<p>Like what the title says, can people please post something that they felt as cons/pros of going to Harvard/Stanford? If you get into both, which one should you go...(like depending on what?)</p>
<p>Thanks a lot!!</p>
<p>Harvard and Stanford will make this decision for almost everyone. Very few people are admitted to both schools.</p>
<p>Stanford internal statistics show Harvard gets 2/3rd of cross admits.</p>
<p>However, this has no bearing on which one you should choose since it is an individual decision if you are lucky enough to make it into both.</p>
<p>Stanford: happy students; great weather; great connections for SF start-ups and IT jobs.</p>
<p>Harvard: angst-y students; five months of grey, damp, cold; good for Wall St. jobs</p>
<p>Do a forum search. This has been debated a thousand times.</p>
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<p>Last year it was 62-38, but in past years it’s ranged from 70-30 to 57-43.</p>
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<p>Good point - although last year at least 398 students were accepted to both (this is the number of students who ultimately chose one or the other, and doesn’t include the students who were accepted at both H and S and another school and chose that school over H and S).</p>
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Where is this data? I don’t doubt its authenticity, but it sounds interesting wherever it’s from.</p>
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<p>God, we are not that depressed. People comparing the two often try to make it seem that Harvard = AUTOMATIC DEPRESSION, while Stanford = AUTOMATIC JOY. Not true. </p>
<p>I have Views on the weather, and how the prevailing wisdom is that Stanford’s is so beautiful bla bla bla. I grew up in Palo Alto, and while I do not exactly like Cambridge’s weather, I hate Palo Alto’s. I’m aware that that’s a minority opinion, but Stanford’s weather is not objectively the best of all weathers evur.</p>
<p>I personally like Harvard better mostly because of an intangible feel I got about the student bodies…they seemed very, very different to me. While that’s not terribly helpful for you, as previous posters have said, the decision will likely be made for you. It’s not quite so far for me, which is great, and helped. </p>
<p>One specific difference between them was that I found Stanford more athletic and outdoorsy, which I did not appreciate. Their athletes are much better than ours, and more intense, I think. I wouldn’t mind if we went to sports games more often, but I’ve always had a lot of trouble with physical activity for invisible health reasons (it’s not like I’m carrying a cane or anything that makes it obvious). In the past, I’ve been stuck at schools where people have assumed I was just a killjoy when I declined to play frisbee, or bowed out after five minutes or so. Obviously, people here play frisbee too, and I’ve seen a couple games of snow-football and capture the flag, but I really appreciate how it’s not so pervasively part of the culture that I always feel like an outsider for not participating much. I’m probably overestimating the degree to which I’d feel that way if I were actually a student at Stanford, but the few days I was there were not happy ones. (My first Harvard visit was an even more royal disaster, but I liked it enough and felt that the reasons for disaster were bad luck, rather than the whole character of the school, that I still chose to attend after another visit.)</p>
<p>Thank you for the great details :D</p>
<p>This topic has been beaten to death. Just Google the “Harvard vs Stanford college confidential” and you’ll find dozens of separate threads on this one topic. Hell, I’ll even [Google</a> it for you](<a href=“http://■■■■■■■.com/3tq47a6]Google”>LMGTFY - Let Me Google That For You).</p>
<p>True, but still :)</p>
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<p>It came from data released by Stanford’s admissions office in minutes from a Faculty Senate meeting. One poster crunched the data (which was in proportions, so he was able to deduce raw #s):</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/stanford-university/1118844-stanford-harvard-yale-princeton-mit-others.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/stanford-university/1118844-stanford-harvard-yale-princeton-mit-others.html</a></p>
<p>The actual minutes are also online somewhere.</p>
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<p>I was never very athletic while at Stanford (the case for a large portion of students), but I also was never one to oppose playing frisbee, so perhaps you have a point. :p</p>
<p>At the same time, it’s hard to hate 300+ days of sunshine, always mild weather (average 71), little rain (15 inches total), etc. T-shirt and shorts in December, or tanning in January? IMO that’s the way to go. ;)</p>
<p>Interesting fact from the data I linked to above, relevant to this thread: of those admitted to both Harvard and Stanford, 86% choose one of the two; the other 14% chose another school altogether, likely one of YPM. In other words, YPM are more of a blip on the radar for students who also get into Harvard and Stanford both. For the class of 2014, there are only 56 students out there who can say “I got into Harvard and Stanford” who aren’t currently at either.</p>
<p>Here’s the original data, which includes the cross-admit battles with HYPM for the past 8 years: <a href=“http://facultysenate.stanford.edu/2010_2011/minutes/10_07_10_SenD6388.pdf[/url]”>http://facultysenate.stanford.edu/2010_2011/minutes/10_07_10_SenD6388.pdf</a></p>
<p>It’s also interesting to me that Stanford is the only one with the balls to release this rather guarded information (it was even in the Daily). AFAIK, the others of HYPSM wouldn’t dare.</p>
<p>Since a prime motivator for attending H or S is prestige in the eyes of the uninitiated (after all, who’s heard of Cal Tech except the educated elite?) definitely go with Harvard. Stanford is a warmer, more athletic, out-doorsy place, but still hasn’t attained quite the international prestige of H.</p>
<p>@Dad2
You’re joking, right? Both about most people who attend Harvard or Stanford doing so primarily for the prestige, and by implying that international prestige makes a noticeable difference in the average graduate’s life.</p>
<p>Actually, I opined that prestige is “a” prime motivator, not the only motivator. Yeah, I would say there are definitely some bright kids who feel that they just can’t say “no” to H or S even though they might actually be happier at another elite undergraduate school largely because it’ll impress more people at cocktail parties or whatever.</p>
<p>“A prime motivator,” to me, indicates that it’s one of the two or three biggest motivators at work, which I still don’t think is remotely true. That there are a few/some, I agree, but I haven’t met anybody who’s noticeably pining for a different elite institution. And would you think that Stanford tops the list of the people who do want that? I would’ve thought Yale and Princeton had better names to drop.</p>
<p>Stanford’s appeal is unique, and the automsphere is diferrent from Ivies on the east coast. Years ago, I had a job interview at Stanford and the fad then was cruising in a convertable under the California sunshine :-). Some kids are drawn to it but mine feels more at home with the high pace and hustling on the east coast, and ruled out Stanford and Caltech early on.</p>
<p>Here, Dad2, let me help you: between Harvard and Stanford, pick Williams.</p>
<p>Hi everyone! As a person who had to choose between Harvard and Stanford (since I got into both), I’ll definitely put my input.</p>
<p>Personally, both are wonderful schools. But, I felt that the atmospheres are different. I feel that Harvard definitely captures the idealistic college life (since Boston is wonderful). Stanford is beautiful also, but is more nature-based.</p>
<p>Asides from that, Stanford has the quarter system, while Harvard is on the semester system. Personally, I’m the person that tends to not do well on the first test, then do really well afterwards, thus semester is better for me. Quarter system makes things go faster, thus adapting is not as easily done.</p>
<p>Also, Harvard provided me a better financial aid packet than Stanford (not big difference, but still helped). Lastly, I wanted a completely different environment since I’ve been in California my whole life, thus Harvard really appealed to me. (:</p>
<p>If you have any other questions, feel free to private message me.</p>
<p>^^Exactly… Harvard, Stanford, Swarthmore, Williams… they’re all in the same league, basically interchangeable</p>