<p>So we are competing on post counts!</p>
<p>I bet you'll send in two more posts to equate the number.</p>
<p>Jrock, please don't clutter this up with posts that are off-topic like that. Some people are reading this to gather information about their college choices. Are you trying to make it hard for them to find that article (<a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=350153%5B/url%5D">http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=350153</a>) comparing the two undergraduate experiences?</p>
<p>Not that Yale needs any support, but remember, the reason why Byerly trolls at the Yale and Princeton threads so much is that he sees those schools as H's two principal rivals. Both schools receive more applications per slot than H and this troubles him.
What haunts Byerly however is the fact that H lags the other two in its committment to undergraduates. P provides students with a total undergraduate focus and Y has made undergraduate education a priority. CCers are clearly focused on on years 1 - 4 and this is Byerly's dilemma. Further, his beloved H has provided him with little support.</p>
<p>Recently, as has been reported here, Harvard's president, Mr. Summers, put his foot in his mouth (again, surprise!) when he told two undergraduates that if they wanted contact with their professors they should have attended Williams or Swarthmore (or the like). This conversation was reported in the Boston Globe Newspaper.</p>
<p>Byerly's response to the article was to launch an unwarranted personal attack against the article's author (when you don't like the message, attack the messenger). Desparate people will say crazy things.</p>
<p>''Yale is known by virtually everyone on the planet. It's strange to entertain the notion that someone may have heard of Harvard but not Yale.''</p>
<p>I completely disagree with it. One of my friends recently got into Yale EA and I heard him telling people that it is as good and great a school as Harvard is. That sums it up all.</p>
<p>Yalies seems to have Harvard complex. They always compare themselves with Harvard students and assume that they are more happy than them. They have to justify their choice of choosing Yale and in so provides links to articles which somehow, in their opinion, shows that Yale is better. All the rankings for 'undergrad' education places Harvard on top. Some of my seniors in Harvard seems to be quite happy there, yes it is tough but it does not mean that it is boring etc. MIT may be even more tougher and exhausting than Harvard but it does not mean that if you go there you will miss the undergrad experience.</p>
<p>I think we should end this pointless discussion. If anyone of us is fortunate enough to get into both, than he/she must have enough brain to decide which is better for himself/herself.</p>
<p>If you read the posts on the yale threads, you will see that it is Byerly who makes BY FAR the most citations to articles deeming harvard is statistically better than yale and not vice versa. Seems to me that there is a real yale complex among harvard people as well.</p>
<p>alixpaul, the article was by Harvard students, not Yale students. And no Harvard student claims they aren't happy because of the work... Yale probably is a harder school to actually do the work of, but anyone accepted is more than capable at either school. Harvard students aren't tired of the work at Harvard, they are tired of the place and the people at Harvard, as well as the fact that they missed out on having a true undergraduate experience like all of their friends at other top universities (Yale, Stanford, Princeton, and other Ivies).</p>
<p>The rivalry in the Ivy League has always been Harvard (founded first) and Yale (founded second). It goes both ways, but admittedly Yale is the historic underdog and has more fun with the rivalry... if for no other reason that Harvard students can hardly tell they're in college at all, much less that they have a rivalry with anyone... they're in an atmosphere that doesn't care about them and they have very little unity or "Harvard spirit". They'd rather not be there at all, much less get into Harvard's rivalries or anything else about Harvard.</p>
<p>As for "your friend" who you say you "heard telling people it is as good and great a school as Harvard is", get real. You can't possibly expect people to believe that a student in the United States (or anywhere else) would possibly have to tell people that Yale is one of the best universities in the world. Show me just one legitimate person who has heard of Harvard but has not heard of Yale or Stanford. The concept borders on the ridiculous, really.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Yalies seems to have Harvard complex....
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, some Harvard folk seem a little hung-up on Yale themselves, as described in this editorial from the *Harvard Crimson<a href="%5Burl%5Dhttp://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=350219%5B/url%5D">/i</a>:</p>
<p>*At Harvard, support for the football team goes hand-in-hand with violence, sexual innuendo and ego-inflating t-shirts predicting that Yalies are bound for bankruptcy and homelessness....</p>
<p>Some of the t-shirts out there are also just plain arrogant. Dartboard almost bought one when she read the text: What do Harvard and Yale students have in common? They both got into Yale! The kid next to Dartboard mumbled, Well I sure didnt. Several others confessed that they too had received Yale rejection letters. Is the t-shirt meant to make us appear conceited, or sarcastic?</p>
<p>A shirt that carries a similar message reads, "Well kick your ass today and fire your ass tomorrow," bearing a melancholy bulldog with a sign "Will bark for fud." Even the most die-hard Harvard fan cannot deny that Eli does pretty well in the real world, for example, in running for president. As much fun as it is to believe that we are in essence, better than our counterparts at Yale simply by virtue of our being Harvard students, these shirts make us look delusional, even bitter.*</p>
<p>Just the predictable grumpy mumblings of a contrarian op-ed columnist - on the eve of The Game. It seems the young international lady doesn't much like football and its violent imagry.</p>
<p>At Harvard, Queenie, its a once-a-year thing associated with The Game, and gentle aesthetes like the columnist you cite find it all rather jarring.</p>
<p>Its not like Yale, where "HARVARD S<em>U</em>C<em>K</em>S" is an everyday phrase, but nevertheless the school regularly looks to Cambridge as the trend-setter in most things.</p>
<p>Healthy rivalry is good, but guys, don't let this turn into a bloody war.</p>
<p>Yale.edu, I'm not trying to clutter this thread up with impertinent information.
Everybody knows that Yale is better, but Harvard is more popular and prestigious.</p>
<p>Ultimately, it's up to you to make a choice. Secondary experience is good but that should not determine the outcome of your decision. You could be happy at either.</p>
<p>Byerly--</p>
<p>"The young international lady"? Not very PC of you, my dear. But I guess the grand old men of Harvard should have known better than to let in all those women and foreigners.... </p>
<p>As for, "Its [sic] not like Yale, where 'HARVARD S<em>U</em>C<em>K</em>S' is an everyday phrase, but nevertheless the school regularly looks to Cambridge as the trend-setter in most things": Nope, Yalies have better things to do than to obsess about Harvard, except around The Game and when they're making jokes about the effects of higher-quality toilet paper on college rankings.</p>
<p>But thank goodness you aren't delusional or bitter.</p>
<p>Love, </p>
<p>"Queenie"</p>
<p>i find it hard to beleive that yale.edu is even refuting that Harvard is more popular and prestigious than Yale. sigh......</p>
<p>Alixpaul, What Undergraduate rankings are you referring to that put H on top. The only one that I am aware of that ties H with Princeton is US News (and that is a university ranking taking more into consideration than the undergraduate experience). If your referring to the other accepted, traditional, popular rankings (Atlantic Monthly (Boston based), Princeton Review, Prowl'r College Guide, etc.), I suggest you take another look. You might be surprised.</p>
<p>alixpaul, what I refute is that there is anyone on Earth who doesn't already know about Yale. You claimed "your friend" had to explain to people that Yale was like Harvard... there's nowhere on this planet where people don't already know all about America's "Big Five" (Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Harvard, MIT). And I'm talking about places that may not have indoor plumbing... they've still heard all about Yale and Stanford and Princeton.</p>
<p>Whoever said that it ultimately came down to Cambridge vs. New Haven was dead on. I have been to both many times, and I can tell you that Cambridge is an amazing town. New Haven, on the other hand, is absolutely horrible. My aunt, who was accepted to all the Ivies, narrowed it down to Harvard vs. Yale. She then made lists of the pros and cons of both; she ultimately went with Harvard because Cambridge trumps New Haven.</p>
<p>Actually, the cheapness of New Haven and the expensiveness of Cambridge is one factor (as indicated by the Harvard article among many others) that makes Yale a better place to go to undergraduate school than Harvard. At Yale, professors live next to campus and invite students over for dinner, completely integrating with the campus. Also, students can have off-campus parties at off-campus residences. </p>
<p>Harvard is a commuter school for faculty, and students can't afford to have residences off-campus. The faculty are completely gone from Cambridge by rush hour, and the students are limited by a cramped campus.</p>
<p>MIT students also tend to be very unhappy at their school, because it has all the horrible Cambridge malaise of Harvard plus a legitimately difficult workload to boot.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What Undergraduate rankings are you referring to that put H on top. The only one that I am aware of that ties H with Princeton is US News (and that is a university ranking taking more into consideration than the undergraduate experience). If your referring to the other accepted, traditional, popular rankings (Atlantic Monthly (Boston based), Princeton Review, Prowl'r College Guide, etc.), I suggest you take another look. You might be surprised
[/quote]
alphacdcd, how can you disrespect Byerly for distorting the truth after this post. We all know that you are "aware" of the NBER poll which puts Harvard on top and Princeton 5th. I hope you will apologize to Alixpaul for misleading her. As you say, be a man. BTW, we all know that Princeton is a good school; so good that it would be emabarrassed to have someone who posts like you defending it. I say "like you," because you post under at least one other name, the other not nearly as inane. But that's not much of a standard.</p>
<p>The campus at Harvard is incredible. I have never heard anyone expressing dissatisfaction with it.</p>
<p>Simply put, I wouldn't feel safe in New Haven. Yale is rich and beautiful and the campus is amazing, but Cambridge is an infinitely nicer place to live.</p>
<p>MIT is not a happy place, though.</p>
<p>fids, did you read the Harvard Crimson article I linked to? That provides an illustration of what I mean about Cambridge hindering the social life of Harvard compared to Yale. And this is an expression of dissatisfaction from Harvard people, who would generally know less of the good points of New Haven.</p>
<p>I would not focus on the saftey so much. It's whether you want a big city. Boston is great, but it draws focus from campus life. New haven offers fewer distractions, although there are plenty of movies and GREAT pizza. By default, Yale is more campus focused. But at the cost of being in a dull city, but not a scary one.</p>