For those who got in Harvard, Yale and Stanford

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>crimsonbulldog, what do you think about Y's Career Services? I've heard that they are good only in helping students get jobs on Wall Street.</p>

22

<p>Thanks Hanna and crimsonbulldog ... </p>

<p>Hanna: yeah these people were undergrads. I met them at a Harvard alumni gathering which I organized for my fellow admits, and they all seemed scarily go-getting. The thing is, while I have got more than my fair share of initiative (e.g. I herd Harvard alums to meet with harvard admits - it was very difficult!), I'm afraid that over the course of 4 years it may run out, I might get lost, and if the support network isn't strong enough I might just be left to flounder around. Regarding proctors, would they necessarily be in your concentration/field? </p>

<p>And regarding the raa-raa ness of Harvardians (or lack thereof), actually what disturbs me is not the lack of indiscriminate recommending, but rather that on more than one occasion, when I brought up my doubts about Harvard and started talking about Yale and the benefits of not being too full of oneself, the Harvardians in question turned around and proved my point by insinuating that it's my loss if I think that way, instead of correcting the impressions I had. That was a real turn-off. In fact one of them was one of my interviewers, and he came very near to saying if that's what I thought, maybe he'd made a mistake in recommending me at all. HUGE turn-off.</p>

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<p>I"m not sure this is entirely an advantage. One strength of the Harvard approach to residence colleges is that, by housing all the freshman together for one year in Harvard Yard before moving them out into the colleges, it gives them an opportunity to form a larger identity as the Class of '08 or '09 or whatever before they move off and bond with their new college-mates. And the subsequent 3 years together in the same residence college is still plenty long enough to form all those bonds and friendships and particpate in all those cohesion-bulding activities.</p>

<p>At Yale by contrast they get segregated right from the start. Any given incoming class gets totally Balkanized by college. I think Harvard strives to strike a happy medium. You have your fellow college residents, but you still retain friends and aquaintances in other colleges from your freshman year in Harvard Yard.</p>

<p>In any case, I think both Harvard and Yale are wonderful schools. You can't go wrong with either one. Pick whichever one suits you the best.</p>

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<p>"At Yale by contrast they get segregated right from the start. Any given incoming class gets totally Balkanized by college. I think Harvard strives to strike a happy medium. You have your fellow college residents, but you still retain friends and aquaintances in other colleges from your freshman year in Harvard Yard."</p>

<p>The college segregation myth is as true as house segregation at harvard. Freshman are housed together on old campus, and though they are arranged per college, the closeness of all freshman make for lifelong friends in every college (you literally live next door to every other college's freshman save silliman and TD). My senior year, I lived off campus with 5 guys, and we were all in different colleges. Social activities, fraternities, classes, sports, and old campus all serve to integrate students irrespective of college (of course there is always the problem of colleges or houses located far away like timothy dwight, or courier). </p>

<p>There are many advantages to being in a college straight off the bat. Namely, advising (which is the reason that Harvard was thinking about switching to the Yale system, or still is thinking?). Right from when you come to yale, you have an academic college dean assigned to take care of you (with your freshman counselors), and sort of hold your hand when it comes to classes and coursework and developing your academic persona at yale. Then there are all the many ameneties you have in each college available to you as a freshman, such as a college library, a college gym (not Payne Whitney, which is the campus gym, and the largest gym in the US), a college dining hall, computer clusters, master teas, late night buttery, rock climbing walls, etc... At Harvard, I don't think you have these tools available to you until you get into the houses your sophomore year. Because of this, me and my friends actually published a journal using Branford's (college) printing press our freshman year (limited print, get yours now!). Anyway, what I'm saying is that being affiliated to a college your freshman year gives you alot of benefits. And you can always transfer colleges if you want... its an easy process. </p>

<p>As for career services, while I was at yale in the 90's, they were completely revamped as per student input - so now its supposedly the greatest place in the world for getting a job (according to semi-propagandist alumni newsletters). It was great for me, got me a very well funded fellowship to cambridge university (but I think since I left yale divorced the fellowship services from career services - its now its own building). It was one of the major priorities of Dean Broadhead before he left to head up Duke. I think the phenomenom to which you are referring to, namely a large number of yalies going into banking and consulting, is something you'll find at every ivy league school and is probably not made any better by the close proximity of NYC (you will be recruited all the time, all year round your junior and senior years, and you probably won't be able to say no to the fancy food). Yalies pretty much go into whatever they want to (and they go into so many different things), whether grad school, professions, fellowships, whatever.. peace corps, americorps, citycorps, yale-in-china, citibank... Sorry if this isn't specific enough</p>

<p><a href="http://www.yale.edu/career/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yale.edu/career/&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/iefp/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yale.edu/iefp/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Look, you'll be really motivated, all Yalies are. There's no doubt that coming out of Harvard or Yale, you'll be able to go into what you want or at least find many resources to help direct your career interests. </p>

<p>If you have any more questions, you can also PM me, and if I can't answer them, I can try to direct you to people/websites that can. Good luck in choosing, you can't go wrong.</p>

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<p>From what you've told me, I just can't imagine that you need to worry about that. Bear in mind that you don't need to be aggressive 24/7 all four years. I mean, if you need advice junior year, it's just a matter of walking up to your senior tutor in the dining hall or giving your concentration advisor a call; at that point these will be people that know you well, expect to hear from you, etc.</p>

<p>The proctor is not necessarily in your concentration, but you also have prefects -- these are upperclassmen assigned to be "big brothers and sisters" to each freshman entryway. If you're interested in an obscure field, you tell them, "Hey, I want to talk to a Folklore & Mythology prefect," and they say, "OK, call my friend Dave."</p>

<p>If you were expressing this concern and deciding between Harvard and, say, Swarthmore, I'd say that there's a very real and palpable gulf between the schools in terms of how nurturing and hand-holding the school is. But when it comes to Harvard and Yale, you're talking about very similar systems with a few details tweaked.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Harvard's pull in China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore is greater than anywhere else in the world (arguably greater than in the rest of the world put together)

[/quote]
Yes, this is very true. Unfortunately, I am a Korean in the U.S. (or rather, a Korean-American with Korean parents) who has doubts about enrolling at Harvard, and some people around me don't understand.</p>

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<p>I totally agree on the east-asia part. Harvard has somehow built up a huge awe-inspiring name over here and everyone just simply expects me to go there because of it. I've never chosen a school on such a basis before, and don't really intend to, but then the magnitude of the pressure this time is really great. Having said that, I'm a lot more comforted that there's quality backing up the name and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be selling myself short wherever I go. It's just that it's hard to make the point that this factor is not as true in the US itself!</p>

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<p>Suburbian:
For some reason, the highest proportion of Korean-American students is to be found at Chicago.</p>

29

<p>To those of you turning down Princeton because of the eating clubs:</p>

<p>Don't forget, Princeton has the highest Alumni giving rate at 61% while Harvard follows at 48%. The student quality of life at Princeton must be loved by most who attend. Princeton is in a beautiful area.The eating clubs, I hear, do not play a major role in the atmosphere. Yale, while I love it, is New Haven. Princeton is about an hour away from both New York and Philly. I love Yale also; because it would be fun to take some film courses. Harvard, while living in Boston might be fun, bothers me a little because so many people go there "because HARVARD is HARVARD and who can turn down HARVARD????" Personnally, I would want to go to a school where the people there, WANT to be there. That is one thing that fasinates me about the Princeton forum, most of them have no doupt that Princeton is their dream school. While I love Yale, I just wanted to put in here that Princeton is NOT to be forgotten about. (Also, not that this matters but... something like 70% of alums at Princeton marry each other:))</p>

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<p>Ahhhh!!!! lol, I thought I was in the Yale forum, hehe:D. Anyways, I love Harvard also. I mean they are amazing in every department(except maybe math), they are in Boston (which is better than New Haven), and are just a very good school all around. And it is true, HARVARD is HARVARD.</p>

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<p>This is probably true for just about any school, since it is very common to meet your (first) spouse while in college.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Princeton has the highest Alumni giving rate at 61% while Harvard follows at 48%

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's a flawed statistic, considering it takes into account the entire university (including graduate students). People are more likely to donate to their undergrad rather than their grad school, so Princeton, whose graduate school population is smaller, has an advantage in that statistic.</p>

<p>A more relevant statistic would be the giving rate of UNDERGRAD alumni...</p>

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<p>I mean they are amazing in every department(except maybe math),</p>

<p>except math? WHAT??? as compared with Yale????</p>

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<p>HH05...yopu are right, I did not consider that. I was not trying to put down harvard...I just wanted to defend princeton.</p>

<p>marite... I was not comparing the math at Harvard to that of Yale's. I was just saying that it is not their strongest department. It is still wonderful...i mean so many of the nation's top professors teach there.</p>

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<p>Here is the USNews ranking of the top 10 Math departments in the nation:</p>

<ol>
<li> Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.0</li>
<li> Harvard University (MA) 4.9
Princeton University (NJ) 4.9
Stanford University (CA) 4.9
University of California–Berkeley 4.9</li>
<li> University of Chicago 4.8</li>
<li> Yale University (CT) 4.7</li>
<li> California Institute of Technology 4.6
University of Michigan–Ann Arbor 4.6</li>
<li> Cornell University (NY) 4.4</li>
</ol>

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<p>Byerly, I thought you argued earlier that the USNews undergraduate-deparment rankings were bogus? Am I thinking of something else?</p>

<p>Also, where can I find these rankings.. I'd love to compare Econ departments :)</p>

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<p>You are thinking of something else .... the USNews ranking of undergraduate <em>engineering</em> programs - which the only effort it makes to rank any undergraduate program specifically as opposed to the departmental faculty and reputation in the various subject areas.</p>

<p>The Departmental programs are rated in the 2006 USNews guide to "America's Best Graduate Schools" , which is on the newstands currently.</p>

<p>It is available online for about the same price as the newsstand version, but the online versions has various useful features - such as being able to sort on one basis or another. I think the Econ ratings are new for 2005. In most areas, there are rankings in subspecialties - under Econ, History, Bio etc.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/rankindex.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/rankings/rankindex.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Since the demise of the NRC rankings, the USNews Departmental rankings are about all there is to go on.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.library.uiuc.edu/edx/rankings.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.library.uiuc.edu/edx/rankings.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Based on Byerlys recommendation, I checked the Biological Sciences recommendation from U S News & World Report. I was of the opinion that Harvard was ranked ahead of Stanford, but to my surprise the following are the rankings.<br>
1. Stanford University (CA) -------------- 4.9
2. Harvard University (MA)-------------- 4.8
2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology---- 4.8
2. University of California–Berkeley----------- 4.8</p>

<p>A special thanks to Byerly for recommending the U S News and World Report site
In fact you can check each discipline and see which college matches your discipline. Again a 4.9 vs. 4.8 does not make much of a difference. You got to look at the overall picture before you turn in your acceptance before May 1.</p>

<p>Again, good luck to all of you.</p>

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<p>BTW, these subject rankings are for grad school, not undergrad college, right?</p>

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<p>Harvard has one the best math departments-- and having lured Hong Tzer Yau away from Stanford, has an even stronger math department than ever. Not only is the faculty stellar, but it consistently attracts top math students.</p>

<p>One area of math where MIT is stronger is combinatorics, with Richard Stanley. Some Harvard students go to MIT for combinatorics, and some MIT students go to Harvard for certain courses, including the famed Math 55. Brown may have a stronger applied math department, but is weaker in pure math.</p>

<p>One of the features of the Harvard math department is that, beyond the introductory sequence, which includes Math 55, most courses are open to ungergraduates and graduate students. So this is a case where the graduate rankings matter. </p>

<p>The difference in quality among the top math colleges is not siginificant enough to affect decisions. My S was also admitted to Stanford (having sent his RD app by Dec. 15) and is being actively courted by the math department there. But he prefers Harvard's location and the NE weather (yep!).</p>