Hi CC,
Few days left and I am nowhere close to making a decision. I would love to hear your opinions, and, on my part, will try to give as much context as I can, and, as a bonus, will share my accepted Common App essay at the bottom of this post.
Who am I
Objective: White, male. International student from the EU. Medals in science Olympiads including Gold at the IMO and an undisclosed one. Other ECs including nationally ranked math club, community service, playing piano at high standards (DipABRSM). 1580 SAT, 113 TOEFL (non-native speaker), three 800s in Subjects, 8.5/10 GPA.
Subjective: my goal in college is to have a good time and improve myself. Academically, I have a strong Humanities background, but main focus is Math and Computer Science. I do not strictly prefer to be near people in my field. I would like an environment in which students value problem-solving and technical skills, and have a rational-ish approach. I am not a nerd/geek, and generally dislike being around them too much. I am pretty good socially, but am quite introverted and like to have enough ‘alone’ time to improve myself (meditation/exercising/studying). I don’t care about politics, community service, sports, entrepreneurial scene. Partying/drinking scene is neutral/positive to me. After college, I 100% plan to come back to Europe and work in the tech industry. I am not interested in PhD/academia long term.
My options
Harvard (most likely for Computer Science) costs 10k / year [everything incl.] for 4 years. I did not get accepted to MIT & Stanford that I would have likely preferred. Cambridge, UK (major: CS) is at Trinity College, costs 25k / year [discount for EU citizens] for 3 years. I do not need to go into debt. Two good friends of mine will attend the same college.
Why Cambridge:
- Cambridge has several practical advantages: it is much closer/cheaper to fly home, is overall a lesser time investment (3yr instead of 4; every year is 6 months instead of 8+ of residence/lectures).
- Accommodation is much better at Cambridge (single rooms, most of which en-suite). I am ok with having a roommate, but definitely don’t love the idea esp. as it is randomly assigned. Food is somewhat better at Cambridge. The campus is much prettier.
- Trinity College enjoys the best reputation and has a huge share of academic geniuses, many of which have years of experience in programming/CS that I completely lack.
- The supervision system could be useful to go beyond the course.
- I much prefer Europe over America; I like the British irony/reservedness/banter, I don’t really share the entrepreneurial spirit and desire to achieve great things of America. I don’t know how I feel about living with people with very different backgrounds from mine.
- I absolutely want to remain in Europe after graduating. A Harvard degree just doesn’t open as many doors in Europe as it does in the US; even less in the tech industry. It is much easier to connect to EU companies directly via career fairs/internships.
- I am 100% sure my major will be Computer Science and, while I personally enjoy learning about other fields, it doesn’t seem worth sacrificing 25% (Gen Ed) or more of my classes, which seem very poorly taught/designed to me.
- A much higher percentage of students major in scientific fields and in C.S. It is much easier to find peers who share my academic interests.
- I feel at Harvard people just don’t value technical skills that much. It would be much easier to work on my CS skills in the Cambridge atmosphere.
- I would likely get the highest grades with comparably little effort. I love the ample amount of free time I would have at Cambridge, both for self improvement and for career prospects: even if the course is 100% theoretical I would still have plenty of free time to work on personal projects, and friends eager to work on them.
Why Harvard:
- Cheaper, arguably more prestigious. Most of the high-profile people in the industry hold at least a degree from the US. I wouldn’t necessarily need to go to the US for grad school if I went there for undergrad.
- Harvard is more selective, esp. considering the International status. Additionally, people admitted at Harvard have strengths different from mine, while at Cambridge people are only admitted based on academic merit, which results in many people almost “strictly worse” than me.
- Boston is a city; in Cambridge there is nothing except the university.
- Harvard administration actively tries to improve student life. Cambridge simply doesn’t care.
- I would be able to join clubs (non-existent at Cambridge) and definitely improve socially.
- The social scene overall is much better (at least for me). People are interesting and not one-dimensional nerds.
- While Harvard isn’t among the absolute best CS schools, in the past few years the number of concentrators and resources has been steadily rising (is now about 10%).
- It is next to MIT, and it may be feasible to take a class or two there.
- There are no course prerequisites and I can take classes that would actually challenge me and actively benefit from all the resources available.
- Far more research opportunities (even if I’m not that interested), some more activity in Hackatons etc.
Closing thoughts / my essay
Thank you for your feedback. It would be especially useful if you could point to me some factors I may have overlooked.
Here is my Common App essay: https://■■■■■■■■■■■■/YyAv3LgH. If you need any advice (esp. if you are an international medalist) feel free to PM me. I am happy to help.
I wish you a very nice day.
Harvard saves you $35k. So if they remain tied, I would use the cost difference as the tiebreaker.
Do you prefer the broad education you will receive at Harvard, studying a mix of subjects in the humanities, social sciences, and STEM areas? You’ll take roughly half of your classes in your major and half outside of it. In so doing, you will receive a broad education, but one in which you’ll also be able to drill into your chosen major.
Or do you prefer the more focused education you’d receive at Cambridge, where almost all of the classes you’d take would be in CS?
That is the biggest difference: the much greater breadth of education at Harvard/US vs. the narrower focus of Cambridge/UK. Check out the Harvard CS program to see if they offer enough depth for you.
You have two wonderful options; congratulations on getting in to both.
I think you do have a few misapprehensions with regards to Cambridge:
I hope you don’t mean what I think you mean by " I don’t know how I feel about living with people with very different backgrounds from mine." but Cambridge has students from a variety of backgrounds. Don’t forget you’re an international student yourself.
" I would likely get the highest grades with comparably little effort. I love the ample amount of free time I would have at Cambridge" - both a teeny bit optimistic.
“Boston is a city; in Cambridge there is nothing except the university” No, no, no. Ignoring the point that Harvard isn’t in Boston proper itself, Cambridge is a city too, admittedly a fair bit smaller. What aspects of Boston as a city do you think you would not have in Cambridge?
“I would be able to join clubs (non-existent at Cambridge)” - the latter is not true either. What kind of clubs were you thinking of?
Sure, Cambridge has some diversity in its student body, but not nearly as much as Harvard. Also, while Brits are generally skilled at ‘banter’ etc., most of the Cambridge students I have talked to (esp. in Math and CS) agree that there is very little interaction between them and people in other courses, esp. between Arts and Sciences.
On grades & workload: the workload at Cambridge is much lighter, at least in CS. You have much more free time esp. considering extracurricular involvement is much less common ad Cambridge.
Even though Harvard students tend not to leave the ‘Harvard Bubble’, Boston is a very large city, with other universities/students, festivals, concerts, food you can enjoy if you wish. Cambridge doesn’t offer nearly as many opportunities in this regard.
Clubs and Extracurricular activities are neglected by the Cambridge administration and not very popular between students. I was not thinking of any club in particular - just opportunities to hang out with other students in a non-academic setting.
Are you admitted for the CS with Math course at Cambridge? One issue to note is that Trinity has a very large (36-40 per year) group of mathmos (I was one a long time ago) but a small group of CS students (6-8 per year) and of those I guess only a couple will be CS+Math. The reputation of Trinity is from its math (but you already know that because IMO gives you essentially an automatic admit - I assume that’s why your friends are attending too) where it is truly dominant in the university, but it’s not so over-represented in CS. Math students definitely stick together within Trinity, just because there are so many of them (and they are mostly introverts), but I don’t think the same will be true of CS. In smaller departments students socialize more across colleges which automatically gives you a wider social network. Though still true that it would be mainly within CS unless you find another cross subject interest: join a society for students from your country, join the Union Society etc - all give exposure to those outside your subject.
And it’s definitely possible to find clubs for any conceivable interest, it’s just that many of them are organized university wide. I did things like caving, lifesaving etc which were university wide clubs. In fact Trinity is open to funding things within the college too - I set up and ran a club and got money from the college to pay for equipment, help take people on trips, go abroad on an expedition, etc. If you want to organize college yoga (say), then go for it! But it’s all down to your initiative, both the college and university clubs are student run. So I wouldn’t say they are neglected by the authorities, it’s just how things work, and you do get a committed group participating in those clubs. In fact the aim of the people running it is to find those committed people who will take over running the club the next year. The fact that math/CS students are mostly sad introverts who stay in their rooms (I knew many of them) doesn’t mean you have to be. Incidentally I’m not an extrovert, I found the right combination of alone time and exercise doing things like hiking and climbing (which you mostly have to get out of Cambridge for).
Finally I agree that the coursework in math/CS will probably be relatively light for someone at your level and getting a first is not that hard. There’s none of the busy work you get in the US that would be amplified by having to do subjects outside your major. Except when studying for finals, I don’t think I ever worked in the evenings and mostly not at weekends either. I had plenty of time for 3-4 sports (including rowing, which is a great way to meet people but involves far more commitment than any other college sport), though i wasnt great at any of them (college sports is just for fun) and 2-3 other clubs too. That reduces the stress level considerably for most of your time and can allow you to get out of Cambridge at weekends if you want (e.g. as part of some clubs).