Last week, the highly anticipated Shanghai ranking confirmed Harvard as top university in the world for the fourth consecutive year. His rival Stanford, still second, is firing on all cylinders to deprive him this coveted title. The scenes of a relentless struggle that is played with billions of dollars.
There are names that are best avoided in Harvard corridors. That Stanford is one. A simple allusion and teachers begin to nervously fiddle with their cell phone. Harry Lewis, who taught computer science at Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg - founder of Microsoft and Facebook - is downright exasperated: "Obviously we are fighting for the world’s best students and faculty. What do you think? " There are still ten years, the two universities had yet nothing like: temple of knowledge, Harvard was considered as the best school in the country. Stanford was a great engineering school, isolated 5000 kilometers away in Palo Alto greenery.
Earlier today I was talking to the Political Science Professor (Harvard grad) I’m working for this summer, and he was telling me that something near 50% of the PhD applicants to join the department were coming from Cambridge (MA).
It’s less about rankings and more about the fundamental model of the university… that shift has already happened and Stanford is the gold standard.
Stanford has become the model that other universities seek to emulate. whereas in the past it was the Oxford/Cambridge model that American Universities first sought to emulate… later ivy league schools… now it’s Stanford that is the model. As the birthplace of Silicon Valley…incubating the founding companies of Silicon Valley at the legendary Stanford Industrial Park started by the university on the east side of campus and bordered by venture capital of Sand Hill Road on the north side of campus… Stanford and Silicon Valley have become the greatest source of wealth creation the world has ever known. Stanford leads all universities in annual fund raising (10 of the last 11 years)… admission selectivity… number of nobel prize winners and members inducted into the national academy of sciences since 2000.
we’ve come full circle… Cambridge (ironically Harvard was modeled on) has recently emulated Stanford by opening up its own industrial park and venture fund to spur startup and entrepreneurial growth. the explosion of tech and incubators across university campuses around the world and here in the US has first pioneered by Stanford starting over 75 years ago.