Congratulations on your acceptances! Academics are going to be superlative at both. I am going to speak broadly to location and quality of life issues.
Do you prefer urban or suburban/rural? Boston is very dense and public transportation can get you anywhere within the city and points beyond. It is relatively easy to access the eastern seaboard of the US by train. Stanford is more suburban. Public transportation can get you to San Francisco and the airport (about an hour away). If you like the outdoors, there are hiking and biking trails within an easy distance of the Stanford campus
Stanford campus is large and sprawling; Harvard is more compact
Travel: have you looked at the time and money involved in traveling from your home country? Depending on where you live, it might be easier to travel to one coast vs. the other with respect to plane changes and layovers.
Both schools draw diverse regional populations from all over the US and internationally.
Is the $5,000 per year difference meaningful for your family?
Harvard has a bigger name at my native country, too, and if there is a direct correlation between the bigger name brand AND your career, then you should go with that for practical purposes. If there’s no direct correlation, then it’s a toss up.
Ten, five or even three years ago it would have been Harvard. Now looking at the progressive way technology is changing our daily lives and is affecting the lives of people that don’t even know it is affecting them, Stanford would be a great choice. Either choice will be great and can’t go wrong. Choose Harvard because someone we know has been waitlisted at Stanford…lol.
It makes so much difference how the weather was when you visit the campus. When we visited Harvard campus, weather was gloomy, cold with slushy snow, with many tourists going around and impeding my hoped for slow in-take of 400 years of history and contemplation. I couldn’t even touch the feet of that FAMOUS statute – DARN IT! – due to tourists milling about the statute. I had to stand in cold for 15 minutes if I wanted to get a iPhone shot of me and my kid standing next to that famous statute with stupid grins on our faces. Alas, the only souvenir we could get was some red Harvard hoodie from their student store.
Harvard campus definitely went down in our estimation after the visit from the image created in my brain from watching the Love Story movie, whereas Stanford kinda stayed the same. I personally prefer the old East coast 300 years old type of buildings but . . . . I personally prefer Cornell campus over Stanford campus but Stanford campus was very good also: I could have rolled my body around and around on that sun-drenched lawns across the campus and that would have taken all day. Even though there were many tourists, since the campus was so big, they were less noticeable.
The Stanford campus is 8,000 acres and gorgeous, mall next door with rolling hills made for running and bike riding. Different architecture than Harvard, but no less beautiful. Boston is a big city. Stanford/Palo Alto is a suburb between San Francisco and San Jose.
My kid didn’t even apply to Harvard after getting into Stanford REA mainly to avoid this kind of tough choice. If he wanted to attend Harvard, he would have applied Harvard Early Decision. I would make my choice based on whether I prefer the East coast style of life or the West coast style of life. Or just flip a coin.
I just saw this thread’s name and realized it’s an issue I’ll never have (lol). My honest opinion is Stanford for STEM and Harvard for humanities. I would choose Stanford if it was up to me. But it’s honestly up to personal preference because both schools are absolutely amazing.
It all comes down to fit. Two kids (my D, included) from my D’s school had that choice (and a few other choices) to make. One chose Stanford, the other Harvard. Another kid in the same class chose Princeton over Harvard.
For STEM except for straight Math this would be a no-brainer, Stanford wins big. For Math both are excellent and very similarly ranked. For other subjects they are both excellent and as @LoveTheBard says “There are no bad choices here”. I also agree with his statement “It all comes down to fit”. I haven’t looked at either school’s offerings in the subjects that you want to study.
The weather in Boston (or Cambridge, just across the river) varies enormously. There is a saying “if you don’t like the weather in Boston, wait a minute”. Some days will be beautiful, some will be cold and rainy with strong winds. Summers will get hot with a lot of sun but some storms. There is something we call a “northeaster” here where a low pressure system is centered just off shore so that the eastern part of the low can draw moisture from the gulf stream while the western part of the storm deposits that moisture on the citizens of Boston, with a lot of wind as well. Winters are mild by my standards, but I grew up about 300 miles to the north of here. It can rain at Stanford, but compared to Boston there is hardly any weather in Stanford, mostly a lot of warm (rarely hot) sunny days. Occasionally Stanford will have a drought and go for a few years without any rain at all. Occasionally Massachusetts will have a drought and go for a few weeks with only an occasional thunderstorm. There is probably more outdoor activity at Stanford if only because the weather is so much more conducive to being outside.
Stanford is close to a small town (Palo Alto). Harvard is close to a city (Boston). In terms of things like bars and restaurants Harvard has the edge, although we are quite strict about enforcing the drinking age here in Massachusetts so in terms of bars both might be a complete “nothing”. As one example when my 22 year old daughter goes out to dinner with us if she orders a glass of wine they always check her ID (even when the waitress was a good friend of hers who had recently attended her 22nd birthday party).
Personally I have thought of Stanford as more welcoming, but this might be a matter of personal experience. I have met more pretentious students at or graduates from Harvard compared to Stanford. I don’t recall this being an issue at all when I was at Stanford. In terms of “the students value their academics” both are excellent.
One important consideration that is often ignored in such discussions is where you’d prefer to live/work after graduation. Stanford is in Silicon Valley and many key SV companies were founded by Stanford alumni/students and have related networking/internship connections, strong presence in job fair, including smaller startups. I grew up in upstate NY. I currently live in CA, largely because of the large presence at Stanford job fairs, and because I enjoyed the CA area while at Stanford. If you want to live/work/internship in the SV or CA area, Stanford has a strong edge. Similarly, the Boston/Cambridge area has a strong college presence and a large number of area companies with special network/internship areas. If you want to live/work/internship in Boston or the general area of the northeast, or want to work within IB/Wall Street, Harvard has a strong edge.
Another important difference that has not been well discussed are the difference in majors and degree programs, in particular Stanford’s greater opportunities for interdisciplinary type studies and combined degrees. 2 of the 4 most common majors at Stanford are the interdisciplinary majors Human Biology and STS. The remaining two are CS/engineering fields in which ~40% of students pursue at co-terminal masters, which involves simultaneously pursuing a BS and MS, and some do CS+X as well which is an interdisciplinary combination of a CS and humanities major. I was in a program that was setup to foster tech entrepreneurship by combining a BS in engineering with Master’s in engineering and business related fields. I doubt I would have done this type of program had I gone to most other colleges, and without it, I doubt I would have started a small Internet company. Harvard also has a good number of similar programs, but it’s my impression that there are fewer opportunities that are pursued by a smaller portion of students.
As far as the programs in the majors themselves, they are almost all excellent and highly ranked, with great reputations at both Harvard and Stanford. However, one big difference is the percentage of students pursuing the relative majors. As touched on above, a much larger portion of students pursue tech majors at Stanford, particularly CS; and a much larger portion of students pursue social science majors at Harvard. This isn’t necessarily good or bad, but different students have different preferences about size of intro classes/departments, portion of dorm members are in same/similar classes, etc. The time required to graduate for equivalent programs and number of opportunities to take out of major electives may also vary due to differences in DE/AP credit transfer. It’s my impression, Stanford is more favorable. I was able to start with a year’s worth of credits, allowing me to finish a BS+MS in slightly under 4 years.
@Penn95 I visited Stanford campus around 4 times, and I don’t find Stanford campus all that beautiful. I mean, it’s very nice but it doesn’t have the variety of landscapes or buildings. I can understand why some say Stanford campus has that glorified Taco Bell look to it. The best location is that flowers garden spelling “S” and the church square area. I would say the campus is huge, nice and functional. Cornell, Wisconsin at Madison, Oxford – now, those are beautiful campuses.
@websensation Sure, it is rather subjective. Personally, I find Stanford the most striking campus in the US, followed by Princeton and Yale. But then again I like the uniformity of the architecture across campus and the fact that you feel like you are in a completely different world.
In general I think most people find the Stanford campus much more beautiful than the Harvard campus. I have never heard a person describe the Harvard campus as gorgeous.
I’m local to Stanford, so I’m biased. I run or bicycle the campus a lot and find some of the buildings on campus awe-inspiring. And then there’s the golf course, the Lake Lagunita, the Dish, SLAC, etc. on the western side too. Harvard was OK. I also loved Princeton’s campus. I’m sure there are more beautiful campuses, but between Harvard and Stanford, I agree with @Penn95 .
You’ll be surrounded by opportunities in the bay area.