<p>I'm hoping someone can help me--I've been admitted to Harvard, Yale, Georgetown, Amherst, and Swarthmore as a transfer student for next year. I've narrowed my choices down to Harvard and Swarthmore, but I'm having trouble deciding between the two. </p>
<p>On the one hand, I think Swarthmore is a better fit for me in terms of culture and location. I like that it has a reputation for being laid back yet academically rigorous, and living next to an arboretum would be awesome (plus I hear the food is good).</p>
<p>But on the other hand, Harvard has some pretty incredible faculty and resources. Both Lisa Randall and Briane Greene did their undergrad work there, and Randall now teaches there. (They're physicists, by the way--I'm doing a physics/english double major.) Plus, whether or not it's as nurturing of its undergrads as Swarthmore, Harvard is obviously still a great school, and, though I try to keep the big-name factor out of my head, it would be an incredibly nice gift I could give to my mother. I know most people would say, as would she, "do what's right for you," but she's had a pretty hard life and sacrificed a lot for her kids--I mean she grew up on dirt floors, you know? She's in really poor health, and I'd love it if she could say, "my son goes to Harvard" while she still can.</p>
<p>harvard, dont listen to the rest of these kids on the board who will say take what you want over harvard, these kids have never been accepted and their opinions are worth nothing</p>
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it would be an incredibly nice gift I could give to my mother
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<p>The best gift you could give your mother is to attend the school where you would happiest and do well there. Trust me, she would take no joy in you saying you are at Harvard if you hated it and was not a good fit for you.,</p>
<p>"I like that it has a reputation for being laid back yet academically rigorous,"</p>
<p>The average GPA at Harvard is something like a 3.5. The great majority graduate with honors. It almost seems like you have to try in order to <em>not</em> get into a good grad school or land a good job. now how can this be a stressful academic environemnt?</p>
<p>"and living next to an arboretum would be awesome "</p>
<p>Boston/Cambridge over south Philly. Harvard isn't a truly gorgeous east coast campus like say Princeton, but it has a lot of character and aura, like an old lady that has aged gracefully. No arboretums, but lots of other local venues, like weekend trips to Cape Cod.</p>
<p>(plus I hear the food is good)</p>
<p>You'll eat very well in cambridge/Boston.</p>
<p>Harvard not as nurturing? nurturing is for house plants, and you as someone coming from a very modest background can thrive in a less coddled environment.</p>
<p>well, vicfromqueens, what is your long-term goal? An undergrad degree won't get you much anymore. Swat seems to provide better support for getting into PhD programs. Harvard is not THAT easy of a place, the average GPA is high but students work fairly hard too. The Boalt law school ranked schools in terms of difficulty to make certain grades, with higher scores meaning harder. Elite schools were generally 80-89.5. Harvard was 86 and Swarthmore was 89.5. Go where you'll do best, but hopefully you'll manage to enjoy yourself at either.</p>
<p>Since you mentioned the arboretum (got a chuckle over the South Philly comment....Swarthmore is as much like South Philly as Beverly Hills is like South Central LA)----remember the trees will be bare from early Nov. till late April which is much of the school year. (of course you wouldn't make your decision based on that anyway:). </p>
<p>Swarthmore's campus imo is much prettier than Harvard....still H is hard for anyone to turn down. How come you eliminated Yale (am guessing because of the physics)?</p>
<p>I think Harvard is the choice - Swat will actually be much more difficult academically. Outside Harvard I would look to Yale, in fact given these choices that is where I would go.</p>
<p>basically, if harvard didnt have the name, would you still be having this dilemma? it sounds like you really really like swarthmore, and are only hemming and hawing because of the name Harvard. in academic circles the two schools carry the same prestige, regardless of what the high schoolers on this board say.</p>
<p>If you're smart enough to get in those places, you should be smart enough to know that your only choice is between Harvard and Yale, which is a choice the smartest kids in the country would have been thrilled to make since before this even was a country.</p>
<p>Ecape's ranking is talking about the Boalt law schools 1997 internal memo for weighting GPAs (or deflating GPAs) talking about difficulty to get an A.</p>
<p>Swarthmore 89.5
Williams 89.0
Duke 88.5
Carleton 88.0
Colgate 88.0
J. Hopkins 87.5
Chicago 87.0
Dartmouth 87.0
Wesleyan 87.0
Cornell 86.5
Harvard 86.5
Middlebury 86.0
Princeton 86.0
Bates 85.5
MIT 85.5
Haverford 85.0
Pomona 85.0
Virginia 85.0
Amherst 84.5
Reed 84.5
Vanderbilt 84.5
Wm & Mary 84.5
Bowdoin 83.5
Tufts 83.5
Vassar 83.5
Bryn Mawr 83.0
Hamilton 83.0
Oberlin 83.0
Rice 83.0
U. Pennsylvania 83.0
Clrmt. McK. 82.5
Yale 82.5
Brandeis 82.0
Northwestern 82.0
Colby 81.5
Michigan 81.5
Notre Dame 81.5
Wash. U. 81.0
Barnard 80.5
Columbia 80.5
Stanford 80.5
Brown 80.0
Georgetown 80.0
Smith 80.0
Wellesley 80.0
Emory 79.5
U. North Carolina 79.5
Whitman C. 79.5
Rochester 79.0
UC Berkeley 78.5
UC San Diego 78.5
Illinois 78.0
SUNY Bing 78.0
Texas 78.0
Trinity U. 77.5
Boston College 77.0
UC S. Barbara 77.0
Wisconsin 77.0
Florida 76.5
U. Washington 76.5
Santa Clara 76.0
Geo. Wash. 75.5
UC Davis 75.5
UCLA 75.5
Colorado 75.0
Michigan State 75.0
Boston University 74.5
Cal Poly SLO 74.5
Massachusetts 74.0
Penn State 74.0
Iowa 73.5
Purdue 73.5
SMU 73.5
SUNY Albany 73.5
BYU 73.0
Minnesota 73.0
Ohio State 73.0
Oregon 73.0
UC Irvine 73.0
Indiana 72.5
NYU 72.0
SUNY Buff 72.0
SUNY Stony 72.0
Mills 71.5
American 71.0
Arizona 71.0
Loyola Mary. 71.0
Maryland 71.0
Fordham 70.5
Kansas 70.0
Syracuse 70.0
USC 70.0
Arizona St. 69.5
CS San Diego 69.5
Catholic U. 69.5
Oklahoma 69.5
Pacific 69.5
Hofstra 69.0
UC Riverside 68.5
Utah 68.5
CS Chico 68.5
Miami 68.0
New Mexico 68.0
San Diego 68.0
CS Northridge 67.0
Pepperdine 67.0
CS San Fran. 66.0
CS Sacramento 65.0
Hawaii 64.5
Denver 63.5
CS Fullerton 63.0
CS Hayward 63.0
CS Long Beach 63.0
CS San Jose 63.0
CS Fresno 62.5
St. Mary's 61.5
CCNY 59.0
CS LA 58.5
Howard 57.5
San Francisco 57.5</p>
<p>TourGuide, I think your statement is pretty naive. All of the schools that he has gotten into are amazing. However, to say that his only choice is between Harvard and Yale is ridiculous. I, personally, would not be caught dead at Harvard. From what I've heard the students at Swarthmore work harder than those at the top Ivy league schools. Also many kids turn down Ivy's for schools of the caliber of Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore. Getting into school is about fit, not rankings. As long as we're talking about stupid comments though what does this even mean, "a choice the smartest kids in the country would have been thrilled to make since before this even was a country."</p>
<p>Vicfromqueens, it seems from your post that you like Swarthmore more. Like I said above though, your decision really should be about fit. You should really strip everything away from the problem except for the part about where you'll be happier</p>
<p>I spent a lot of my youth running around Williams College, so I don't need a lecture on the glories of top LACs. Country club studs and and trust-fund princesses can afford to take the less-obvious path and still do well when they inherit the family fortune. Vic is fighting all the odds and should take advantage of this one-in-a-million chance to grab one of the 2 biggest brass rings at the circus.</p>
<p>And nicks, if you can't figure out what that sentence means, you shouldn't be giving anybody any advice on colleges.</p>
<p>"Country club studs and trust-fund princesses can afford to take the less-obvious path and still do well when they inherit the family fortune." Wow. Yes you're obviously right, no one who goes to Williams can possibly succeed without their father's money. The fact is people who go to these schools are successful. They can, and do, get into graduate schools such as Harvard and Yale. Besides, much of the time it's the graduate programs for which these schools are known, not the undergraduate.</p>
<p>You are right though, if all someone cares about is making good connections regardless of how good a match the school is for them then yes choose Harvard. I'm not saying that they aren't good schools just that people might have a better experience elsewhere. It's easy to be successful from either school so it shouldn't really be too big a part of the decision.</p>
<p>Your "sentence" is stupid. Yes, it is probably true that when there were only the Ivy League schools people would have sold their souls to get in but it's not quite the case today in case you hadn't noticed. There are, in fact, "several" top universities at which people can get educations that are at least as good as those at Yale or Harvard. So, to say that the choice between Harvard and Yale is his only choice makes no sense.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, you are asking total strangers to help make a very personal decision. It sounds to me like you already have a pretty good handle on the relative merits of Swarthmore and Harvard. Obviously, Harvard has more brand-name recognition. Obviously, Swarthmore offers a more boutique-scale, interactive undergrad experience (just ask ex-Harvard Pres. Larry Summers who reportedly told two undergrads that, if they had wanted interaction with faculty, they should have gone to Amherst or Swarthmore).</p>
<p>My immediate family members are very familiar with both schools. I could tell you why we would pick one over the other, but it would be presumptious to tell you which one to pick.</p>
<p>To me it sounds like you prefer Swarthmore and are mainly considering Harvard for the name (and a couple choice professors)... just remember that for Grad school etc Swarthmore holds basically equal name rec to Harvard even if joe blow might not have heard of it.</p>