<p>Any thoughts?</p>
<p>Harvard, but only by a touchdown - it's an away game this year.</p>
<p>Hahahaha- touch</p>
<p>think about the location-environment: Harvard more cosmopolitan, princeton pristine, stuffy white bread...</p>
<p>Here's an excerpt from another thread last month on this forum. In response to a mention of perceived "grade inflation" at Harvard and Yale, I'd asked "When HYP attracts the cream of the crop of the world's college applicant pool and then accepts < 10% of them, why would anyone expect their students to get Bs and Cs? They never did prior to going to college." A poster from Princeton responded "Your argument assumes that grades should be an objective, rather than relative, metric of a student's academic performance. Of course HYP students will produce high quality work. But it doesn't immediately follow that they should all get good grades. Princeton believes that grades should differentiate students from their classmates--i.e. my grade conveys some information about how I did relative to my fellow Princetonians. Harvard and Yale, while certainly recognizing that grades must convey information about relative performance, have chosen to put a greater emphasis on the objective quality of students' work, thus keeping grades at those schools higher. The debate that we should be having is over which approach is better."</p>
<p>So that's one point of distinction between H and P that I hadn't realized. Despite that, student evaluations of campus life at P are through-the-roof. My H daughter tells me that the P ambience is highly preppy while it's more low-maintenance at H. But for all the responses you may get here, I'd suppose that campus life at each has far more in common with the other than it has in difference.</p>
<p>Thanks for the (admittedly quick) replies. Gadad, do you happen to have the link to that thread? Also, I assume a lot of the same types of students apply to both schools, but are there significant differences between the student bodies at each school? If so, what are they?</p>
<p>I just bumped it up to the top of the first page of the Harvard board for you. It's called "HYP undergrad average GPA's? comparisons? Honors GPA at Harvard? % of class?"</p>
<p>You should visit both schools, if you haven't already. I hate Princeton, mostly because it was in the middle of nowhere. My friends who attend Princeton also have negative reviews of the eating clubs, since they seem to dominate the social scene.</p>
<p>gwathelien's friends are by no means representative of the general Princeton population. Approximately 80% of upperclassmen are members of eating clubs. It is reasonable to assume that they are satisfied with the experience because they could take part in a number of other dining and social options if they were not. Here is a very detailed description of the club experience from a current student. It was originally posted in the Princeton forum.</p>
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<p>Like many CC viewers, I was fortunate enough to be admitted to Princeton, Harvard and Yale. I selected Princeton for academic reasons. It’s not that I didn’t consider a college’s social life to be important –- I very much believe it’s vital. I just figured that anywhere there were bright, interesting students, I would find my niche. And I still think that’s true. But in high school, I didn’t know an eating club from a secret society from a finals club from a hole in the ground. I congratulate those CC posters who have such fully developed opinions on eating clubs. They are much more knowledgeable and sophisticated consumers than I ever was back then. </p>
<p>I absolutely loved my eating club experience and so did the vast majority of people I knew at Princeton. Why? Well, why do P, H and Y have residential colleges to subdivide their student bodies? To create smaller, more intimate communities in which students can feel more at home. I think residential colleges are a great idea. Eating clubs are a logical extension of the same concept. </p>
<p>Residential colleges at P, H and Y generally have 400-500 students. Eating clubs have less than half that number of members, usually about 100-150. They’re even closer, warmer social infrastructures. The most descriptive word I can think of to convey my eating club experience is “comfortable.” I was very good friends with almost every single member of my club. (Yes, there were a couple of jerks, but you take the bad with the good.) It’s quite literally true that it’s almost impossible to be in an eating club and not have at least a hundred very close friends. </p>
<p>Even a residential college of 400-500 students is large enough that you can’t know everybody well. It’s about the size of a typical high school class with many of the same social phenomena taking place. In particular, it further subdivides into the usual cliques. We’ve all been to high school. You know what I’m talking about. But once the number of people in a group gets down below 150, a different social dynamic takes over. At that size, you really DO know everybody well. You see them and eat with them every day. If your high school cafeteria is like mine, after you buy your lunch, you head to the same table every day and eat with the same 10-15 close friends. Well, in an eating club, that “same table” is the whole dining room. There’s no need to synchronize going to meals with your friends because some will always be there. You know EVERYBODY. It’s a fantastic social environment. </p>
<p>Obviously, Princeton’s clubs are self-selected in a way that residential colleges aren’t. But the criticism that they therefore are divisive does not logically follow. By the time you join a club at the end of your sophomore year, you’ve already been in a residential college of roughly 450 randomly assigned people for two years. You’ve had a broad experience and made a variety of friends. Those friends don’t go away. You eat at their clubs and they eat at yours using meal transfers -- very simple. You spend time at all the clubs, especially on party nights. Junior year, my girlfriend was not in my club. Senior year, she was (different girlfriend, that is). No big deal. Of my eight roommates junior and senior year, only one was in my club. I loved the fact that I had a circle of friends from my dorm, a different group from my eating club, a third network from my academic department, and two further circles from my two major extracurricular activities. These various groups of friends overlapped, but were separate and distinct in a very healthy way. </p>
<p>I concede that eating clubs are probably most appropriate for people who by their personality are “joiners” and that not everybody is one. That’s why 25% of Princeton upperclassmen choose another option, whether it be staying in their underclass residential college for another two years, joining one of two student-run co-ops, or cooking for themselves. Some people just eat at the Frist Campus Center. No problem. Different strokes for different folks. But I submit that most Ivy League students by nature ARE joiners. And those people who want to be more “independent” have a wider range of options at Princeton than they do at almost any other school. If you’re a “joiner,” you win. If you’re not, you still win. </p>
<p>Hey, eating clubs aren’t for everybody. But I think that the vast majority of the kind of high-achieving, sociable people who are drawn to the Ivy League would LOVE them. My point isn’t that everyone should attend Princeton or join a club. But if you’re thinking about Princeton for academic reasons (and, yes, I think I chose correctly), then don’t be dissuaded by any CC eating club nay-sayers. </p>
<p>Think about it. Princeton and Harvard have the highest retention and graduation rates in the country. Princeton has by far the highest alumni donation rates. The totally unscientific and anecdotal Princeton Review lists Princeton in its “happiest students” category. If you’ve ever attended a Princeton reunion, you know that alumni are wacky in love with the institution. If Princeton students and graduates are THAT fond of the place, how could eating clubs be anything but a great experience for the vast majority of people who go through there? </p>
<p>But don’t take my word for it. Visit the campus, talk to the students and form your own opinion. Just don’t take as gospel the word of anybody who criticizes the eating clubs from the distant vantage point of New Haven or Cambridge, okay?
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<p>Eating clubs were one of the big reasons I never considered Princeton, but in retrospect (and after talking to a friend who goes there), I think I would have liked them (except for the nastiness of bicker, if I went down that route).</p>
<p>That said, Princeton's still definitely not for me for a variety of other reasons... suburban location + feel, lack of grad school opportunities, the type of jerks it attracts (Harvard has its share of jerks as well, but I prefer arrogance to snobbery if I have to choose).</p>
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I prefer arrogance to snobbery if I have to choose
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<p>Haha, well put.</p>
<p>what's the difference? curious</p>
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<blockquote> <blockquote> <p>lack of grad school opportunities>>> ??? There are more ppl from P go to H for their graduate school than they go to any other schools for graduate study. I don't have the number in front of me, but there are probably more ppl from P in H graduate school than ppl from H itself, at %wise.</p> </blockquote> </blockquote>
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<p>Sorry cc2 - I wasn't clear as to what I meant.</p>
<p>I like, at Harvard, being able to draw on the Harvard grad school resources (seeing talks at the IOP or the B school, taking a freshman seminar with a law school prof, doing research at the medical school, etc). I wasn't at all referring to grad school placement.</p>
<p>(That said, I think for all of Harvard's graduate schools that I've seen data for, the best-represented undergraduate institution is Harvard. But again, not the point I was trying to make.)</p>
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<blockquote> <p>That said, I think for all of Harvard's graduate schools that I've seen data for, the best-represented undergraduate institution is Harvard.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Not always. This year the word on the street was the Harvard Medical School accepted only six applicants from Harvard College, and pre-med kids were pretty bummed out about it too.</p>
<p>Maybe its me, when I visited Princeton I got a negative vibe. The admissions Woman in my information session was horrendously annoying and the campus seemed so insulated. Also on my flight back I met a girl who had a sister at Princeton who hates it, a brother at Columbia who loves it and a friend at amherst who loves it. So it was just all around a bad vibe for the trip. Forgetting that...</p>
<p>Atleast the way I look at it. HYPSM may be equal schools. But in the end Harvard is Harvard is Harvard---its the best of the best, the richest of the rich, and the most famous out of the famous. Just my 2 cents.</p>
<p>When you're at this level of fame, does the name really matter?</p>
<p>It might matter to you, but it doesn't really matter to anyone else. The financial services industry places more emphasis on an applicant's pedigree than almost any other industry. Bulge bracket firms (Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc.) have five top target schools, from which they recruit the most heavily. Harvard and Princeton are in the top 5. Attending a top 5 school is a substantial advantage because it means there will be heavy on campus recruitment at your school. But once the level of recruitment is determined, your ability to get hired depends solely on your resume, performance in interviews, and connections. So I submit that if the relative prestige of HYPSM doesn't matter for investment banks, it doesn't matter anywhere.</p>
<p>Part of the reason why I'm not going to apply to Harvard is because I dislike the fact that it's become so prestigious that it's now one of those generic name brands like Frisbee or jacuzzi. (There are other reasons too of course)</p>
<p>Prestige has its limits before it just gets annoying.</p>
<p>Perhaps reposting this in the college search and selection would give more "balanced" responses.</p>
<p>I would like to, however, point out that Harvard is not "richer" than Princeton.
Princeton has more money on a per capita basis than any university in the world.</p>
<p>I, personally, was turned off by Harvard's blatant graduate-school emphasis. (6,700 undergrads, 12,400 grads) </p>
<p>I would, however, love to go to Harvard for grad school. :)</p>