<p>I've attended both (albeit some time ago) and would tend to agree with Hanna's first post that the two schools are very similar. There are certainly far more similarities than differences between the two. Most people who would be happy at one would be happy at the other - my view is that the best way of choosing is to spend some extended time at both and try to get a sense of where you feel more comfortable. If that's not possible, you can try to read about both schools, talk to people who have gone there, etc. This can be dicey, though, given how much disinformation tends to float around - in going through the college search process with my son, I was amazed at how shamelessly other schools and their partisans badmouth Harvard in particular. But at the end of the day, it's hard to go wrong with either, so you shouldn't really stress out about the choice.</p>
<p>My son ended up choosing Harvard. As best as I can tell of his reasoning:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Cambridge v. New Haven. He's spent a lot of time on both campuses, given that I have taken him to alumni events at both over the years, and he just loves Cambridge/Boston. (I should note that while I also prefer Cambridge/Boston, I don't think New Haven is the pit that some make it out to be.)</p></li>
<li><p>Resources, particularly extracurricular resources. It just seemed that Harvard had a richer array of activities in my son's areas of interest.</p></li>
<li><p>The students. He really hit it off with the students he met in visiting. (I recognize this can be a little serendipitous, but he met a really nice group.)</p></li>
<li><p>Reputation. While in some sense I think this shouldn't be a large factor, it's hard to say it plays no role. Yale obviously also has a great reputation, but it doesn't match Harvard's, which is generally more widely recognized worldwide. Adapting a line from the movie Love Story, "going to Harvard means never having to say you're sorry." ;)</p></li>
<li><p>I don't really know how big a factor this was, but my son found the badmouthing of Harvard by other schools to be a real turn-off (I have to admit that I did too). In contrast, Harvard didn't engage in badmouthing other schools (I suppose one could attribute that to Harvard arrogance, but I think all schools should adopt a no badmouthing policy.)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>At the risk of making a long post even longer, I find it interesting when Yale proponents cite the assignment of freshmen directly to residential colleges as a relative advantage of Yale compared to Harvard. When Harvard proposed to do the same as part of its curricular review recommendations, the students overwhelmingly opposed it. The general reasoning was that students wanted to be able to choose their upperclass House blocking group from among all their friends in the freshman class, and not be confined to choosing from among those already assigned to the same House.</p>