<p>If someone has family connections, I agree Harvard (and similar colleges) is overrated for them. Connected kids do not need to go to Harvard to get lucrative internships. However, poor but intelligent people like Obama, Sotomayor, and many more needs those pedigrees to get a foot in the door to land future opportunities.</p>
<p>MIT is a science’d up version of Harvard with less money. I’ve met plenty of idiots there too lol</p>
<p>In terms of federal funding, MIT appears superior to Harvard University by a big margin in both NIH and NSF funding ([Award</a> Data for Individual Organizations - NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool (RePORT)](<a href=“http://report.nih.gov/award/trends/FindOrg.cfm]Award”>http://report.nih.gov/award/trends/FindOrg.cfm) and [Award</a> Summary Information: Top 50 Institutions](<a href=“http://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/Top50Inst2/default.asp]Award”>Award Summary Information: Top 50 Institutions)), if you exclude the professional schools MIT does not have. I am not sure what “less money” means. The most impressive part of MIT is that it has less than a hundred faculty members in biology and neuroscience departments combined (plus a few faculties in the department of chemistry), but its funding level beats many medical schools, including Harvard medical school which have a lot more personnel, in terms of NIH funding. </p>
<p>In recent years, Harvard Medical School and its affiliated hospitals also take in a lot pharmaceutical money. It really raises some ethical issues about their science.</p>
<p>MIT is far from a “science’d up” version of Harvard; you are vastly incorrect…as I said, the two simply do not compare.</p>
<p>I forget to mention one thing: Eric Lander’s lab has funding ($45 million) that almost matches the funding ($48 million) for the entire Harvard FAS last year from NIH. Having stars like this really helps (MIT). As much as I love Harvard, I admire what MIT has accomplished.</p>
<p>Less money as in less money for undergrads…financial aid, meal plans, and the like…isn’t that what everyone was talking about?</p>
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<p>I say that only because my MIT friends (as in, kids who’ve already completed at least a year there, not pre-frosh…) agree with the general concept. But because of exactly that reason, you’re right, Harvard does not compare to MIT.</p>
<p>Interesting. At my high school, which sends over 100 students to the Ivy League/Stanford/MIT/Caltech, only the mediocre people went to MIT and the smartest ones went to Harvard or Stanford. People who were accepted to both Harvard and MIT always went to Harvard. I can’t think of a single opposite example, unfortunately. </p>
<p>Eric Lander is based at the Broad Institute, which is run by both Harvard and MIT, not just MIT. He is a professor of systems biology at Harvard so you can’t just count him for MIT only. </p>
<p>In general, MIT has much larger science departments with many more faculty members than Harvard, so it wouldn’t be exactly fair to compare MIT to the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences, especially if you are using the term “Harvard University”.</p>
<p>Harvard Medical School-affiliated teaching hospitals are not included in rankings because they are counted as independent institutions. </p>
<p>MIT received $211 million from the NIH in 2008. </p>
<p>Harvard (not including the hospitals) received $349 million during the same period. There are more than a dozen Harvard affiliated hospitals, the biggest ones including Mass General, which got $303 million by itself, the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which got $254, Dana-Farber Institute $141 million, Beth Israel Hospital $112 million, Children’s Hospital $97 million and so forth. Altogether, the Harvard researchers in biomedical sciences received close to $2 billion dollars from the NIH, almost ten times what MIT got. </p>
<p>So perhaps you should correct your statement.</p>
<p>Although Harvard does not focus on math and science, and has less than 1/5 the number of math majors at MIT, Harvard undergraduates have won the Putnam competition 27 times, while MIT has won just 5 times. </p>
<p>Four mathematicians won the Fields Medal while they were at Harvard, and at least two other previous winners were Harvard professors while I was a student. MIT has had two winners so far. This is in spite of Harvard having less than 1/5 the number of math professors at MIT. I’m not saying that the number of Fields Medals is proportionate to quality, but I think there is more than ample evidence that Harvard is able to recruit top math and science talent at undergraduate and faculty levels, at least as well, if not better than MIT.</p>
<p>MIT also has a lot more industry collaborations and relies more on these funding sources than Harvard, which until now has prided in focusing on “pure” and “basic” research. So maybe you should correct that statement as well.</p>
<p>I myself did not go to MIT precisely because of its science focus. I knew most of the top math and science high school students at the national level, and they number in dozens, not in thousands. Many more of those top people went to Harvard than MIT. MIT mostly consists of thousands of mediocre people who are math and science literate, obviously, but not particularly good, to be honest. There are of course a few that are good, but they are tiny fraction. I didn’t want to hang around lots of mediocre people with very similar attributes and interests. I wanted to be with people who are tops in very different fields, ranging from literature to politics to math. You can find those people at Harvard.</p>
<p>You will have plenty of opportunities to super-specialize in graduate school and during the remainder of your career. College is not the time to limit your intellectual interests.</p>
<p>That Eric Lander gets a lot of money has to do with the fact that his projects are very large-scale genomic projects that require many pieces of expensive equipment, fancy reagents, and lots of workers because it’s labor intensive. Just because a project costs 10 times more than another project, it does not necessarily meant that it is 10 times more valuable than the other project. It just means the NIH thought it was important enough to be done, and once it’s decided to support it, it will provide the money as long as the costs are justifiable.</p>
<p>Ske293, you going to harvard this year or are you already a student there?</p>
<p>“Eric Lander is based at the Broad Institute, which is run by both Harvard and MIT, not just MIT. He is a professor of systems biology at Harvard so you can’t just count him for MIT only.”</p>
<p>Eric Lander’primary appointment is in MIT and his salary is paid through MIT. All his grants are listed and administered through MIT. His status in HMS is more like an adjunct appointment. He started his biology career in MIT. He is also the primary course master of introductory biology for undergraduate in MIT even as today, while he teaches next to nothing in Harvard. There is no doubt that he is primarily a MIT man. </p>
<p>“Harvard (not including the hospitals) received $349 million during the same period.”</p>
<p>MIT does not have medical school or public health school or hospitals. It is not suitable to include Harvard Medical School or other professional school or hospitals into comparison. By excluding HMS, Harvard university has $48.7 million NIH funding, slightly ahead of Caltech ($45.7 million). But Caltech has only 296 faculty members and is way ahead of Harvard in NSF funding (106 million versus 38.7 million). There is no doubt that both MIT and Caltech outperform Harvard FAS in securing funding in both total and per faculty terms. </p>
<p>“MIT mostly consists of thousands of mediocre people who are math and science literate, obviously, but not particularly good, to be honest.”</p>
<p>You better talk to US math team members for the Olympiad this year and tell them that they are mediocre. Three of the members chose MIT and one chose Harvard. ([U.S</a>. International Mathematical Olympiad Team Announced](<a href=“http://www.maa.org/news/062609usimo.html]U.S”>http://www.maa.org/news/062609usimo.html)). Last year, 4 US math team members chose MIT versus one Harvard. If you believe that MIT is mediocre in science in comparison with Harvard, can you reconcile the fact that Harvard has only one active Nobel in Science versus 7 in MIT. If you take a look at MCB ([Dept</a> of MCB, Harvard U: Faculty and Research - Faculty](<a href=“http://mcb.harvard.edu/Faculty/faculty_list.php]Dept”>http://mcb.harvard.edu/Faculty/faculty_list.php)) at Harvard versus biology department ([MIT</a> Department of Biology: Biology at MIT](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/biology/www/biology/index.html]MIT”>http://web.mit.edu/biology/www/biology/index.html)) at MIT, I think that Harvard would love to trade its department with MIT’s.</p>
<p>Since MIT is a technical school and Harvard College is a liberal arts school within a research university, the two cannot be directly compared. Any bickering is meaningless: statistics can be manipulated in either direction. So, please don’t let this thread descend into a Harvard/Yale type argument over collegiate supremacy? </p>
<p>Both schools offer a superior science and math education for anyone willing to take advantage of the resources available at either.</p>
<p>Let’s just say this: MIT is better than Harvard at engineering (which is mostly accepted as true). But Harvard beat MIT in non-science subjects.</p>
<p>“But Harvard beat MIT in non-science subjects.”</p>
<p>This is not true for economics and linguistic departments. In those areas, MIT is at least as strong as, if not stronger than Harvard.</p>
<p>I also take a further look at the breakdown of NIH funding in Harvard FAS. It appears that the biology departments have only 9 RO1 grants (wiht over 50 faculty members in both MCB and OEB). This is really sad. For those students interested in biomedical science, they probably will have to travel to Charles town or Longwood to do science.</p>
<p>Some people count econ and linguistics as sciences anyway.</p>
<p>^ hehe “social science” :D</p>
<p>There is a reason that it has been the number 1 University since… forever… </p>
<p>So there is no need to get bitter just cuz you guys didnt get in… </p>
<p>Well I will never apply to Harvard, just because I think I would never get in… but I still wont deny that HARVARD is NUMBER 1.</p>
<p>I reiterate post # 54.</p>