<p>Voldemort? is he anti-ivy?</p>
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Drosselmeier, all this time I never knew you had a D at Princeton too. I am so glad to hear she likes it there.
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Loves it, Alu. She positively loves it. I will say there is one negative thing about Princeton that she has discovered. If given any chance at all, folks there will steal your bike. LOL. She had this great bike. Cost her about $275 bucks, which for us is just an epic lot of money. But she bought it, knowing it was solid and would help her jet from place to place. All went well until just about a day ago when she came out to ride to her next class and found someone had actually cut her cable and taken the whole bike. She took it as a sign that she needs better aerobic conditioning, especially considering she is trying to contribute to her team in a brand new sport. So now she runs from one side of the campus to the other constantly.</p>
<p>Mess happens, and somehow she just keeps moving forward as if it doesn't matter. I, on the other hand, am brooding about it, wondering how fast I might save enough to replace it for her. She doesn't even care! Crazy kid. haha.</p>
<p>Hey D, I'm so sad to hear this. My own has experienced such safety & trust there -- with nothing stolen so far. (But OTOH she has no bike!)
:(</p>
<p>Oh. It's no big deal. Just a bike. My kid actually said she wishes she could give the person who took the bike the tire pump that she has in her room, since the pump will no longer do her any good. So, if it doesn't bother her, it ought not bother me. It just does. But I'm almost over it. It is really nothing negative against Princeton. Just someone there who REALLY wanted a bike, I guess.</p>
<p>Bike stealing at Stanford is so prevalent they write about it in the newspaper. Most kids at Princeton, unless they live in Forbes and take classes in the Engineering Quad, don't really really need bikes so there aren't so many of them. Still, no excuse for taking your D's cool bike. Glad she is otherwise happy.</p>
<p>I had our bikes mounted on the car bike rack, was filling the waterbottles, ready for the happy day on the hills and went out to find the new bike stolen...an empty space where it had just been. I still cruise around looking for it under some person who will have some fast explaining to do before the police haul me off to jail. However, shortly thereafter I rented famous Italian cinema masterpiece The Bicycle Thief(which I believe is a poor translation of the title) and that put the ordeal in perspective. Still, someone's riding around ringing my Grandpa Munster bell who the giver said I resembled. Grandpa Al Lewis, R.I.P.</p>
<p>Regarding all the hypothetical "anti-Semitism" at P:</p>
<p>Check out the academic calendars. Christians get exactly one in-term holiday (Good Friday). The other "holiday" (Christmas) occurs during the break or on a Sunday (Easter). Jews get the major High Holiday observances -- noted on weekends when they occur then, honored on weekdays when they occur then. That's often 4 days, btw, during the term -- taken as Academic Holidays. Muslims similarly get their major days.</p>
<p>Whoever keeps getting pleasure out of bashing P needs to update their various calendars to the 21st century. Anything else is not honest to the parents and students asking genuine questions about now, today, 2007.</p>
<p>Just for the heck of it: pick Harvard. Why? Best international reputation. Coolest location.</p>
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Now, I have checked with my kid often on this stuff. I am ALWAYS checking to see if the alleged Snobs of Princeton are gonna hunt down and hurt my kid. Here we are, poor by any general American standard, rich by our own standard, and with kids sitting smack dab in the middle of all those rich folks. So how is it going? Maybe there are economic snobs at Princeton. My kid reports she has never encountered them.
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Drosselmeier, I could write this myself (if I could write so well, that is). DS is white and male, but other than that... </p>
<p>I recall all those discussions from previous years (about poor kids who can't fit with their rich peers in Ivies, and how miserable they are supposed to be) - and I was trying to understand, are my kids so "special" that they just don't feel it? do not see the snobs lurking around them? I don't think so, not after meeting their friends. And not after reading your post and the posts of other parents here.</p>
<p>About the bike... My DH had two bikes stolen - one after another (we live in Pton township). After that, I told DS to get a U-lock for his. I believe he does not use the lock too often, though... It looks like only the best and newest bikes are getting stolen. DH's bikes were $150 Schwinns (from Walmart, but still nice and shiny Schwinns), and they seemed to be the best bikes among those chained to the bike racks next to our apartment building. Well, they were the most shiny of all, for sure. I think about buying the next bike used (and/or painting it so that it would not look new).</p>
<p>actually, atleast at princeton, no one gets any religious holidays off. (other than I suppose christmas, which is during winter break). Class on rosh hashanah, yom kippur, good friday, etc. That doesnt mean that the individual class may not get cancelled due to the professor, but technically we do have class. The only holiday that we get off all year is thanksgiving. (we have class on presidents day too).</p>
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Glad she is otherwise happy.
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She loves it. Absolutely loves it. The problem with the bike isn't even hers. She's fine with it. I'm the one steaming, and even that is pretty much over. LOL</p>
<p>Love the idea about buying a jalopy bike that no one wants to steal. Shoulda thought of that. I'm on it. THANks so much marmat...</p>
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Agree. D has to visit. However, I disagree with bandit. D visited Y and H and got two very distinct feelings. Felt at home at Y, and felt cold at H. Depends on the kid. Also she attended competitions at H the last 2 years, and says the feel hasn't changed. So please make sure your D visits. She may feel differently. The "fit" argument really comes into play here.
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I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I said. In our case, it came out the opposite. The 6 girls she stayed with at H adopted her for the days she was there, took her to several cool events that roommates were participating in, dressed her when she didn't have outfits for some of them, etc. </p>
<p>At Yale, her most vivid memory was of Harvard bashing during Bulldog Days, a real chip on the shoulder in her words. This was after pursuing Yale completely for a year including SCEA. As much as they are alike, and they are in many ways, they will feel different to different people. Isn't it wonderful to have that amazing choice. I still morn for her Yale choice a little bit. </p>
<p>Harvard Housing Day videos ---
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npNM6MluKO0%5B/url%5D">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npNM6MluKO0</a>
2007 Housing Day mistaken for war protest :)
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PAc5OGr7Z8%5B/url%5D">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PAc5OGr7Z8</a></p>
<p>Just took S and his roommate for lunch today. I asked about competitiveness.
Roomie (bio major) said he has not felt it. His bro at a UC, however, reported a very competitive atmosphere in his bio classes owing to lots of pre-med majors. S said he's sure there are competitive folks at Harvard (there are lots of pre-med majors there, too!), but you just avoid them. Roomie has heard that econ majors are competitive. </p>
<p>If you go to Harvard for competitions, you'll find lots of competitive people. Duh. Some of them may even be attending Harvard.</p>
<p>"Just took S and his roommate for lunch today"</p>
<p>The advantages of living in same zip code. How I envy you.</p>
<p>For what it's worth, I had my bike (a $100 Giant) stolen in Cambridge last summer...</p>
<p>Also, with regards to Harvard debate being underfunded... there's an interesting story there. Harvard Policy Debate has an enormous endowment, thanks to this HS tournament they host each year. Harvard Parliamentarian Debate is underfunded, because when it split off from the Policy club, it agreed to a clause in its constitution forbidding it from hosting a tournament. Still, my roommate did parli freshman year, and it seemed like they were always begging him to come to tournaments (although, he was quite good).</p>
<p>This thread is incredible... Maybe I need to hang out in the Parents' forum more often. Will keep an eye out for our favorite Harvard/Michigan alum around Cambridge!</p>
<p>Re: The students and atmosphere at Harvard: </p>
<p>Last year another CC parent had a D who was choosing between Harvard and other selective colleges to which she had been admitted and was doing overnights to help her decide. Due to some mix-up at Harvard, the D found herself without a host student and wandering around campus alone on a Sunday. Hearing of the daughter's plight, the parent turned to me and another CC Harvard parent for help. I called my D to explain the situtation and the women of Winthrop House went into gear immediately. D went out and found the girl just as she was concluding a personal guided tour of campus given by the other CC parent's D. My D and her roommates then took the girl in and included her in dinner and all their activities with other friends (boys from another House) for the rest of the evening.</p>
<p>Long story short, the young woman chose Harvard but was still filled with a lot of suspicion that the fun and friendly Harvard women she had met were a fluke and not a representative sample of the cold, competitive, and aloof people that Harvard was supposed to be full of. One year later the parent reports that the D loves Harvard and has tons of close friends. And the friendliness and kindness she was shown that day last year is much more the norm at Harvard than is the commonly repeated stereotype.</p>
<p>Different topic:
I wouldn't avoid Princeton on the basis of stolen bikes. At my alma mater, UC Davis, there are literally more bikes per capita than any other college. And I think it's safe to say that there are more bike thefts as well. It was rare to go all four years without getting at least one bike stolen. Nevertheless, Davis was not a particularly dangerous town. Supposedly there were out-of-town gangs of bike thieves that would sweep through town. </p>
<p>I managed to keep my bike from getting stolen by junking it up. It was decent 10-speed, but I put clunky, unsexy fenders on it and cheap, ragged handlebar tape, etc. All to make it look not worth stealing. Seems to have worked. If the only reservation someone has about Princeton is that bikes get stolen, I'd say go ahead and GO.</p>
<p>The advice here is really wonderful.....it is, after all, a 4 yr experience for your child....I can only add that an additional consideration might be their plans for additional degrees later in life. If, for example, they absolutely know they want to go to Harvard Law School, then they might want to give more serious consideration to attending Y or P just for geographic diversity. </p>
<p>My S is at Yale and the academic calendar is defintely preferable to the P one...one of his good friends is at P and wishes his exams were before the holidays and not after. </p>
<p>There are some incredible traditions at these schools....wonderful history... for instance, Yale and Harvard have track meets every 2 yrs against Cambridge and Oxford. Here in the states at Y, then in England, then here at H, then in England again. </p>
<p>I say listen to your child as they gather their data...and realize where they see themselves. Be a sounding board...not an answer board....and your child will own their decision. All great choices...congratulations...</p>
<p>I found the extra long reading period at Harvard made the exam schedule quite nice. I rarely did much over winter break except catch up on reading for lit courses. But I had friends who had papers due the first day of reading period.</p>
<p>In my dream world, Harvard would start about three weeks earlier, and have a week long Thanksgiving break. Exams (with the current reading period) would fall before a combined winter break/intersession. Love reading period, but hate the short Thanskgiving/Winter breaks!</p>
<p>I think the most recent pages of this thread are notable. Not because the information is so salient (nope, I am not going to Princeton because of the bike theft issue) or even because of the dilemma of the OP which is rare (though there are a few others out there on CC with a similar issue, even in the peak BB year).More so, because of the self congratulatory spirit of being able to have a conversation about the 3 most well known highly ranked universities in the country without a negative spin. </p>
<p>All the fine tuning of all the teasing out of all the variations on a singular theme. In truth, the most signficant factor will likely be the students a student meets at the Accepted Students Weekend.</p>
<p>Furthermore, it is notable that there is a clubby thing going on as well(club of parents of elite-school-attending-students). I especially like the comment about selecting a college so that it doesn't interfere with your 'rounding' experience when you go to Harvard Law School. I believe in some parts of the universe that would be considered putting a large cart in front of a horse.</p>