<p>Before I explain, let me begin by saying that up until this year, I was a HUGE Harvard fan.
I had wanted to go for the longest time!</p>
<p>However, I was researching colleges last August, and not even an hour in, I totally lost hope in Harvard. </p>
<p>The undergraduates at Harvard COLLEGE (not the world-renowned Law and Med schools) don't get the same experience as students at other schools -- especially at Princeton where the undergraduates are the sole focus of the university, including all the Nobel-prize winning professors.</p>
<p>Professors rarely teach courses at Harvard College (trust me, I have both friends and family at Harvard College), and the undergrads are merely a sideshow compared to the huge professional schools that really bring value to the Harvard name.</p>
<p>So, I hope to open all your eyes and help you break off from Harvard College's misleading spell.</p>
<p>No matter what, I know that I will be going to Princeton (where I was accepted SCEA). Maybe if it is my fate, I will end up at Harvard for graduate school, which is what Harvard University is really about.</p>
<p>■■■■■. I don’t get it when people say this. The only Harvard grad school that even has the potential to compete with undergrads for professors/money is the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Med school, Law, Business, etc., are basically separate entities. They have separate endowments, so they certainly don’t really compete for money. The majority of undergrad classes are cross-listed with GSAS, so they’re somewhat close to being the same school. And NO GSAS student feels like he’s getting a better deal than the undergrads. No way - I’ve talked to soo many of them. </p>
<p>Harvard knows that its status as the most prestigious school in the country, if not the world, depends on its undergraduates. The differences between undergrad education “quality” among the Ivies is so subtle, subjective, and probably insignificant - maybe Princeton is the best fit for you, but don’t feel like you need to post a lengthy oration on why Harvard’s not that great after all. You’re only reinforcing the stereotype that Yale/Princeton students have an inferiority complex when it comes to Harvard.</p>
<p>Unfortunately ivymania is not a ■■■■■. S/he did get into Princeton SCEA and is now obsessed about why they think Princeton is better than any other school.</p>
<p>The reality though is that many professors at Princeton received their degrees from other universities – and they did just fine! (BTW: Many Harvard and Yale professors obtained their degrees elsewhere too, some of them I imagine went to Princeton – and some Princeton professors obtained their degrees from Harvard and Yale. Why ivymania cannot understand this, I have no idea.) </p>
<p>One college is not the “be all and end all” for everyone. Ivymania needs to grow up a little and stop dissing other institutions!</p>
<p>ivymania’s mania reminds me of how for a long time every Princeton alum I met felt compelled to tell me how George Shultz had a tiger tattooed on his posterior;is this information included in some sort of list of essential Princeton trivia issued to every accepted student?</p>
<p>Enjoy Princeton, ivymania; take some time while you are there to grow up and to get over yourself.</p>
<p>^^ The best way to deal with a fanatic is to not engage them. As ridethewave said, ivymania needs to take the time to grow up and put things into perspective.</p>
The sole focus of Princeton University professors, and Harvard University professors, and all other academics, is research. Students in general are merely a sideshow – there’s no meaningful difference between undergrads and grad students in this regard.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong: you can have meaningful, career-developing, life-changing relationships with professors at top research universities as an undergraduate. But don’t deceive yourself that you’re the focus of their lives, whether or not there also are top-notch graduate students around (many of whom are also more than happy to have meaningful, career-developing professional relationships with you). Their job is to produce world-changing research. You are the sideshow at Princeton just as you are the sideshow at Harvard.</p>
<p>While Harvard may have once been your dream, it seems to me they dodged a bullet on you. Well, I guess. I mean, it’s not like you would have automatically been admitted. Harvard is more selective. ;)</p>
<p>This has to be some of the most ridiculous BS being spread on this forum. All my core curriculum courses (now Gen Ed) were taught by professors, every course in my secondary field was lectured by either a full professor or tenure track professor in FAS or one of the professional schools, and 7 out of my 12 or so courses in my major field was taught by experts in their fields. The intro course was indeed taught by a non-tenured faculty member, but this was an anomaly–this particular faculty member won more undergrad teaching awards than the rest of the department combined. </p>
<p>The sophomore tutorial was the only other course taken by a non-tenured professor, but he was a post-doc, and he landed a gig as an assistant professor at another peer university the following year. Hardly disqualifying.</p>
<p>Please don’t start with how ‘sections’ are not run by professors. Name me some non-LAC universities where the majority of sections/recitation/discussion sections are conducted by the lecturing professor and I have a bridge to sell you.</p>
<p>“Professors rarely teach courses at Harvard College , fairly true”</p>
<p>My son took four courses last semester. Each one was taught by a (or in one course, by two) professor(s). In his case, all his professors were actually tenured. A fifth course that he dropped was mostly taught by a teaching fellow, but still overseen by a tenured professor.</p>
<p>His physics course was actually taught by two professors, one, a senior faculty member, one of the top folks in his field. The other was a younger guy who’d been tenured at a rather tender age, and is considered an up-and-coming star.</p>
<p>In the classes where he went to office hours, he found professors available, approachable, congenial, and actually helpful. In fact, he commented to me that in one class, he’d wished he’d gone to office hours earlier in the semester, as the professor was absolutely great one-on-one.</p>
<p>Nearly all the courses taken by my son’s roommates were taught by professors.</p>
<p>Don’t know where you got your information. Maybe a parallel universe?</p>
<p>“Unfortunately ivymania is not a ■■■■■. S/he did get into Princeton SCEA”</p>
<p>How is this inconsistent with being a ■■■■■? Even if true – which we do not know – a ■■■■■ is anyone pointlessly stirring up trouble online. I see a ■■■■■.</p>
<p>Lol at how much you harvard accepted kids gloat. You’ll cry and moan and say you’re doing no such thing but that comment about how Harvard is more selective than Princeton? Wow. I want to go to Harvard but other than the fact i probably wouldn’t get in, i’d have to deal with hundreds of kids who were told nothing short of “you’re amazing! you’re the best” for the entirety of their short lives. </p>