I regret my decision to enroll at H

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
21

<p>...and Harvard biology is larger than MIT biology to an absolutely absurd degree. I'm not even going to count the number of life sciences faculty members at Harvard. I think they told us that we could rotate through/join several hundred different life sciences labs at Harvard -- MIT's life sciences faculty is significantly smaller. Harvard has a giant medical school. </p>

<p>I count 22 Harvard chemistry faculty members and 34 MIT chemistry faculty members. That's roughly the same size -- and I only counted the Harvard CCB faculty, not the chemical biology and chemical physics faculty. I probably should have counted them too, considering that MIT's chemistry department includes physical chemists and biochemists.</p>

<p>In physics, the Harvard faculty is larger than the MIT faculty -- about 100 professors at Harvard, about 85 at MIT.</p>

<p>And please note that I said science faculty -- nobody was talking about engineering.</p>

22

<p>Oh, Boohoo, you have to go to Harvard. How sad.</p>

<p>Ok I'm just kidding. Don't worry about it. There's always grad school!</p>

23

<p>Here are the list of MIT physics professors</p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/physics/facultyandstaff/faculty/faculty_alpha_listing.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/physics/facultyandstaff/faculty/faculty_alpha_listing.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Plus there are more Physics-related professors at Nuclear Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Aeronautics etc....</p>

<p>Here are Harvard Physics professors..
<a href="http://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/faculty.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.physics.harvard.edu/people/faculty.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Majority of Harvard & MIT professors got theirs PhDs from Harvard</p>

24

<p>No, all the MIT physics professors are listed. Those who have joint appointments in physics and another department are appropriately noted on the list of physics professors.</p>

<p>I counted from this</a> list, and I see that I must have double-counted some professors.</p>

25

<p>...and, of course, the appropriate response to my post #24 is "Well, you know she's a Harvard student now, because she can't count!"</p>

<p>Bada-bing.</p>

26

<p>As a Harvard grad who did not major in math, but had many friends who did, and found them interesting primarily for the breadth of their intellect, I urge you to reconsider and go to MIT.</p>

27

<p>
[quote]
I urge you to reconsider and go to MIT.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm very interested, why would you suggest that.</p>

28

<p>Loves math and science, pressured by parents, daunted by Harvard. He's going for the brand, not the experience. He's keeping out someone who loves math but wants to be exposed to more. Sounds like MIT. Should go there.</p>

29

<p>Oh I got ya, I thought you were just making a general statement. All good then.</p>

30

<p>Thank you, everyone who responded! I'm sorry if I made anyone unhappy with my comments, but, in general, your responses were very helpful.</p>

31

<p>Oh and Welthorpe, just fyi, I'm a girl. I hope this doesn't take away much from the post.</p>

32

<p>Harvard is still very strong in math, as many people have pointed out. If you're looking for a more liberal arts based college curriculum rather than narrow math and science, stick with Harvard.</p>

33

<p>As a Harvard student you may registrer for classes at MIT, enjoy the best of both worlds.</p>

34

<p>[mdx49] Before you use Putnam competition results as a measure to gauge the level of undergraduate Math programs, I caution you to read the warnings in the Wikipedia article (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowell_Putnam_Mathematical_Competition%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Lowell_Putnam_Mathematical_Competition&lt;/a&gt;) found in the Section "Teams ranked by historical performances". </p>

<p>Having said that, if I were a Math major (which I'm not), I'd pick both Harvard and Princeton over MIT for graduate studies in pure mathematics. For an undergrad (bachelor's) degree, I think the 3 are roughly equal, except that, at Princeton or Harvard, you probably have a wider selection of courses to choose from other departments (i.e. a more comprehensive LAC-type general education).</p>

35

<p>
[quote]
According to the Shanghai ranking of world universities, which is purely based on objective criteria, not surveys, MIT received a score of 66 on publication in Nature and Science (Harvard being 100), 73 on Nobel-Prize winning alumni (Harvard 100), 80 on Nobel Prize winning faculty (Harvard 100), 67 on highly cited researchers (Harvard 100), and 62 on Science Citation Index (Harvard 100).

[/quote]
</p>

<p>First off, these are not particularly 'objective' criteria. As has been stated by others, Harvard simply has more science profs than MIT does, particularly when you includes all of the profs at Harvard Medical School. </p>

<p>Harvard has also simply been an established research school for a lot longer time. MIT didn't become a true research school until WW2, and before that, MIT was basically just a trade school. Pre-war Harvard alumni would go on to win a slew of Nobels. Nobody disputes that Harvard was an unequivocally better science school than MIT was before WW2. But that's not particularly relevant today. For example, do you really think it's relevant to a modern comparison that Percy Bridgman, who won the Nobel in Physics, got his PhD from Harvard in 1910, back when MIT was still a small poverty-stricken trade school? Does that really matter today? That's almost a century ago. Yet Jiao Tong still credits that guy's Nobel in its methodology. Honestly, if you are trying to judge schools today, who really cares about what happened a century ago? It is true that 100 years ago, MIT's PhD programs weren't that good. But who cares about that these days? Are you going to choose not to go to a particular program today just because it was bad 100 years ago? </p>

<p>Another example is Economics. MIT didn't even have a PhD Economics program until 1941 and didn't grant graduate degrees of any kind until 1937. By that time, Harvard was already an established economics research powerhouse. For example, Wassily Leontief joined the Harvard Economics faculty in 1932 (and would later win the Nobel in Economics in 1973 for work he did at Harvard). He couldn't really have joined MIT because MIT didn't even really have a true research-oriented economics program at the time he was looking for a position. Similarly, Bertil Ohlin, winner of the Nobel in 1977, got his MA in Economics from Harvard in 1923, so he's considered a "Nobel-prize winning alumni". He couldn't have gotten his MA from MIT because, like I said, MIT didn't even offer graduate economics degrees. </p>

<p>So again, nobody disputes that Harvard had a better economics graduate program in the old days, for the simple reason that MIT didn't even have a grad econ program in the old days. But I fail to see why that is relevant to today. But Jiao Tong seems to think it is relevant. </p>

<p>Let's take a look at the "highly cited researcher" category of Jiao Tong. I got so curious about this that I investigated the methodology. As can be seen in the footnotes, Jiao Tong relies on the the Thompson Highly Cited website (<a href="http://www.isihighlycited.com)%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.isihighlycited.com)&lt;/a>. If you actually fool around on that website, you will see that "Harvard University" and "MIT" actually have the exact same number of highly cited profs - 73. </p>

<p>What puts Harvard over the top is that Harvard also includes categories such as "Harvard Medical School", "Harvard Law School", "Harvard School of Public Health", etc. You add up all of these people in addition to "Harvard University", and you get a number that is much larger than MIT. For example, "Harvard Medical School" alone has 47 highly cited researchers, which is almost 65% of the total for "Harvard University". But what does that really mean? All that really means is that Harvard has a bunch of professional schools (especially a medical school) that MIT doesn't have. Well, OF COURSE if you have a bunch of extra professional schools, you're going to get more cited. Basically, what it really means is that Jiao Tong is punishing MIT for not having a medical school or a public health school. </p>

<p><a href="http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2006/ARWU2006Methodology.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2006/ARWU2006Methodology.htm&lt;/a>
<a href="http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/browse_author.pl?link1=Browse&link2=Results&value=Harvard+Medical+School&submit=INSTITUTION&page=0%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://hcr3.isiknowledge.com/browse_author.pl?link1=Browse&link2=Results&value=Harvard+Medical+School&submit=INSTITUTION&page=0&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>So, really, there you have it. Nobody disputes that Harvard has been a major research school for a longer time, and started churning out Nobel Prize winners (alumni and faculty) long before MIT did. But that's not relevant to make a comparison RIGHT NOW. Furthermore, we all agree that Harvard is a better place to study medicine or public health, for the simple reason that MIT doesn't even have a medical school or public health school. So if you want to say that Harvard is better in the life sciences for that reason, well, then yeah, it's hard to dispute that. But I don't think that's what we're really talking about here. </p>

<p>The point is, in a fair apples-to-apples comparison, I don't see any reason to believe that either Harvard or MIT is really 'better' than the other in terms of science.</p>

36

<p><\quote>
Harvard simply has more science profs than MIT does, particularly when you includes all of the profs at Harvard Medical School.
<\quote></p>

<p>This is NOT TRUE.</p>

<p>If you think Harvard ranked higher simply because its bigger size, how can you explain that not even single one MIT alumni won Fields Medal, the most prestigious, the highest level mathematics award,EVEN THOUGH MIT MATH IS 8 TIMES BIGGER ? How can you explain that MIT ranked consistently below Harvard, Caltech & Princeton in Punam math competition EVEN THOUGH MIT math IS 8 TIMES BIGGER THAN HARVARD math (or Caltech or Princeton )? </p>

<p>MIT chemistry is twice bigger than Harvard, MIT physics is three times bigger,yet substantially more Harvard alumni got Nobel prize in Physics and Chemistry. Three of most recent nobel prize in Physics and Chemistry are Harvard Alumnus. If you want include profs at Harvard Medical School, then you should include profs at MIT engineering school, which is bigger than HMS.
since some of the MIT engineering alumnus won Nobels and most engineerng profs are actively involved in scientific research ....</p>

<p>
MIT didn't become a true research school until WW2, and before that,
</p>

<p>There were about 2-3 Harvard alumni who won Nobel. Majority of NObel winners were from European school before WW2. How can you explain the 3 Harvard alumni who got Nobel Physics & Chem. I think NO MIT alumnus got Nobel recently ? More than 30 Harvard Alumnus got Nobel in science after WW2 and about 10 MIT science alumnus got Nobel after WW2....</p>

37

<p>Love how you're leaving out the individuals to whom the Nobels were awarded. They don't account for something, right?</p>

38

<p>You can cross-enroll with MIT...and from what my friends (all premed, physics, etc.) say, the only area in which MIT is superior is engineering. Don't quote me on that, of course, but that's the general opinion around Cambridge, as far as I know. Again, you can always cross-enroll. It's only about a 5-minute ride on the T from Harvard Square to Kendall/MIT.
Don't worry...Harvard's an AMAZING place. You'll love it. I think you can transfer after a year if you want, too.</p>

39

<p>Also...you don't declare your major/concentration at most schools until junior year (it's sophomore at Harvard), so either way you'll end up taking intro courses and with any cross-enroll courses you'll be able to tell which environment you like better. College is only about 50% studying (and I mean that with all sincerity); it's also about you and personal growth and friends etc.
Hope this helped!
~lb</p>

40

<p>
[quote]
If you think Harvard ranked higher simply because its bigger size, how can you explain that not even single one MIT alumni won Fields Medal, the most prestigious, the highest level mathematics award,EVEN THOUGH MIT MATH IS 8 TIMES BIGGER ? How can you explain that MIT ranked consistently below Harvard, Caltech & Princeton in Punam math competition EVEN THOUGH MIT math IS 8 TIMES BIGGER THAN HARVARD math (or Caltech or Princeton )?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I am not talking about math. I am talking about science. You were the one who brought up science.</p>

<p>Look, I don't dispute that Harvard math alumni have won more Fields Medals. But I don't think that is a good indication of who necessarily has the best math department. Just like because Moscow State has won more Fields Medals than Harvard has doesn't mean that Moscow State necessarily has a better math department. </p>

<p>
[quote]
MIT chemistry is twice bigger than Harvard, MIT physics is three times bigger,yet substantially more Harvard alumni got Nobel prize in Physics and Chemistry.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No it is not. Have you bothered to add in all of the people in Harvard Medical School? That's a giant slew of people right there. Add them up, and you will see that they are all about the same size. You also DO NOT add engineers into the equation, because engineers rarely if ever win Nobel Prizes in anything. But you do add medical people because they DO win Nobels. </p>

<p>
[quote]
I think NO MIT alumnus got Nobel recently ?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Didn't Robert Aumann win in 2005? Granted, he was a mathematician, who won the Nobel in Economics. But, hey, that's a Nobel. </p>

<p>In fact, that gets to an interesting point. Here's a guy who get a PhD in math from MIT - and then WON AN ACTUAL NOBEL PRIZE. Not a supposed "Nobel-equivalent" like the Fields Medal (when it really isn't an equivalent at all), but an ACTUAL NOBEL. How many Harvard math PhD's win Nobel Prizes? No, not Harvard econ PhD's, but math Phd's? </p>

<p>So does that mean that MIT math is better than Harvard math? No, I didnt' say that. What I am saying is that looking at the prizes that alumni win is not highly important in determining program quality. </p>

<p>
[quote]
More than 30 Harvard Alumnus got Nobel in science after WW2 and about 10 MIT science alumnus got Nobel after WW2....

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Sure, because again, Harvard science has been historically bigger, particularly the science PhD programs. That is not surprising to me at all. MIT took a long time to build the size of its program to where they are now.</p>