Harvard/LACs

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
21

<p>Harvard v. LAC: Counterweight Argument </p>

<p>There is much to consider when weighing Harvard and an elite LAC. Since you have heard just about all of the pluses from the school\'s elder proponents, I hope to offer another perspective.
From my view, the single greatest difference between Harvard and an LAC is UNDERGRADUATE FOCUS. I highlighted this because it is a huge issue with so many of us. Two thirds of Harvard\'s student population is made up of much older grad students (students who have typically been in the work place before entering grad school). So as the parent of a 17 or 18 year old, you must know that Harvard is going to be do be dominated by students in their mid to late 20s.
That\'s quite a difference. At an LAC your child will get the school\'s best professors ALL OF THE TIME and it is unlikely they will be taught by TEACHING ASSISTANTS. Further the interaction between Professors and students at LACs is tremendous (as it is even anong some of Harvard\'s peer schhols). But at Harvard, the interaction, as has been written about, is severely lacking. Students are pretty much on their own. My personal view (and despite what I have said, I have high regard for Harvard) is that the lack of an undergrad focus at Harvard has led to problems discussed in the following articles:</p>

<p><a href="http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050329/ap_on_re_us/unhappy_at_harvard%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050329/ap_on_re_us/unhappy_at_harvard&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200503/douthat%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200503/douthat&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Again, I offer this as a counterweight to many of the posts above which either lightly touched or avoided the issue altogether</p>

22

<p>Most of the graduate students whom undergraduates will come in contact with are in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. GSAS also supplies the overwhelming majority of TFs for undergraduate classes. While some of the professional schools are located close to or even among college buildings, their student bodies are self-contained; some of the professional schools are located across the river so that it would take an effort for an undergraduate to come across their students.<br>
As of October 15, 2004, there were 6,562 undergraduates and 3,638 students in GSAS.</p>

23

<p>Either that, or cover my eyes before they are flooded with tears!</p>

<p>This "undergraduate focus" stuff has been thrown around for generations by the usual suspects (adherants of less eminent institutions) who, understandably, have very little ammunition to fire in their war against Harvard.</p>

<p>Believe me, Harvard College is as "undergraduate centered" as anyplace. The College is the heart and soul of the University.</p>

<p>It has always amused me that the snipers from below think they can make a negative out of the proximity of some of the greatest professional and graduate schools in the world.</p>

<p>Nice try, but no sell.</p>

<p>Since when is does the boondocks outside Williams, Amherst or Bowdoin provide a more educationally stimulating and positive neighborhood than being in proximity to Harvard Law School or Harvard Business School?</p>

24

<p>The "undergraduate focus" argument is a total red herring (and part of what I had in mind in advising not to let the stereotypes drive the decision in either direction). Byerly is right that the College is, and always has been, the heart and soul of the University. Indeed, I have heard GSAS grad students complain about being "second class" citizens compared to the undergrads - which I guess just shows that Harvard grad students are as hard to please as Harvard undergrads. :)</p>

<p>It's also worth mentioning that, while Harvard is not as "nurturing" an environment as a LAC, Larry Summers lives in the Yard above one of the freshman dorms and has monthly pizza parties with the freshmen in the dorm. He also has pizza nights at some of the undergrad Houses - including keeping his date at Mather House for pizza the night of the "lack of confidence" vote. He taught a freshman seminar last year and loves to recount anecdotes about "his" freshmen. He is certainly the most undergraduate-focused Harvard president in my lifetime. A number of the pending proposals from the curricular review have more to do with improving undergrad life than curricular reform - increasing the number of faculty, expanding the freshman seminar program and other seminar classes, getting more faculty involved in undergrad advising, aligning the undergrad calendar with the grad and professional schools to make it easier for undergrads to take courses at the grad and professional schools.</p>

<p>There is quite a bit of Harvard-bashing that goes on at this site and elsewhere. Harvard is far from perfect, but for the right person it offers an array of resources and an experience that is very hard to match anywhere, particularly at a LAC. Bottom line, IMHO, is that your son or daughter should ignore the stereotypes and the bashers and, if possible, visit and evaluate first-hand.</p>

25

<p>I'll post here a link to a page on the Harvard Math Department Web site </p>

<p><a href="http://www.math.harvard.edu/%7Esiu/math55b/faculty_student_dinner2004/faculty_student_dinner2004.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.math.harvard.edu/~siu/math55b/faculty_student_dinner2004/faculty_student_dinner2004.html&lt;/a> </p>

<p>showing the last day of class for a first-year mathematics course, Math 55, and the faculty-student dinner for class participants. Twenty-some students, one full professor with one teaching fellow, and all of the students in that first-year class at the top of the WORLD to even be in that class. That's what I call undergraduate focus. </p>

<p>See the main course page from last year </p>

<p><a href="http://www.math.harvard.edu/%7Esiu/math55b/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.math.harvard.edu/~siu/math55b/index.html&lt;/a> </p>

<p>for more evidence of exquisite undergraduate focus at Harvard.</p>

26

<p>I certainly did not mean to bash, but merely to offer the truth. For some reason I cannot believe that any of you (marite, byerly, cosar or tokenadult) are current or recent Harvard students. To say that Harvard has a level of undergrad focus equal to all others comes as close to a lie as there is. In support of my view I offer the following:</p>

<ol>
<li> A Harvard Dean who left the school because she wanted to be at a university where there was a greater undergraduate focus (and less attention paid to the graduate program):</li>
</ol>

<p><a href="http://www.browndailyherald.com/news/2005/01/31/CampusNews/Former.Harvard.Dean.To.Liaise.With.Faculty-846444.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.browndailyherald.com/news/2005/01/31/CampusNews/Former.Harvard.Dean.To.Liaise.With.Faculty-846444.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<ol>
<li> Harvard President Larry Summers told students that they should have gone elsewhere, perhaps Amherst or Swarthmore, if they wanted more contact with their professors.</li>
</ol>

<p><a href="http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2004/12/16/harvard_tell_all_booktells_little/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2004/12/16/harvard_tell_all_booktells_little/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<ol>
<li> Finally, from the opinions of 59 Harvard students I offer the following:</li>
</ol>

<p><a href="http://www.studentsreview.com/MA/HU_c.html#comments%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.studentsreview.com/MA/HU_c.html#comments&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I have many more cites to refer you to but I thought these would be the most representative. The second post is the Harvard President\'s own view of the difference between Harvard and an elite LAC. If any of you would like to see more reference points I would be happy to provide them to you.</p>

27

<p>Point 1's real meaning is that Brown is eager to hire someone who used to work for Harvard. </p>

<p>Point 2 is probably spurious. </p>

<p>Point 3 is laughable, because some of the participants in that voluntary-response survey are poseurs, not even Harvard students. I wonder if people who cite that on CC might also be poseurs. </p>

<p>Seeing the same old rehashed invalid arguments about Harvard certainly makes me less eager to attend the schools that produce people who uncritically accept those arguments. </p>

<p>I am not a current student, and I make that very clear by my choice of screen name. Several of the other participants in this thread are Harvard alumni (as I have no doubt whatsoever), which means they know the Harvard student experience of a generation ago. The student in the best position to compare two colleges is the student who transfers from one college to another. To which colleges, pray tell, do Harvard students transfer? FROM which colleges does Harvard receive transfer applications?</p>

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<p>Since I am the parent of an incoming Harvard student, obviously, I am not a Harvard undergraduate. :) As well, I do not claim that Harvard is a good fit for everyone. As I said in my original post, for the majority of students who want to be in a small community, LACs are preferable. But LACS are not better than midsized research universities. The very fact that Harvard has a graduate school--though not nearly as large as you claim --is one key reason why my S decided to apply there, and did not bother applying to LACs. </p>

<p>As for LACs being nurturing, that, too, is a generalization that needs further scrutiny. I offer my older S's experience as a counterweight. He graduated last June. Shut out of several classes. Some classes had 40+ students, and of course, no TA; at Harvard, the same class would have had 3 TAs. Because of inadequate advising, it took three weeks in his last semester to get him into one class he absolutely needed to graduate; it was a huge hassle. Nurturing? Well....</p>

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<p>I am also the parent of an incoming Harvard student, in addition to being an alum. From both perspectives, I think I have a pretty good sense of the Harvard experience today, as well as how it compares to a number of other schools that my son considered. And I have never suggested that Harvard is right for everyone, only that students and their parents should make their own judgments free of the taint of stereotypes.</p>

<p>"Forwomen86" has posted the links posted above over and over again under prior screen names, which have since been banned. I don't bother responding any more.</p>

30

<p>
[quote]
For some reason I cannot believe that any of you (marite, byerly, cosar or tokenadult) are current or recent Harvard students. To say that Harvard has a level of undergrad focus equal to all others comes as close to a lie as there is. In support of my view I offer the following:

[/quote]

I guess I'll address this point since the other posters have address the rest.</p>

<p>It's pretty silly of you to subtley try to discredit the validity of these posters' opinions. What position are you in to judge their credibility? It's true that none of them are current or recent Harvard undergraduates, but they are each in a position where they can offer valid viewpoints. To take this further, are you a recent or current undergrad at one of the LACs and Harvard? If not, it makes even less sense for you to try to discredit (or at least devalue) their opinions, since you are not at a better position yourself.</p>

<p>Offering your viewpoints is fine, but your sly remarks concerning the posters' credibilities is, well, dumb.</p>

31

<p>As an additional point:</p>

<p>I don't see why everyone has to pull the "large lecture courses with sections taught by TAs" line when they bash Harvard. TAs (or TFs, in Harvard parlance) are, after all, the same people who go on to be professors. I have had truly amazing, dedicated TFs whom I love to bits. My boyfriend is a TF who is selflessly devoted to his students and stays up until the wee hours of the morning helping them with their assignments. Do you really think your professor, no matter how much he cared about you, would be answering your questions at 4:00 AM? Do you think you would have the same bond with him as with the guy down the hall who's in your study group and who also happens to be your TF in another class? Having section taught by a TF is NOT necessarily a bad thing!</p>

32

<p>I guess deep down inside they are prestige whores. They know they can't touch Harvard's prestige, so they make up for it by saying how much contact they get with such prestigious professors ;).</p>

33

<p>
[quote]
As an additional point:</p>

<p>I don't see why everyone has to pull the "large lecture courses with sections taught by TAs" line when they bash Harvard. TAs (or TFs, in Harvard parlance) are, after all, the same people who go on to be professors. I have had truly amazing, dedicated TFs whom I love to bits. My boyfriend is a TF who is selflessly devoted to his students and stays up until the wee hours of the morning helping them with their assignments. Do you really think your professor, no matter how much he cared about you, would be answering your questions at 4:00 AM? Do you think you would have the same bond with him as with the guy down the hall who's in your study group and who also happens to be your TF in another class? Having section taught by a TF is NOT necessarily a bad thing!

[/quote]

I see your point to some degree, but the other side of me asks, "am I paying 40k/yr to be taught by a student?" One of the main attractions to Harvard is it's incredible faculty, and yet I get the impression that these faculty will be too busy for a mere undergrad to actually take advantage of. </p>

<p>Comments welcome!</p>

34

<p>
[quote]

I see your point to some degree, but the other side of me asks, "am I paying 40k/yr to be taught by a student?" One of the main attractions to Harvard is it's incredible faculty, and yet I get the impression that these faculty will be too busy for a mere undergrad to actually take advantage of.</p>

<p>Comments welcome!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Then you get the wrong impression. Harvard faculty is by no means unapproachable by undergrad.</p>

<p>I think the poster's point had more to do with the idea that the educational experience at a LAC is better simply because there is so much attention given by profs to each student. At Harvard you have the advantage of having incredible faculty and personal attention.</p>

35

<br>


<br>

<p>35-50 = 51 classes
51-80 = 43 classes
81-120 = 30 classes
120-200 = 22 classes
200-300 = 15 classes
300+ = 5 classes</p>

<p>Average enrolment for all courses is 23.6 students; average enrolment excluding top 20 courses is 18.3 students.>></p>

<p>(From prefrosh.net)</p>

<p>Let's clear up "taught by students." Only a very few courses are taught by graduate students. If I understand correctly, it may be only Ec10. I understand that Larry Summers himself taught Ec10 as a graduate student. In the other courses that have more than 28 students, a prof may have a TF. TFs lead sections that are in addition to, not instead of, lectures by profs.</p>

<p>When considering LACs vs. midsized research universities such as Harvard, it's useful to find out the class size of courses one is thinking of taking, not focus on the exceptional cases. It would be as wrong to focus on Ec 10 as the defining experience at Harvard as it would be to focus on the freshman seminars (capped at 12). </p>

<p>Now that my S#1 has graduated from a LAC, I have a different perspective on the TF issue. Granted that the ideal would be a class with no more than 20 students, is it better to be in a class of 35-50 students (51 such classes at Harvard) with 2 or 3 TFs or a similar size class with no TF? Or worse, would it be better for the class to be capped at 35 or 50, but be shut out of it, as S#1 was ? S#1 had wanted a LAC because he wanted a more nurturing environment, yadda, yadda; we paid the same tuition for that LAC as we will for S#2 at Harvard; but I believe S#2 will not be shut out classes as S#1 was at his LAC. The only class he is likely to be shut out of is a freshman seminar of his choice, because of the cap on enrolment.</p>

<p>Another perspective. When a prof has 40+ students and no TF, s/he may give different homeworks, papers and exams than a prof who can rely on TFs to grade papers and exams. My S, who audited some courses, found the comments by the TFs very helpful. And when he could not read their handwriting, he just asked them to elaborate. Many students prefer to talk to the TFs, partly because they feel closer to the in terms of age, and do not bother going to profs' office hours.</p>

<p>Personally, I feel that the key difference in the college experience is that a LAC is smaller and makes for a more tight-knit community than a mid-sized research university and especially than Harvard. Its hundreds of EC groups, the convenient public transportation mean that students can fan in many different directions. For some, this is great. For others, it makes for a lack of school spirit. Take your pick.</p>

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<p>My view of undergraduate focus is pretty much summed up in the following article. I applaud Yale\'s efforts to keep undergrads at the forefront despite its own large and active graduate program.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/frosh/2000/class/p28profs.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/frosh/2000/class/p28profs.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>This level of focus may have existed at Harvard at one time but it does not now. First, undergraduate focus has not been a priority at Harvard. To date, the focus has been on the expansion of the grad programs. Just look at all the recent grad school construction. Second, the ratio of graduate students to undergrads at Harvard is unique among top tier schools. How many universities have 2 graduate students for every undergrad? Third, nearly all the student surveys, including one national, student survey publication, not allowed to be mentioned here, have results that are consistent with those found in the Student Review survey above. These are not my opinions but views that are supported by fact and have been listed here time and again. The CC archives offer much with regard to this type of research.
In summary, I agree with Marite and NStarmom, that there is a clear and distinct difference between an LAC and Harvard, even more than one might suspect because of the reasons cited above. In the end one must determine what environment will make them most happy. In fairness to students making this decision I wanted to be certain that all cards were laid on the table. I suspect that at least some students in the Yahoo Harvard morale poll did not completely understand these issues and made their decision for the wrong reasons. Both Harvard and the elite LACs will never have trouble filling their seats, you just want to make sure it is with students who have more information than less.</p>

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<p>Surprise, surprise.</p>

<p>The "new" poster cites the same old sources.</p>

38

<p>"Voluntary response data are worthless" is what one eminent statistician says about most of the silly mass media polls one reads online every day. </p>

<p>I would like to see specific examples of high-quality undergraduate focus at other schools along the lines of the Math 55 links I provided for Harvard earlier in the thread. I find it significant that no one ever points to actual course Web sites from LACs when proclaiming how much better LAC courses can be. It's one thing to say that the LAC experience is distinct from the research university experience--as the graduate of a research university and the son of an LAC graduate I agree. But it's another thing to show that the LAC difference makes particular courses and major sequences BETTER in general. Show me the data about the courses and major sequences if you are trying to show me what the vague term "undergraduate focus" really means to an enrolled student. </p>

<p>I'd also like an answer to my question about net movement among colleges by transfers, if you don't mind.</p>

39

<p>I don't have an opinion one way or the other, but I really do recommend "How to lie With Statistics" (Darrell Huff), a short but brilliant book (if slightly dated) on statistical manipulation, which goes into great detail about how to rig polls to produce the desired answer.</p>

40

<p>I'm not sure if I should post some stats right after the post above, but here goes :)</p>

<p>faculty to student ratio:</p>

<p>Harvard: 1: 14
Williams: 1: 6
Swarthmore: 1:9.</p>

<p>So LACs boosters do have a point, at least as concerns Harvard (I believe Princeton and Yale both have better faculty to student ratios). Still, such considerations would not help S#2 who would run out of math courses in either Swarthmore or Williams well before graduation.</p>