Please, only respond if you went somewhere else. Don’t use this thread to defend Harvard: it doesn’t need any help. 
Some Data points
University of Texas (personal choice)
Rice University (personal choice)
Stanford University (personal choice)
Thanks @texaspg, but this isn’t a hypothetical question… Did you in fact turn Harvard down for one of those schools? If so, which one?
Are you interested in “almost turned down” Harvard?
@notjoe Not really. Harvard has a yield over 80%. I’m interested in what the other 20ish% decided to do.
@DavidSonDaughter,
Precisely because of the high yield, I thought you might be interested in the “almost” cases, as you’re unlikely to readily find large numbers of actual decline.
I think I’m going to follow this thread. It’s an interesting question.
- Yale
- Because Yale is more prestigious within the environments in which I live, the campus culture is much better, and it is the best school in the world for politics.
2 friends of my S’s, first went to University of Pittsburgh with a full ride scholarship, and second went to a small Christian college with a full ride scholarship( also because majority of his family also went there). Second is currently attending Harvard Law.
My highly researched, scientific working model (aka, the “gut tells me” model) for this question is below. Keep your answers coming! :
Harvard – 80%
Other – 20%, as follows:
**Ivy League -- 4%**
Yale -- 1.5%
Princeton -- 1%
Other Ivy -- 1.5%
**Stanford -- 1.5%**
**Tech Schools -- 3.5%**
MIT -- 2%
Other Tech -- 1.5%
**LACs -- 3%**
Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst -- 1%
Other LACs -- 2%
**Service Academies -- 0.5%**
**Music, art, and other specialty schools -- 0.5%**
**All other schools -- 5%**
**Something really different -- 2%**
For Stanford, there are only four schools that cross-admits choose in significant numbers (more than 10% of cross-admits choosing the other school) - Harvard, Yale, Princeton and MIT.
I don’t know for Harvard but if I had to bet, I would say it’s the same - Stanford, Yale, Princeton, MIT.
You might be interested in this Yale Daily News article on Harvard/Yale cross-admits:
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2010/09/21/harvardyale-cross-admits-explain-their-decisions/
Yup. HYPSM.
I got into Harvard but turned it down to go to Yale because I like the people and the atmosphere a lot better.
It was not a hypothetical answer, they are actual data points. Those kids actually chose those schools over Harvard. I am not going to provide their reasons because it is personal for them and the reasons need not be disected on CC.
There is a 50:50 split between Harvard and Stanford cross admits based on numbers put out by Stanford dean of admissions for 2014. If I remember correctly the cross admits exceed 100 and so you have already hit 5% with Stanford.
@Planner The Yale newspaper on the Harvard-Yale cross-admits was very informative and was very well written for a college newspaper. I am impressed that they did interviews with students and administrators at both Harvard and Yale, and it was written very professionally. Given the Harvard-Yale rivalry, it is surprisingly unbiased when discussing reasons for going to both universities. As someone that has spent six years working in journalism publications, I say kudos.
@texaspg where did you find the cross admit ratio/data? I’ve been looking for it but can’t seem to find it
This assumes that none of those getting in to both Harvard and Stanford decides to go somewhere else entirely. Besides, the number admitted to Harvard is about 2,000 (https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics) each year. Even if 50 went to Stanford, that would 2.5%.
But I’ll revise a bit:
Harvard – 80%
Other – 20%, as follows:
Ivy League – 4.5%
Yale – 2%
Princeton – 1.5%
Other Ivy – 1%
Stanford – 2%
Tech Schools – 3%
MIT – 2%
Other Tech – 1%
LACs – 2.5%
Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst – 1%
Other LACs – 1.5%
Service Academies – 0.5%
Music, art, and other specialty schools – 0.5%
All other schools – 5%
Something really different – 2%
Harvard 58: Stanford 42 and 214 cross-admits, presumably. It seems like a trivial correction, but Harvard “won” the same percentage of cross-admits from Stanford last year that Stanford won from Yale, and I have a feeling that you would not say that Stanford splits cross-admits 50:50 with Yale.
@caliamy19 https://stanford.app.box.com/s/y4abufqg66nte7uax6eq
My son got into Harvard and turned it down for Columbia (personal reasons). He knows a couple of his classmates at Columbia who also got into Harvard and chose Columbia instead - and it’s not as though he goes around asking people about it (or that he knows everyone in his class), so I’m sure there are more. He also has a friend who turned down Harvard for a top music school. During his Harvard admitted student weekend, I heard about an admitted student who was seriously considering turning down Harvard for clown school, but my understanding is that said student ended up going to Harvard, so that doesn’t count.
@DavidSonDaughter, your “gut tells me” model strikes me as a pretty good guess.
Probably not ( 
) and thanks for finding the document.
That is faulty logic. They track those too.
If the cross admits are 214 and 42% chose to attend Stanford, then Harvard effectively lost 89 students out of 2000+ they admitted which translates to 4.5% of the total.