Harvard or Princeton?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>
[quote]
If you mean to attack the Shanghai and THES rankings - and even the USNews rankings as excessively "subjective" - I think you are wide of the mark. The first two rely heavily on an analysis of faculty publications, and even the much buffeted USNews has developed a range of objective data to serve as proxies for "educational quality" as they see it.

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<p>How you came to the conclusion that I was attacking those as overly subjective, I have no idea. They are objective, or at least in many ways objective, methods of ranking universities. I was merely saying that there are other ways to rank such institutions as well, and these are not the be-all-end-all rankings. They have their flaws, as all such measures do, and are really just one part of the puzzle.</p>

<p>
[quote]
The trouble is, there will NEVER be a consensus on what makes for "educational quality" - which is the beauty of the Revealed Preferance ranking: it gives us the bottom line choices made by the "customers" - regardless of the numerous and varied factors influencing their actions.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The revealed preference ranking tells us what undergraduate institutions students prefer, and thus gives a fairly good measure of the overall quality of undergraduate programs according to the criteria of the consumers of these programs. It does not tell us anything further.</p>

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<p>I agree 100% with your last comment, if not with much of what you said earlier at length.</p>

<p>Think I'll stop now.</p>

163

<p>My way of looking at this issue is not so numbers intensive because I don’t think the kinds of numbers being employed here are really all that useful in deciding whether to attend Harvard or Princeton. It seems to me that at the level of Harvard, Yale and Princeton, using US News rankings to make your choice is like deciding which billionaire is the most generous based on the number of billions he has in the bank. Whether they are 1st or 15th, all of these schools have “in the bank” the raw goods necessary to turn out equally superior scholars. So the rankings most folks are using here just mean very little to me.</p>

<p>What I want to know is which guy with all his billions is most able and most willing to make his wealth available to me. When I ask that question, Princeton wins every time when pitted against Harvard, and it wins so handily that I think Harvard competes for undergrads mostly because of its branding and not on what it actually does for its customers. Graduate studies seems quite another matter. Harvard seems pretty amazing here. But for undergrads, it is the early 1980’s Word Perfect of higher education, management problems and all. I’d bet tons of parents see it my way and that this is probably why Princeton, though it has no med school, no law school, and no business school, can still, year after year, rank near or in several areas even outrank other schools in the kinds of rankings many are using here.</p>

<p>I came to my view in the old fashioned way. Make fun of it, but I think it works. I came to this opinion by looking not so much at the opinions of Harvard or Princeton enemies. I looked at the opinions of Harvard and Princeton customers, those currently being serviced by these schools. Sure, I saw a lot of students who were happy with things. This will always be the case with even the worst organizations. But I saw way too many Harvard undergrads who were really bitter toward Harvard to allow me to just dismiss their claims as coming from ‘people who don’t know Harvard’. I saw the same complaints over and over again, all the time, in every case where students were able to voice their opinions.</p>

<p>* Harvard students present and future should not expect many significant improvements in the quality of undergraduate education here. The oft-trumpeted curricular review, which releases its report today, essentially shelved many undergraduate concerns such as the presently abysmal quality of advising and teaching.</p>

<p>This is according to a source that saw the review’s major recommendations at a Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) meeting last week and spoke with The Crimson. “It is unacceptable that a review of this size failed to make improved advising and teaching a primary focus,” the source said.</p>

<p>While indeed unacceptable, it is par for the Harvard course. The College confers upon an inferior educational program the prestige of its name and, with the messy details of advising and teaching students, leaves the Harvard mystique to speak for reality.*
<a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=501352%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=501352&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>When comments like this are made repeatedly, and by actual Harvard undergrads, we all have our answer. Now what we choose to do with it is a whole different matter. I am sure Harvard will make a move to fix some of this. It just has to. But it seems to me so much damage has already been done it would take a lot of time to heal. Does Princeton have these kinds of problems? I really don’t know. I haven’t yet been able to find these problems being expressed to anywhere NEAR the extent I have found them expressed about Harvard – not even close. Every school has problems, but it seems to me some problems just ought not be that widespread. Apparently the last Harvard president knew this and tried to fix it, but was unsuccessful:</p>

<p>When [Larry Summers, Harvard’s former president] mentioned reviving Harvard's introductory art history survey to one top professor in the department, she responded that no self-respecting scholar would want to teach such a course. "Are we citizens or employees?" asked another professor, pretentiously. How naïve of Lawrence Summers: He actually thought they might be teachers.
<a href="http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060306&s=trb030606%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060306&s=trb030606&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I think the happiest students at Harvard probably tend to overcome the school's problems by being aggressive. These are kids who shrug off a general inability to access teachers and advice by saying stuff like ‘Sure, professors may not return emails or phone calls. You may not be able to get them at office hours, but hey, its up to you to be forceful enough to get near them. If you whine, you perish.” I think there is a place for a shark-like attitude, but I don’t think a classroom is it. Imagine a school where in order to learn, you have to scramble over other students just to get good access to your professors. Maybe this is where the Harvard “swim with the sharks” stereotype comes from. If so, then I don’t think it is healthy, even for the happy students.</p>

<p>A few years ago Harvard’s Crimson reported that Harvard students’ mental health was in crisis. Apparently a lot of Harvard students are battling depression and so a study was done to see how widespread the problem is.:</p>

<p>*One Eliot House resident couldn’t finish his term papers because of depression and severe anxiety. Another missed three final exams because of a personal meltdown. A third stopped submitting work for his tutorial and skipped a final exam because of what Eliot Senior Tutor Oona B. Ceder called, “some kind of failure across the board.”</p>

<p>“I am swamped,” Ceder wrote in an e-mail to Eliot House Master Lino Pertile last May about these and the 20 other Eliot residents she called “our troubled students.”</p>

<p>The next morning, a concerned Pertile forwarded the e-mail to University President Lawrence H. Summers.</p>

<p>“This blows my mind,” Summers responded to Pertile. “Is this typical?”</p>

<p>It is.*
<a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357023%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=357023&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>The article was posted on CC <a href="http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?57277/81911%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeconfidential.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?57277/81911&lt;/a> and debated on both sides. Harvard supporters tended to think those who mentioned the article were just bashing Harvard. Some said if the problem was typical, Harvard wouldn’t be able to graduate 98% of its students, basically dismissing what seems to be a well substantiated report with illogic. C’mon, its not bashing Harvard to point out this stuff if you are trying to discover whether you should go to the school, especially if your source is Harvard itself.</p>

<p>Harvard students and leaders would be among those with the least interest in spreading negative news about themselves. So when they say Harvard students are suffering mentally, it makes sense to give a lot of weight to the claim.</p>

<p>Okay. I’ll discount the claim significantly, not allowing myself to think of Harvard’s situation as a “crisis”. That still leaves me thinking that Harvard is probably unhealthy for its undergrads due to some serious problems in its faculty, problems that have been written about so extensively, I really don't think I need to mention them. Those people are more interested in dealing with largely more mature grad students.</p>

<p>I think Harvard’s focuses on its graduate schools because those schools give Harvard its name. They are Harvard’s bread and butter, and are likely even responsible for why teens (once upon a time including my own) tend to fantasize about Harvard more than they do about every place else.</p>

<p>But since parents tend to research these things a lot better than their kids, I’d bet dollars to donuts parents would agree with me that between the two schools, Princeton is the place to be for undergraduate education. Unlike for Harvard, undergrads are the bread and butter of Princeton.</p>

<p>If Princeton’s eating clubs are the ugliest problem one can find about the school, then Princeton will be top dog for undergrads for a very long time. I mean, lets just have some mercy here. If my kids were at Princeton, there would just be no way they are gonna get bent out of shape just because someone decides they don’t want to eat with them. I mean, it won’t even register a blip on the radar screen. A kid’s throwing away such amazing opportunities to learn from academic superstars just because they aren’t members of a social club? Hello? Hello? Uh, helllllo? I think there is a little disconnection here.</p>

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<p>Edit: All right then, we'll stop this here.</p>

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<p>I find it amusing at the idea that some lists put together by a London-based company and a Shanghai-based institution may be appropriately cited to shed light on the quality of undergraduate education in the United States.</p>

<p>First and foremost, it may be worth noting that the lists only reflect how the respective company or institution perceives the overall reputation of the world's higher education institutions at best (and hence making gross generalizations in the process), or are instances of "lies, damned lies, and statistics" at worst.</p>

<p>I sincerely doubt that the people who put these lists together had EVER visited all the institutions of which they speak in such a self-granted authoritative manner, let alone visiting them ANNUALLY in order to update the lists every year.</p>

<p>To sit in an office building, google the internet for some obscure numbers and concoct some equally obscure formulae to manipulate those numbers - if that could be considered authoritative, then I should also think that based on CIA's The World Factbook data on adult literacy, I could authoritatively claim that North Koreans are much better educated than Singaporeans (99% vs. 92.5%) - a statement that would be sneered at by any knowledgeable, rational person.</p>

<p>Not to mention that the ultimate purpose of The Times in producing that ridiculous ranking is, like U.S. News and World Report, to gain readership and royalties - taking into account that U.S. News and World Report at least does readers a slight favor in breaking the rankings down into undergrad, grad, and professional schools.</p>

<p>(FYI note to those who do not have the pdf version of The Times' ranking: the numbers taken into account are Peer Review Score, Int'l Faculty Score, Int'l Students Score, Faculty/Student Score, Citations/Faculty Score - and according to the 2004 ranking of which I have a copy, the top three institutions in 2004 are Harvard, UC Berkeley and MIT - with a final score of 1000, 880.2 and 788.9 respectively. I may agree with Harvard's position as a graduate research institution, but I find it amusing that UC Berkeley could be ranked above MIT, and by a whooping 100 points! How drastically could things have changed between 2004 and 2005 so that MIT leaps to #2 while UC Berkeley drops to #7, behind Stanford which scored 688.0 in 2004?)</p>

<p>Until ranking proponents can find a way to satisfactorily answer the concerns raised above, may I also note that the rankings cited are, well, simply opinions of certain individuals from around the globe who are lured into believing that Harvard is best simply because of its $25 bn endowments. And yeah, that's true. When we talk in our family about U.S. colleges and universities, the only name that comes from my parents is Harvard University. When I go on to ask them what they know about Harvard University as a higher learning institution, they tell me that the only thing they know is that it is the richest university in the world. So much for reputation. Not to say that I do not respect its faculty and research (in fact I would love to go to Harvard for grad school), but often the reputation of an institution, to many blissfully ignorant people around the world, often comes down to how much money it has.</p>

<p>As to undergraduate experience, I sincerely recommend those of you who are still undecided to come to Princeton. I don't have to advance another argument for Princeton's case, do I? The people on the Princeton board have done a tremendously good job, and I hope that you guys are actually reading "The Thesis: Quintessentially Princeton" that was sent along with your acceptance letter, like I am. I strongly believe that the book presents the absolutely strongest reason why you should come to Princeton. I look forward to seeing you in September!</p>

<p>And let's end this fight as well.</p>

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<p>I will say that I agree with the suggestion that those admitted to more than one school visit all of them if possible. </p>

<p>History has shown that those having a choice, and making those visits, overwhelmingly choose Harvard over any and all institutions considering themselves its "rivals".</p>

<p>Not ALL to be sure, but more than 3/4 of the common admits.</p>

<p>Stanley Katz, director of Princeton University's Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, puts it best: "[Harvard is] the Gucci of higher education, the most selective place."</p>

<p>The gulf that separates Harvard from the rest in terms of reputation remains enormous.</p>

<p>"It used to be the case that of students who were admitted to Harvard and Princeton or Harvard and Yale, seven of 10 would choose to go to Harvard," Katz says. "It may be more now. There is a tendency for the academically best to skew even more to Harvard. We just get our socks beat off in those cases."</p>

<p>It's that kind of selectivity, says Katz, that gives Harvard a measurable advantage over other top undergraduate programs. "I firmly believe that the crucial things you learn as an undergraduate are through your peers and from your peers, and at that, Harvard is (unsurpassed)," he says.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-06-06-harvard-usat_x.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-06-06-harvard-usat_x.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>From US News Undergraduate Rankings:</p>

<h1>1 Harvard & Princeton, on the following criteria:</h1>

<ol>
<li><p>Harvard University (MA)
Overall score: 100 Peer Assessment: 4.9 Graduation and Retention Rank: 1 2004 average freshman retention rate: 97% 2004 predicted graduation rate: 97% 2004 actual graduation rate: 98% 2004 Under/overperform: +1 Faculty resources rank: 3 Percent of classes under 20 in 04: 70% Percent of classes with 50 or more in 04: 13% Faculty/student ratio: 7/1 Percent of faculty who are full time: 92% Selectivity rank: 1 SAT 25-75th percentile in 04: 1400-1580 Freshmen ini top 10% of class: 96% Acceptance rate 04: 11% Financial resources rank: 8 Alumni giving rank: 4 Average alumni giving rate: 47% </p></li>
<li><p>Princeton University (NJ)
Overall: 100 Peer: 4.9 Rank: 1 Average graduation rate: 98% Predicted for 2004 graduation rate: 97% Actual graduation rate for 2004: 97% Under/overperform: None Faculty resources: 2 Percent of classes under 20: 74% Percent of classes over 50: 11% Faculty/student ration: 5/1 Percent of faculty fulltime: 91% Selectivity: 4 SAT: 1370-1560 Top 10%: 94% Acceptance rate: 13% 13% Financial resources: 12 Alumni giving: 1 Average alumni giving rate: 61% </p></li>
</ol>

<p>These statistics back up some of the opinions expressed here. Harvard students appear to be somewhat more highly ranked academically, while Princeton students seem to have more faculty resources and become more loyal alumni.</p>

<p>Guys, let's stop posturing. It is OK for certain things to be true. And BTW, my sister did call it swimming with the sharks and I make no claim that that is a statistic. It's an anecdote, just like the happy kids in the dorm.</p>

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<p>Byerly, I really think you should stop quoting that article. It's gotten extremely old--I think I've seen it in 10 different threads now.</p>

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<p>Classic insights ... and from a Princeton professor, no less ... only last June, in USA Today, and syndicated around the world!</p>

<p>And fair warning, Alumother, and friends .... you may be seeing this story cited from time to time down the road, so be prepared to gnash your teeth!</p>

<p>Oh, and Alumother, both colleges rank highly in the USNews list of "best values" - based on bottom line financial aid ... although (blush!) Harvard ranks a teeny-weeny bit higher!</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/premium/bestvalues/bvnatudoc/bvnatudoc.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/premium/bestvalues/bvnatudoc/bvnatudoc.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>"The gulf that separates Harvard from the rest in terms of reputation remains enormous."
I'm not sure how true that is. Amongst the most highly educated, when asked the number one school in the country, Harvard scored only 29% to Stanford's 27%, within the margin of error.</p>

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<p>"Respondents to the July (2003) Gallup Poll were given the opportunity to name two schools in answer to the question: "All in all, what would you say is the best college or university in the United States?"</p>

<p>Number one on the national survey was Harvard, with 24 percent of the vote. Stanford and Yale tied for second on the survey, with both schools receiving 11 percent of the vote."</p>

<p><a href="http://poll.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=9109&pg=1%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://poll.gallup.com/content/default.aspx?ci=9109&pg=1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Um, well, the majority of Americans also voted in Bush for President. 'Nuff said. By the way, the approval ratings would have you guess that they're regretting it, aren't they?.</p>

<p>Anyhoo, the reason I came to post here was because tonight I had dinner with my father, a few of his collegues and such. One of the people there was a professor at Harvard Business School. I introduced myself and talked to him, and told him that I was going to Princeton next year. I expected a lightly humorous "Psh...Harvard's the place to go!" Instead I got a "Princeton's a top notch school for your undergraduate degree. Come to Harvard for your MBA, but it's not really the place for undergraduates." Coming from a guy who works at HBS, I found it somewhat strange.</p>

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<p>I'd hardly expect him to diss your school in front of you and your father at dinner. Very gracious of him, I'd say.</p>

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<p>I'd hardly expect him to openly criticize his own school either. I'm not taking it as absolute proof as "Harvard is garbage", but eh, not very flattering.</p>

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<p>I’m glad that Byerly at least gave a link to the article in USA Today so that readers can peruse it themselves. The article quotes Stan Katz, a professor at Princeton. (<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-06-06-harvard-usat_x.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-06-06-harvard-usat_x.htm&lt;/a&gt;) For those who won’t take the time to read the entire article, I’ll add a few of the quotes that Byerly left out. Byerly cites the article to suggest some general opinion at Princeton that Harvard is a superior institution. Nothing could be further from the truth and Stan certainly doesn’t speak for Princeton. </p>

<p>Stan Katz is a nice guy and while I was at Princeton I had reasons to interact with him. Byerly fails to draw attention, however, to the fact that Katz is a Harvard graduate (Class of 1955) and a very loyal one at that (I know the latter from my own interactions with him.) I must say that it’s quite odd that Katz would be cited as a source for comments about Princeton admissions versus Harvard admissions. So far as I know, Prof. Katz has never had any involvement with the Office of Admissions at Princeton and would have no more detailed knowledge of cross-admit statistics than any other member of the faculty (that is to say, none). He’s a colorful guy with his traditional Harvard style bowties but he was speaking here well beyond his particular area of expertise and certainly would not have been speaking on behalf of Princeton’s Office of Admissions.</p>

<p>Finally, the point of that article is exactly the opposite of what Byerly implies. The central theme is that Harvard is dominant in reputation but no one is quite certain on what that reputation is based. (Tellingly, only Stan Katz offers a suggestion.) If I might quote the article “academic experts scratch their heads at how this institution [i.e. Harvard] maintains its reputational dominance in an era of academic parity.” </p>

<p>“Never mind,” the writer of the article notes, “…that guides such as the U.S. News & World Report ranking of colleges and universities say the differences between Harvard and other top-ranked schools are microscopically small.”</p>

<p>I continue to find it odd that this particular article would be interpreted the way our previous poster wants to interpret it.</p>

<p>Finally, let me say one more time that both Harvard and Princeton offer fine undergraduate educations. I had the opportunity to attend either and chose Princeton, which I personally felt to be superior. Still, others would (and do) choose Harvard. My experiences with Harvard as a law student gave me some insights into life there for undergraduates but I cannot and will not say that I can speak with full authority about a place I did not attend as an undergraduate. I simply wish that our many Harvard friends on this Princeton thread would admit the same.</p>

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<p>Since Byerly drags out this piece every year, I have it memorized. Katz refers to Harvard as a brand name. McDonald's is a brand name. Coca Cola is a brand name. Trojan is a brand name.</p>

<p>As Ptongrad2000 says, the whole point Katz is making is that the power of a brand name does not indicate anything about the quality of a product. Nuff said.</p>

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<p>To be fair to Byerly, Katz does indeed argue that Harvard's status as a top brand improves the quality of its undergraduate program.</p>

<p>
[quote]
The school accepted only 2,074, or 9.1%. It's that kind of selectivity, says Katz (a 1955 Harvard alum), that gives Harvard a measurable advantage over other top undergraduate programs. "I firmly believe that the crucial things you learn as an undergraduate are through your peers and from your peers, and at that, Harvard is (unsurpassed)," he says.

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<p>On the other hand, PtonGrad2000 gave some very valid reasons why this judgement should be evaluated carefully.</p>

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<p>Of course Katz' views are hardly unique!</p>

<p>"Last year, nearly 23,000 students applied for admission, and 80 percent of those admitted chose to attend, compared with 72 percent at Yale and 68 percent at Princeton. Given a choice between Bulldog and Crimson, most students put their chips on red: nearly three out of four students accepted to both Yale and Harvard find themselves in Cambridge come fall, says one veteran of the admissions game.</p>

<p>Harvard’s allure persists despite the scuttlebutt that annually makes the rounds of college guidebooks and high school hallways: arrogant undergraduates, prep school snobs, little interaction between faculty and students, a social life descended from Puritan roots, a campus whose temperature is as chilly as its temperament. “Kids won’t pass up Harvard, even though they may not be elated the entire time they’re there,” says Katherine Cohen, founder of IvyWise, an admissions counseling service in Manhattan..." </p>

<p><a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509886%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=509886&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>That's the kind of article we would like to see you link to, Byerly - one that would emphasize without a tint of doubt that Harvard's reputation rests solely on, well, brand name rather than quality/atmosphere :-D
Just j/k. Thanks for posting an article that would help boost Princeton's case anyway. It's the only one you post that has made me chuckle so far. Harvard is the only school that sends letters addressing me by my last name, while all other colleges and universities address me by my first name. At first I didn't like that at all, but reading Fitzsimmons' explanation:
“This is a smart group of people who are very cynical about advertising, in any form,” he says, referring to Harvard’s applicant pool. “You do have to know your audience...We work hard on making sure it’s well-written and not too cutesy, too glitzy, too much over-the-top, because it can really turn exactly the kinds of people we’re interested in, turn them right off.”
I actually feel it's sort of cute/funny. Oh well, dear old quaint Harvard... Ha.</p>

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<p>Now that we've definitively answered the OP's question, I just wanted to wish everyone a happy Easter. :)</p>