<p>The Gourman report is completely outdated. I know because back when I was obsessed with rankings, I tried to hunt a copy down, and the last one published was sometime in the 1980's or something like that. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the way the measures were taken took grad programs into account heavily when trying to evaluate the undergraduate programs. They are simply not a very good measure.</p>
<p>As long as it is overrated by employers, I don't see why it should matter to a student.</p>
<p>In what sense? Are you aware that there are many employers that would rather hire a person who attended a school of less prestige?</p>
<p>If you really believe it is overrated then don't apply!</p>
<p>if you really belive that, you're an idiot</p>
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as a harvard sophomore, i can honestly say that there is nothing overrated about it. it is just as amazing as everyone says
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<p>And you're qualified to make that opinion...why? You haven't experienced other undergraduate schools. You wouldn't know whether it was overrated or not. After all, the word "overrated" depends on comparison with other schools.</p>
<p>The reason it is extremely overrated is that if you're not going to Harvard, you're automatically thought to be not as smart as someone who is attending Harvard. Harvard may be a great university, but it doesn't blow every other university on the face of the Earth out of the water like the general public believes.</p>
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Harvard is not overrated. It is clearly one of the greatest universities in the world. The Times of London calls it one of "the two greatest universities in the world" along with Yale.
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<p>That's certainly great evidence to support the obvious fact that Harvard is not overrated. You are smart. (I'm not even going to waste my time showing you how fallacious your reasoning is.)</p>
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Go Brown, Princeton, Dartmouth for undergrad (you want quality right?) and Harvard for grad.
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<p>The top 15-20 are about equal in terms of undergraduate academics. Harvard being the best for graduate is also not completely true. Harvard only has the 4th most for Nobel Prizes, below Chicago, Columbia, and Cambridge. And Harvard almost always loses to MIT in graduate rankings of specific areas. (See US News 2008 Graduate Rankings.)</p>
<p>Harvard is the most prestigious college/university in the U.S., but to say it is the best is subject to debate. However, we all can agree Harvard is a superb institution.</p>
<p>Harvard probably has the most name recognition, but I think to say that it's the most prestigious, especially amongst those who know anything about elite colleges, is up for debate. Places like Princeton, Yale, and Stanford have probably just as much prestige for anyone who knows anything.</p>
<p>Whether or not it's highly overrated simply depends on how highly you rate it. The sky is also blue.</p>
<p>ClaySoul, I meant to say layman prestige. Now, amongst attentive people such as you and I, we know other schools can lay a claim to being the most prestigious, which deserves a whole new thread to debate this particular issue about what constitutes prestige, and which schools illustrates the most.</p>
<p>But who cares about layman prestige? Your potential boss at that hedge fund whachamacolit (art major here, lol) certainly doesn't. So neither should you. Want to impress truck drivers (i have said this 10,000 times on this board), go to harvard. If you want to impress someone who is actually going to influence your future? Go to any of a dozen (if not more) other schools. </p>
<p>But beyond the measure of prestige is the measure of quality. Sure, HYPSM probably have the most "prestige" in the country, but that by no means makes them the best, ESPECIALLY for undergraduate education. </p>
<p>Arguing between Harvard and Yale or Harvad and Brown or Harvard and Duke or Harvard and Williams or Harvard and Swarthmore (I'll stop but I can clearly go on for paragraphs) is like arguing between that Sony 71" plasma HDTV and that Sony 72" plasma HDTV. IT DOESN'T MATTER! Within a certain range of schools you will get the same quality of education, so find a place that fits and screw the rest. This thread is stupid. And if I wasn't so bored I probably wouldn't bother. But as the case is....lol </p>
<p>Another thing, is prestige within a certain major. Harvard and MIT are great schools, but for example, an engineering degree from MIT will go farther in the land of prestige. That's not to say Harvard doesn't have a great engineering program -- it does. So unless you're such a prestige monger that you can think of nothing but how cool it will be to impress the mean teacher from high school who thought little of you, his dog, his dog's grandma, and his dog's gradma's chew toy, with his fancy degree, pick the school that fits you better. Period.</p>
<p>I'm not sure I want to impress truck drivers. By the way, very few people I know at Harvard make a big deal about where they go to school. And most aren't out to impress anyone. </p>
<p>In fact, that's part of the reason around the myth of 'no school pride' with Harvard. It's not that students aren't proud of attending the school. It's that ostentatiously showing Crimson pride is equivalent to being vain while in contrast, students going to schools like Yale and Stanford (schools equally good on an objective level) don't get as many awkward stares from people.</p>
<p>Yeah, I don't really get all the hype that Harvard gets - it's a good school, but way too overemphasized.</p>
<p>Oh what a delicious piece of crap!
Harvard is by no means overrated.
It just deserves all those acclaim and high rank for simply being a GREAT school!</p>
<p>Not sure 100% as for undergraduate ranking.
But law school, medical school, business school, administration school, design school are all sitting on top-notch positions. No doubt on that.</p>
<p>Call me crazy, but my D is considering applying as a recruited athlete and, not that I feel it is overrated but, I feel that it is actually difficult for me to talk about. Where is your child thinking about going to college? Harvard. End of conversation.</p>
<p>It gets worse once a student is accepted. H.S. teachers have made rude comments ("what, you can't see the board??... what are you going to do once you get to HARVARD????"). Friends and acquaintances ask "where is your child going to school?" Harvard. End of conversation. Get ready to quickly change the topic, or find other H parents with which to chat.</p>
<p>I was getting lectured by a lawyer on what colleges want to see from high school applicants. When she found out I have a kid at Harvard she actually stopped the lecture. That was nice</p>
<p>Im agreeing with it being overrated. I personally think that UC Berkely is equally good or better, depending on your major. If you're interested in poli sci or something like that, then sure its a better choice.</p>
<p>A note about rankings, however: lots of them(including the giant U.S. News one) factor in things like alumni giving, acceptance rate, and average cash spent on each student. Things like this dont always signify a good university over a wealthy, well established one. Not to say Harvard isnt good, its just something to point out. I know many international rankings have rated Berkely above Harvard, Yale, or Princeton numerous times because they dont factor in things like that. After all, if you're talking financially, the 5k tuition of Berkely doesnt compare with Ivy league at all...which is why it's so great! Public schools forever!</p>
<p>lol, public schools if you're lucky enough to be instate in a state with great ones.</p>
<p>For many families considering college (in state or out of state), HYP are actually cheaper than Berkeley or other state schools because of the massive financial aid made available to families below a certain income threshold. In fact, for an "average"-income American or international family with one income earner, HYP are basically free, while a state school is prohibitively expensive. Especially after all the hidden fees.</p>
<p>Of course, for the upper-middle class (where most college applicants come from -- families making over $80-90K or so), a state school can sometimes be a bit cheaper, but often not by as much as you might think.</p>
<p>Furthermore, state schools are often significantly more elitist than top private schools, because students fragment themselves into groups based on income level or town origin. In many cases, students can pay different pricing levels for differing qualities of on-campus housing, for example. At smaller private schools, this is almost always less of an issue. Smaller schools create more diverse student-student interaction, for many reasons, one of them being there is often much more geographical diversity to begin with, e.g., no more than a couple people from any single high school or town, and most students from out of state. At a state school, the 100s of rich kids can band together with their high school buddies on the weekend and drive out to their friends' mansions an hour or two away en masse, leaving behind the rabble on the rest of the campus who don't want to go home to their families' crowded apartments in a poorer part of the state.</p>
<p>Also, many HYP-caliber places pay $11-12+ per hour for on-campus jobs, so students who don't have their parents supporting their every desire can get by a lot better and earn a bit of spending money by sitting at the gym for a few hours checking IDs. If you get $7 an hour at a state school serving dining hall food to the rich kids, it can be pretty depressing.</p>
<p>In my opinion, and this is based on talking with hundreds of alumni of both state institutions and private institutions, if any places are overrated, they are the so-called "flagship" state schools -- not places like Harvard, Yale, MIT or Dartmouth. I'm not saying that all private institutions are better (quite the opposite is true, in fact), just that the "best of the best" (top 10 or 20 or so, i.e., HYP and the top LACs) have overwhelming resources that allow for a better overall campus experience.</p>
<p>I don't know where you came to those conclusions, PosterX, but they sound like a lot of bull to me. You've talked to hundreds of alumni? I...don't believe you. </p>
<p>The average income family is still often still left paying around 10-20k a year. You have to make less thank 40k a year for schools to be "practically free"</p>
<p>Ivies don't have rich elitist kids? What planet are you from?</p>
<p>I go to Brown, campus jobs here do not pay $12 an hour. </p>
<p>At Tulane, my old school, you were lucky to get $6.</p>