<p>
</p>
<p>Nope, you’re dead wrong.</p>
<p>Top 5</p>
<p>57 Harvard
42 MIT
32 Caltech </p>
<p>Just having more competitors (people signing up for the competition) doesn’t mean anything.</p>
<p>This is because Harvard attracts more pure math majors whereas MIT attracts more technical and applied math majors. As a campus MIT seems much more qualified for the exam than any other school.</p>
<p>If you look at the problems on Putnam you’ll realize that to be among the top scorers you need to just do pure math. Not necessarily the technical (albeit quantitatively rigorous stuff) like mechanical or electrical engineering. Maybe theoretical CS…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Um, these are the number of times the teams placed in the top 5 in the 80-year history of the competition. </p>
<p>You’re not reading my posts at all.</p>
<p>Since the year 2000, MIT has had 23 individual placements in the top 5 of the Putnam.<br>
Harvard has had 16.</p>
<p>Competition math is quite different from the applied math/engineering fields here at MIT, so it’s probably better to look at where past USAMO, IMO, CHMMC/HMMT, BAMO, etc. qualifiers go.</p>
<p>For example, Evan O’Dorney’s at Harvard now (he has IMO gold medal, published research, won Intel STS, won Natl. Spelling Bee, among other things). It would seem to me that Harvard attracts more USAMO/IMO competitors…</p>
<p>Sheep, are you a MIT or Harvard student? I am curious to why you are so strongly pushing for your unsubstantiated comment. It seems that you are a college freshman right now.</p>
<p>Sheep goes to Harvard.</p>
<p>Harvard is far and away better than MIT, in mathematics and in general. </p>
<p>Remember when IBM’s Watson faced off against Harvard and MIT students in a game of Jeopardy? Watson ended up with $53,601, and Harvard ended up with $42,399. MIT ended up with $100. (Source: <a href=“http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/04/ibms-watson-takes-harvard-mit-business-students-to-school-dro/[/url]”>http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/04/ibms-watson-takes-harvard-mit-business-students-to-school-dro/</a>)</p>
<p>MIT is a good institution, but Harvard has time and again proven that it is by far Cambridge’s, and the nation’s, best school.</p>
<p>
…Harvard and MIT MBA business students. Not exactly representative of the strengths of the schools as a whole, particularly of their undergraduate student bodies.</p>
<p>
I really don’t understand how people can make such general statements. If you want to be a tech entrepreneur I find it difficult to believe Harvard is “the best”, especially with schools like Stanford and MIT.</p>
<p>And if we’re throwing meaningless statistics out there, the sum total of all MIT-alum started companies is something like the 10th largest country in the world, or something.</p>
<p>I actually lol’d that you cited Watson as an example. Mind you, I’m not saying one is better than the other… just that the “logic” posted on this thread is absolutely ludicrous.</p>
<p>^ I am pretty sure that phuriku was joking. You were supposed to LOL at the example.</p>
<p>I’m not totally sure we should take someone who calls them “Sheepgetkilled” seriously either.</p>
<p>
It’s not his name, it’s his argument. But if you read the threads he starts you’ll realize he’s no ■■■■■, which means he actually believes the stuff he’s writing.</p>
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<p>If you want to come and say Harvard is better than MIT in the humanities, go ahead because the students here don’t exactly study useless topics like “Gender Studies” or “Philosophy”. So why not do a fair comparison and start looking at the engineering majors? Good luck with that - MIT is pretty much unanimously first for every single engineering ranking in the world. I think that’s saying something.</p>
<p>And you keep forgetting that the students that graduate from Harvard end up going to finance or law, which means one way or another they’ll end up screwing up the economy by becoming politicians or greedy Wall St bankers. The students that graduate from MIT are given the knowledge to tackle some of the greatest engineering challenges the world is facing. I would choose the latter over the former any day.</p>
<p>That’s not a fair indictment either. MIT is probably better for tech entrepreneurship, and has a clearly different academic outlook, but I think you’re being unfairly harsh on Harvard.</p>
<p>For one, many MIT grads do go on to becoming quants on Wall Street. That’s one of the several clear pathways for people who excel in EECS or Math, and students do avail that opportunity.</p>
<p>Secondly, having lawyers and financiers is still a crucial backbone of our economy. A bunch of scientists won’t be able to create something meaningful alone. Facebook needed Goldman Sachs. Google needed Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse.</p>
<p>I don’t agree with the sentiment of this thread, either, nor at all that behind the idea of “University A > University B”, especially between MIT and Harvard.</p>
<p>The Boston Globe article quite aptly captures the cultural divide between the schools, but I think it’s unfair at best and dishonest at worst to group Harvard with the “damned bankers”.</p>
<p>^ I was just trying to make a point to Sheepgetkilled. Harvard is an excellent school and you are absolutely correct. I have a lot of great Harvard friends. Granted, they’re all in math/science/engineering. :-/</p>
<p>^Oh, of course. He doesn’t have an idea what he’s talking about it. STEM at MIT is nonpareil.</p>