<p>^^actually, just hope it’s just one or the other. that way your decision will be easier.</p>
<p>“I think a lot of people who attend, want to attend, or rave about Harvard fall into the “I have wanted to go to Harvard since I was 8 years old” category.”</p>
<p>Just wanted to quickly respond to that statement by yalie343. I think that’s a really common misconception that actually doesn’t have much truth to it. During my time there, I met exactly one person like that (who, perhaps relatedly, was born and raised outside the US). For the most part, people at Harvard, attending wasn’t a long-held dream that guided everything they did in HS or before. It was just a decision that we all made - and sometimes agonized over - once we had the acceptance in hand. More or less like any other school, really.</p>
<p>A note on the number of math majors: Recently Yale’s admissions office has been making efforts to accept more science/math oriented students. So numbers of recent grads in a major probably won’t be as relevant to your own experiences. Also, i’m not convinced that having a low student : professor ratio is a <em>bad</em> thing.</p>
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<p>I want to major in Neuroscience. Harvard has a neurobiology major (very similar to neuroscience…practically the same thing). However, Yale only has a Psychology major with a neuroscience track…so basically a certificate in neuroscience as opposed to an actual bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>A low student to prof ratio is a good thing. But the dearth of peers can be a disadvantage.<br>
Let’s take the total of 27 math majors (9 per year). They will each have different interests (number theory, combinatorics, differential geometry, etc…) Some students feel more comfortable in classes that have more than 1-2 people, especially when it comes to forming study groups.</p>
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<p>This was certainly true in my daughter’s case. She says going to Harvard never occurred to her until her jr. year of high school when we got her SAT scores back, and <em>I</em> pointed out to her that her stats were strong enough to put her in the running should she care to apply.</p>
<p>Seriously, I think at THIS level of schools, I don’t think one should wrangle over whose department is better etc. They are all EXCELLENT. Rather, I believe the deciding factor should be in the environment, social atmostphere and other more intangible factors.</p>
<p>That being said, in my opinion, despite the “par-Boston/Cambridge” New Haven locatoin, I think the GENERAL consensus is that while Harvard students are often stressed out and unhappy, Yale students are far more laid back and content. There was an article in the HARVARD NEWSPAPER that was entirely about how Yale students were happier while Harvard students couldn’t wait to get out. Of course, take it with a grain of salt, as I am sure there are many Harvard students who are perfectly happy. But Yale students are just less cut-throat competitive and more cooperative (hmm, trying to think of a better word here..heh) compared to Harvard students. IMO, of course.</p>
<p>ALSO, the much dreaded New Haven location is a plus for me. It puts more of a focus on CAMPUS life, which in turn creates a more community-like atmosphere in the University. And speaking of atmosphere, the pride Yalies feel for their residential college is unrivaled and fosters a GREAT sense of family between students - a DEFINITE plus when considering how stressful college can become for many.</p>
<p>All in all, I prefer Yale because I could care less WHICH education I get. It’s going to be like comparing apples to apples. But from looking at the great Residential college system, phenomenal arts involvement and just a general sense of a closer, supportive tight-knit community, Yale wins out.</p>
<p>And <em>I</em> shall peace out. ;)</p>
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<p>yalie2352307892085, I think you take the net too seriously. GG.</p>
<p>I know a few Yale math/science majors who love it because the departments are small enough that they get lavished with attention. This might be better than being one student in a sea of other students in the same major.</p>
<p>I feel like deciding to attend Yale was a deeply personal choice that I made on the factors that matter most to me. It HAS to be a personal chice. Here are some reasons I chose Yale:</p>
<p>Yale is just so… happy. For an institution that should feel extremely intimidating, it somehow feels like a comfortable home. The people I met cared about me and about my happiness, and I felt like everyone was bursting with enthusiasm for the place. I polled one room that was having a meeting by asking them, on a scale of one to ten, how happy they were at Yale. One means “I want to leave now” and ten means “I will die if I ever have to leave this place”. Everyone in the room answered a nine or nine and a half. Yalies love being at Yale. I am sure this exists at Harvard, too, but it is especially obvious at Yale. They don’t take themselves too seriously, which is exactly the atmosphere I need in order to make college what I want it to be. In fact, Yalies are absolutely histerically funny, which I never would have expected out of a bunch of insanely brilliant people.</p>
<p>Yale has the smallest class sizes of HYPMS, which is a big plus for me- I can’t stand big classes. See the featured post on class sizes from a few months ago…</p>
<p>A quick note about prestige: it doesn’t matter after you leave college. Employers won’t hold it against you that you went to one or the other of America’s best schools. Harvard is twice the size of Yale (undergrads+graduate students) so it has more alumni, more research, more faculty, more published papers, etc. Of course it has a slightly bigger name in the world. But I think it’s amazing that Yale is so highly regarded even though it is about half the size. Remember, both schools have incredible prestige. I certainly don’t feel like my Yale degree will ever hold me back in life. That would be absolutely ridiculous.</p>
<p>I have a few friends from across the country going to Harvard and Yale. Only one of the Harvard kids got accepted to Yale, and only one of the Yale kids got accepted to Harvard- strange how that works, isn’t it? I have talked to scores of people online who have turned down Yale for Harvard or Harvard for Yale… there is certainly no absolute answer. Nonetheless, they are all happy to go where they are going, and they should be. H and Y are the finest schools in the world.</p>
<p>If you get accepted into both, visit! I was up in the air on where I wanted to go to college until I visited all of my choices, and after that I definitely knew where I wanted to be for the next four years of my life. Don’t try to make a decision based on the testimony of partisans like me or anyone else on this board. Decide for yourself. You don’t need to follow the majority or get approval from any of us- you will know what is right.</p>
<p>“Yale has the smallest class sizes of HYPMS” . . . except for P and M, which have smaller classes than Yale (Yale = 1,350, MIT = 1,000, Princeton = about 1,250 now, I think, having recently increased it).</p>
<p>^^ no, he means the number of students in a classroom at Yale, not the entire size of the freshman class.</p>
<p>Yes, thank you rd31… my word usage was kind of misleading there.</p>
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<p>It’s not about prestige, it’s about being able to wear that “Blame Yale” shirt without looking like a hypocrite =/</p>
<p>Hey, he went to Harvard Business School, so you share the blame, haha.</p>
<p>Well no matter which school you choose you can still wear this shirt: [Duck</a> Fartmouth T-Shirt](<a href=“http://www.bypassonline.info/browse.php?u=Oi8vcHNhLnN0b3Jlc2VjdXJlZC5jb20vaXRlbXMvYWdlbmNpZXMvc291dmVuaXItYWdlbmN5L3Qtc2hpcnRzL3NvdXZmYXJ0bW91dGgtZGV0YWlsLmh0bQ%3D%3D&b=61]Duck”>http://www.bypassonline.info/browse.php?u=Oi8vcHNhLnN0b3Jlc2VjdXJlZC5jb20vaXRlbXMvYWdlbmNpZXMvc291dmVuaXItYWdlbmN5L3Qtc2hpcnRzL3NvdXZmYXJ0bW91dGgtZGV0YWlsLmh0bQ%3D%3D&b=61)</p>
<p>Haha nice try piccolo but that t-shirt doesn’t work.</p>
<p>George W Bush went to Harvard Business School AFTER he did terribly at Yale. The only reason he got into Yale was because several of the people voting him in were members of skull and bones but he got into Harvard after essentially being a Yale dropout – one would think the “esteemed” Harvard would have known better.</p>
<p>“Ostentation is the signal flag of hypocrisy.” – Edwin Chapin</p>
<p>I don’t know what the admission policy is at HBS regarding college performance. I understand that work experience counts. The fact that GWB graduated as a history major from Yale in 1968 would have been less important than the fact that he had been active in business for the 4 or 5 years before his admission in the B-school, which he began attending in 1973.</p>
<p>Actually, Bush didn’t have any notable business experience. From 1968 to 1973, he served in the National Guard. He started off in the Texas National Guard; he was rejected from U of T School of Law in 1970; he transferred to Alabama Air National Guard in 1972; and went to HBS in 1973.</p>
<p>Bush entered the oil industry after graduating from Harvard Business School…</p>
<p>Apparently, GW Bush entered his father’s oil business right after college while serving in the National Guard (this is not a full-time occupation). Unlike law schools, business schools do not necessarily base their admission policies on academic merit and stats but on experience and on potential for business success.</p>
<p>Check the Wikipedia article and <a href=“http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9232768:[/url]”>http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9232768:</a></p>
<p>"…Like his father, Bush attended the prestigious Philips Andover Academy in Massachusetts before matriculating at Yale University. He graduated from Yale with a bachelor’s degree in 1968, then returned to Texas and joined the Texas Air National Guard, where he learned to fly fighter jets. He eventually became a lieutenant, but was never called on to fight in Vietnam.
The early 1970s marked a distinctly unfocused period in Bush’s life, as he moved back to East Texas and worked intermittently as a management trainee at an agricultural firm and on U.S. Senate campaigns in Florida and Alabama. (In response to questions from reporters about possible drug use and heavy drinking during his bachelor days in Midland, Bush has called the early 1970s his “nomadic” period and has somewhat evasively stated that he would pass a background check going back as far as 1974.) In 1972, Bush entered Harvard Business School, earning his M.B.A. in 1975.</p>
<p>Still following in the footsteps of his father, Bush decided to try his hand in the oil business. He returned to Midland and formed an independent oil and gas exploration company that he called Arbusto (the Spanish word for “bush”). He married Laura Welch, a former teacher and librarian, in 1977. In 1981, she gave birth to twin daughters, Barbara and Jenna."</p>
<p>In other words, he worked on Senate Campaigns as a farm assistant, a little bit on campaigns through his father, and did a lot of drugs in this “unfocused” period of his life. He did the oil stuff later…</p>
<p>This conversation is largely pointless – I am just rebutting the stupid comment made by piccolojunior. BTW piccolojunior, Ted Kacyznski went to Harvard…</p>