<p>I know the differences between Harvard and Yale in terms of The fact that Harvard has the blocking system and Yale has residential colleges. People talk about how Yale's system promotes community and meeting lots of people. But I feel like Harvard's promotes more of a small social-circle atmosphere where you live with your closest friends. But at Yale it seems like you have to live with a lot of random people you may not like and have to settle for hanging out with your best friends on the side. Is this true?</p>
<p>The similarities of the two systems are much greater than their differences. Which is not surprising since they were both founded in the 1930s through the efforts of the same guy, Edward Harkness.</p>
<p>Similarities: At both schools all the freshman live together on the old campus for their freshman years. For sophomore through senior years they all move off into their respective residential colleges/Houses.</p>
<p>Differences: At Yale the students are assigned to their residential colleges right from the start, even though they still live on the old campus and will actually move into the college later. At Harvard the House assignments are not made until the spring of their freshman year as their year in Harvard Yard is drawing to a close.</p>
<p>Yale boosters vigorously claim that this earlier identification with their ultimate residential destination is of Cosmic Importance and results in the Yale’s system being far to superior to Harvard’s. Harvard boosters are less impressed by this minor distinction. Your opinion is, of course, up to you.</p>
<p>I like Harvard’s housing system. We form our primary friend groups over the course of freshman year. Then, as your friend groups are starting to ossify, you join a new community, and make another set of friends. For instance, there was this cool sophomore in one of my sections this year. He and I tended always to argue that modern art could be worthwhile, while this one kid was always like “no if it doesn’t have real images it’s no good,” so there was sort of an alliance there. We would never have talked if I hadn’t gotten assigned to his house, though, because thinking the other one was interesting just wasn’t all that pressing. When I did, we started talking and became at least sort-of friends. I assume that sort of thing is going to happen more often next year, when I’m actually living with this new group.</p>
<p>I’m not in love with Harvard’s housing system, because I got Quadded and blocked with the wrong people. The group I should have blocked with, and would have if the deadline for blocking had come a month later, got put into a river house. It might be a good thing for me not to have blocked with them, though, because I will see them around. I like them enough to make that effort. My blockfriends, however, are more intense extracurricularly (and not in the same one as me; they’re alll in this one, and I’m not), so seeing them if I wasn’t living with them would be hard. Living with them, but maybe having another home base, with my friends on the river, might be the best.</p>
<p>On the other hand, I’m just a freshman. I haven’t really lived Harvard’s housing system yet, so we’ll see. / It would behoove you to get opinions from older people.</p>
<p>Harvard’s system works out differently for different people. I blocked with 3 out of my 4 freshman year suitemates though none of us are in each other’s ECs and we all have our own non-mutual friends besides each other. My roommates and I are good friends but we don’t spend the majority of our social time with each other. Other people block with their best friends / EC members / people they spend the majority of their social time with, and it works out differently for them. The blocking group system gives you some flexibility.</p>
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<p>coureur has summarized it perfectly, but just to reiterate, the Yale residential colleges are basically the equivalent of Harvard houses minus a few minor differences. You will not be living with only your “closest friends” at Harvard either. By choosing a blocking group, you’re guaranteed to have seven friends at the most in the same House as you, but you’ll have hundreds of more people to meet as you transition into the house community.</p>
<p>Historically, Yale did what Harvard does now freshman blocked with friends near the end of the first year, and were then assigned to a college. Some years ago, a faculty committee developed a proposal, controversial at the time, to move away from the old system in which students often jockied for a spot in the right college, and felt aggrieved if they were placed somewhere else. The new system aimed at making each college a kind of microcosm of the larger community by randomly sorting incoming freshman.</p>
<p>Like any system, it has pluses and minuses. From day one, it provides a smaller community (of roughly 100 students) within each freshman class of people who will be together throughout their Yale experience. But theres the risk thats been mentioned on this thread that you may meet people you would love to room with, but theyre in a different college. In simple terms, Yales system sacrifices some choice to enhance bonding. </p>
<p>The systems at both Harvard and Yale work pretty well. When fellow alums from either school meet anywhere in the world, the almost automatic icebreaker is, Which house/college?</p>