<p>I'm a political science major, possible double major in economics, minor in computer science. I've gotten into all four with similar financial aid--I'd only be paying around 10,000 a year. I love the city, and I'm from Southern California. My primary activities are reading, writing, and public speaking.</p>
<p>I've been faced with such an amazing choice, yet despite the supposed intellect of someone who has been accepted to these schools, said intellect is not any closer to coming to a decision. I am now putting my future in the hands of the internet (sort of).</p>
<p>As a potential poli-sci major with an interest in econ, I’m almost definitely heading to Princeton, though I wasn’t quite as fortunate as you as far as the schools I get to choose from. I’m by no means an expert, but I absolutely loved Princeton when I visited last, and would say that by the rankings, Princeton and Harvard are basically tied, but Harvard seems to have a more competitive, stuffy atmosphere which I’m not a fan of. Georgetown is a good school, but not quite in the same league as the others, and I prefer Princeton’s more rural setting to Columbia’s in-the-city location.
Anyway, just my 2 cents worth; might see you in a few months!</p>
<p>I would quickly narrow it down to Harvard and Princeton. Columbia is a great place but, unless you only want to live in NYC, it is clearly a step below (albeit not a big step). Georgetown is three or four steps below–really not comparable. </p>
<p>Then it becomes a question of which environment you like better. I think Princeton is more beautiful but the town is quite small and the setting quite suburban. I prefer the Cambridge/Boston environment but that is entirely subjective.</p>
<p>Internationally, while Princeton is well known and respected, there is only one Harvard.</p>
<p>Internationally, Princeton is not very well known because international reputation tends to correlate with a school’s strength in research and graduate programs rather than undergrad.</p>
<p>Honestly, I can’t think of any reason to turn down Harvard in this scenario</p>
<p>The reults of the recent NRC study shows that Princeton is in the top 3 in research and graduate programs in the country. If this isn’t enough to be well known internationally, then what is?</p>
<p>Princeton’s relative lack of acclaim as compared to Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, and Stanford internationally has more to do with the lack of professional schools in Medicine, Law, and Business. Its Ph.D. programs are top five certainly in the world.</p>
<p>I agree with japanoko – Harvard has slightly more prestige, while Princeton will offer slightly more focus to the undergraduate student.</p>
<p>Yet, with all of Princeton’s focus on the undergraduate, per the 2010 NRC release, it bests Harvard in most physical science and math Ph.D disciplines, including Computer Science. For Political Science, Harvard is #1 and Princeton is not top 5. In Economics, per NRC, Harvard is #1 whereas Princeton is somewhere in the 3-6 range.</p>
<p>You have an interesting choice between those two.</p>
<p>Could someone explain to me, specifically, what negative consequence they expect at Harvard due to graduate “focus”? That teachers of undergrad courses won’t speak to the undergrads? What?</p>
<p>Princeton definitely has a strong undergrad focus, but it’s a double-edged sword. The school suffers from the same problem as top schools like Brown or Dartmouth in international recognition.</p>
<p>I don’t really see what the compelling argument here is to turn down Harvard. You can compare program rankings all day, but in the end, most people know (or at least perceive) that Harvard is the better school. </p>
<p>The undergrad focus is great but I would argue that in the long run, the name of the college on your resume makes a bigger difference than something as subjective as the “quality” of your education or your “undergraduate experience”</p>
<p>Why Columbia and Georgetown are even being considered here is beyond me.</p>
<p>give me an example in which having a Harvard name instead of a Princeton name for your undergraduate school on your resume is going to make a difference.</p>
<p>May God and all my employers and teachers and idols, past, present, and future, physical or spiritual, have mercy upon me for choosing the inferior brand and thereby putting myself at the risk of suffering an inferior life.</p>
<p>When my Ds considered Harvard, I had some trepidation because I thought it could be intimidating. I’d heard about the supposed lack of “undergrad focus” and envisioned a place with a stifling sense of elitism. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. The campus, faculty, and staff have been exceptionally welcoming and accommodating. Our whole family has found the culture of the College to be very undergrad-focused, diverse in every imaginable way, and whatever the adjectives are that would be the opposite of haughty and stuffy. The girls have had many one-on-one sessions with profs - even some of the stars - including home cookouts. Their residential college experiences have been outstanding. D1’s live-in Faculty House Master in her residential college made the Time 100 list last year as one of the world’s 100 most influential people. D1 adored him and used to house-sit his dog. She graduated last spring, but she and he are still active Facebook friends. </p>
<p>The fact that all the students are amazing at something tends to inject a certain dose of humility into nearly everyone. Our Ds have friends from very humble as well as wealthy backgrounds, from just about every region of the nation and the world. We go up to the campus and take them and their friends out to dinner; I feel really fortunate to have the experience of being in a setting like that surrounded by such interesting, funny, witty, charming, dazzling young people. Growing up in a small town, our Ds yearned to meet friends like the ones they now have, and didn’t know if they’d ever have this kind of opportunity. It’s exceeded their wildest dreams. </p>
<p>The three campus life distinctives at Harvard, IMO, are the diversity, the level and intensity of extracurricular involvement, and the almost unbelievable degree to which the College will facilitate student-initiated projects. You’ll find that half the gospel choir is not African-American - there are white students, Hispanic students, students in turbans, yarmulkes, etc. They all clap and sway while they sing spirituals, the Jewish kids and the Asian kids and the Arab kids all embracing the gospel choir culture as their own. As a Southerner from a culture in which black and white Georgians tend to live parallel but non-intersecting lives, it made me cry the first time I saw it. The Harvard break-dance troupe is majority Asian. The South Asian student annual production includes students from all races and nationalities. Everyone is involved on campus and all seem to support one another’s activities and performances. Music and theatre are not only well-attended, but often reach a professional touring-production quality. And there is no limit in proposing a program of audacious reach. Our older D went to China a few years ago to teach in a program for outstanding Chinese HS students. Students from all across the country applied and those selected came to Shanghai for a two-week, live-in symposium, all taught by Harvard undergrads. When I asked D1 which department sponsored the program, she looked at me with disdain and said no department was in charge of it - the students were. The College had only evaluated the students’ proposal and provided the funding for everything but instructor airfare!</p>
<p>My wife and I graduated from Wake Forest - a good school that I love, which had only 2,900 undergrads when we attended in the '70s. The undergraduate focus at Harvard is way, way beyond anything that was available to us at Wake.</p>
<p>Hm, even as a current CU student I have to admit that the extracurricular culture here is a little different than HYP, because Columbia is nowhere near as generous about funding student projects as HYP are. On the other hand, because of NYC, in many fields (especially the arts) the opportunities for interaction with professional work (both working alongside practicing professionals and seeing them perform, give talks, in their working environment, etc.) can be greater than even HYP (again, obviously this is more true in the arts than in, say, biology research, but it can be true in things like econ and poly sci).</p>
<p>This was one of the reasons my D chose Harvard - Cambridge is an amazing college town. My first thought upon visiting Harvard/Cambridge was, “This is like Disneyland for college students!”</p>
<p>While Princeton is located in a beautiful suburban area, it felt a lot like where D grew up, and she wanted a more exciting, vibrant city environment.</p>
<p>then there are the students that have grown up in an inner city evironment and would like nothing more than to attend a university that seems more like a paradise or a “Disneyland”, such as Princeton or Dartmouth, than a city.</p>