughter on the Harvard campus. The comments are from seniors. The hookup mentality extends to the graduate schools.</p>
<p>Could you provide us with links to such comments? Or perhaps suggest a book?</p>