@Dolemite - dook. Finally a CC poster who spells it right! 
Go Heels!
"I bet you you could impress just as many employers and people by mentioning you got accepted at Harvard "
Sorry, I disagree. That would be obnoxious. Tough to slip into conversation without sounding like a jerk. Don’t do this.
I knew a girl in the UK who turned down a spot at Cambridge to attend a redbrick. She came in for a lot of criticism from her friends and family, who couldn’t understand how she could turn it down. (Bear in mind in the UK you cannot apply to both Oxford and Cambridge in the same year, so she didn’t have a same-level alternative). She just didn’t want the pressure, and she candidly admitted that she didn’t want to be just average at university after having been top of the class her entire life. Name prestige is not for everyone.
Still, as others have said, plenty of time to make a decision.
“what should I do ? my family has pretty much already bought me Harvard merch.” Did they save the receipts ?
@Happytimes2001 Even Harvard makes more offers than they expect students will accept. The OP turning down their acceptance does not get someone off the waitlist.
OP, are you able to keep applying to other places (will your parents support that)? I’d say you should put in other apps, and try to go to your top 2 other schools and Harvard’s accepted student visits before making up your mind. You might find that the other schools don’t seem better once you do overnight accepted visits. Or that your H visit before was shaded by your sib’s friends or the time of year. Or you may change a bit between now and May. Keep an open mind about H (and you will fight less with your family if you just keep the mantra “I like H, but I want to weigh my options fully before deciding”).
And you can still wear Harvard merch. My kid still wears UChicago gear that the school sent, even though she turned them down for another school.
Do you have an idea what you want to major in? While I don’t know your gender, Harvard has small female populations in math and physics for instance, so if I was female I would not go to Harvard for STEM. Its still rather male dominated in math and the sciences. Harvard’s math concentrators: 40 boys and only 4 girls recent years.
Time will change that, stay tuned, but for now Harvard is still male dominated for some majors.
Pluses for Harvard science and math majors --cross registration with MIT and easy access to MIT labs. There are joint Harvard and MIT labs in Kendall Square and Mass Ave. Harvard physics and math students work extremely hard.
If you want to enter politics, is a reason to choose Harvard. You will be exposed to heads of state’s children who are worldly, and the connections are good. A Harvard education lead to political appointment in both political parties.
Journalism and writing for the Crimson is also a reason to consider Harvard, although the other schools you mention will have good writing education as well.
If you want to go to law school later, Harvard is a good undergraduate option. A limited number of Harvard undergrads get into Harvard Law as juniors, go work for two years and come back to Cambridge. You have to take
the LSAT early in junior year. However your other options may be equally good.
@circuitrider Stanford also has below par student advising. Its like they assume that students can figure it out,
and by and large they struggle at Stanford too. Its something elite colleges need to work on.
MIT provides UPOP a program for sophomores, to guide them in soft skills and in job skills, over their IAP period:
https://upop.mit.edu
UPOP hires in professional career coaches, and allows alumni to serve as guides too, as a volunteer activity. Alumni
must pay their own way back to Cambridge to participate. Its great for the students and offers a lot of mentorships.
Congrats on your Harvard acceptance! Their yield is around 80-84%, which means not everyone accepted to Harvard goes there. Start working on your RD apps to other schools on your list and see what happens. If you are fortunate enough to get accepted to Stanford and other schools. then make sure you visit, and then make your final decision by May 1st. Relax, you still have time.
“I visited and stayed there for a week I could not see myself being happy there”
If this was any other school, everybody on cc would be saying go elsewhere, but because it’s Harvard, people are trying to rationalize this and discount the OP’s experience there. OP, go with you gut, if you can’t see yourself being happy there, don’t go, unless it’s your only choice (but I’d be surprised if it was). Good luck!
“OTOH, I don’t think Harvard gets nearly enough credit for how hard its students work and the level of true intellectual satisfaction possible there”
Not sure if serious, Harvard is considered one of the most intellectual campuses in the country, if not the world.
I only think they were referring to the old adage that it’s much harder to get in than to stay. No one fails out as a rule. and they work hard to get everyone through. But I think that is more the quality of the students than the lack of rigor. But Chicago cal tech mit level, in terms of being a grind and culturally encouraged to be that way. I just don’t think Harvard operates like that.
Yes, but deserved or not, Harvard also has a reputation for rampant grade inflation; a place full of people who are only taking classes long enough to score another gig (e.g., Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg); and a place where anyone who can help them beat Yale can be reasonably accommodated.
Many H students scam nothing. But if OP doesn’t feel the vibe, he doesn’t feel it. We should only be concerned that he’s being realistic, not letting emtions or usual senior year fears get the best of him.
Let the prestige aspects go. This is a funny contrast to the usual advice not to be prestige hounds. I don’t think he wants to be “sold” on H. Rather, help being comfortable with his own next decisions.
10 days to finalize his choices and verify the parents will support them, then do the best on those apps/supps.
There are definitely reasons not to go to Harvard. I attended Penn long ago and the student counseling was terrible. I do not think that that has changed. Ivies view it as sink or swim. The Ivies can be very institutional and impersonal.
The most important thing you can get out of undergraduate education are connections and mentorship by professors. You will probably never see your professors at Harvard outside of the class room. Also the ivies are focused on graduate school and undergraduate is an afterthought.
There is a good argument to go to undergraduate school at Rice or a liberal arts college and then go to graduate school at Harvard though the schools you mentioned are more school spirit schools and not small schools. Congratulations on your acceptance.
Don’t commit to a school for the price of a sweatshirt. See what else comes in from your RD applications. You’ve got what it takes to get into Harvard, I think you’ll do just fine wherever you land.
OP, check out
https://www.harvard.edu/about-harvard/harvard-glance
https://www.yale.edu/about-yale/yale-facts
https://www.princeton.edu/meet-princeton/facts-figures
https://www.upenn.edu/about/facts
https://www.brown.edu/admission/undergraduate/content/how-big-student-population-brown-university
https://www.cornell.edu/about/facts.cfm
https://provost.columbia.edu/sites/default/files/content/Institutional%20Research/Statistical%20Abstract/opir_enrollment_history_2017.pdf
https://home.dartmouth.edu/dartmouth-glance
and see how many undergraduate students are in each school. You are going to be an undergraduate there. Apply to the schools you think you like and see what happens. You have another three months to think about it after you submit all other applications.
If there are other schools that you might like to attend, apply. Then you will have no regrets. You can visit Harvard and the others you get in for accepted students days and compare them head to head and decide by May 1. Fit and happiness are the most important things.
Since the OP has already secured a spot at Harvard, he/she’d need to apply RD to a very selective list of schools if so desired, i.e., it’s not a huge task with accompanying stress. My son’s two best friends in high school were accepted to Harvard and Yale SCEA where their college admission journeys came to an end. No more stress after December and they just soaked in all the admiration, envy, praises and adulation for the rest of their remaining high school careers. One thing both have in common, however, was this nagging thought : “what other top colleges could I have been admitted to if I had applied to those colleges in the RD round?” That question, however innocuous or insignificant, would remain in their minds for the rest of their lives. No big deal, of course, but the thought would pop up here and there for as long as they live.
So, to the OP: go ahead and apply very selectively to a few colleges that you think you’d be better off at, whatever they may be, and make the decision once all the dusts have been settled. If you’re “nervous” about attending Harvard simply because you’re feeling intimidated, then rest assured that Harvard or any other top colleges would not admit anyone that their AdComs don’t feel you can handle the required work. Another good friend of my son was accepted to Harvard after her older sister, both legacy cases, and her academic stats were hardly “Harvard material” by anyone’s standard or imagination. Guess what, though? She’s surviving just fine. Remember, too, that going over to what you think is the greener pasture on the other side of the fence might not be easier, happier or more fulfilling. In other words, be very very careful with what you wish for.
Not sure why post #34 has links for you to compare only Ivy League Colleges. As OP mentioned, there are many great colleges out there for people who can look beyond the label. And as someone who is intelligent, self-aware and apparently not blinded by old people’s ideas of prestige… OP is smart to look at where he will fit and thrive. That might even be one of those non-Ivies like Stanford or Duke, so clutch your pearls, grandma.
What OP said:
wondering if I would be happier at a school like Duke, unc chapel hill, or Stanford, and if I should apply. people tell me I would be crazy (insaneee) to turn harvard down. but, i dont know, the prestige doesnt call to me in the slightest. i just want to have a challenging yet joyful college experience.
So why push him right back at H or other Ivies?
Go to a place where you feel comfortable and makes you happier. Four years is a long time for you.