<p>Harvard has been popular for many generations. It is the first college in the US. From John Adams time on, it has produced numerous presidents. It has been an intellectual bastion for more than 200 years and the foremost trailblazer in higher education in the US. The bottom line is that success breeds success. This is probably arguable but I believe if anything it was more popular in the past and has significantly more competition today than say 50 - 100 years ago.</p>
<p>Pure science? I'd admit Harvard may be good in the pure sciences, but they still face stiff competition against schools like Caltech and MIT. Not to mention Princeton. </p>
<p>Stick to world domimation and business.</p>
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How did Harvard become so popular? That's my question
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<p>That's a great question with an extremely complicated answer. </p>
<p>I think it comes down to good management, good marketing, and quirks in the 'market' for education, not so much due to pure age. Let's face it. Harvard doesn't have THAT much of a head start over other schools. Yes, Harvard is the oldest school in the US, but so what? Oxford and Cambridge are twice as old as Harvard is, yet Harvard has managed to surpass them. Yale is only 70 years younger than Harvard, and when you're talking about 300-370 years of history, the difference is negligible. And besides, there are other schools that are quite young that are also elite. Stanford, for example, is just over 100 years old, yet it is clearly better than most of the Ivy schools. </p>
<p>One thing that I woud point to that Harvard has always done is that it has always been able to market itself extremely well. For example, it has been shown that the bulk of the top journalists in the country came from Harvard, and they inevitably talk about Harvard in their articles. Have you ever noticed how if a subject of a news story is himself a Harvard graduate, that fact always seems to get mentioned even if it has nothing to do with the story? This persists even if the story is ostensibly 'bad'. For example, I recall how when the Unabomber (Ted Kaczynski) got caught, the press would constantly mention how he was a 'Harvard-trained mathematician' who had gone insane. Few articles seem to mention that while he did get his math undergrad degree at Harvard, he actually got his PhD in math at Michigan. So, really, he is actually a "Michigan-trained mathematician" more so than he is a "Harvard-trained mathematician", as clearly, more training happens at the PhD level than the undergrad level. But I suppose it's not so interesting to talk about a Michigan grad who goes crazy. Instead, they constantly mention Harvard. But, you know what they say - there's no such thing as bad press. It just reinforces the notion that Harvard is where important people go (whether those people are important for good or bad reasons). </p>
<p>Secondly, I would argue that Harvard has been well-managed. For example, Harvard was one of the few 'white' schools in the 1800's that wasn't completely racist against African-Americans, and hence a large proportion of the leading African-American thinkers of those times, notably W.E.B. Dubois, went to Harvard. Think of it this way. Dubois could get into Harvard, but couldn't get into many other schools in the US, and especially not any of the white public schools in the South, because of his race. That's not to say that Harvard was completely fair (as Harvard instituted the notorious Jewish quotas of the early 1900's, as did most top schools), but Harvard in the aggregate was probably more fair than most. </p>
<p>Harvard was also one of the first of the 'first generation' of US colleges to transform itself into a major research university, similar to the style of the German university system. Other Ivies, like Dartmouth and Brown and especially the LAC's, lagged behind. Harvard administrators deduced correctly that future prestige was going to be derived more from graduate programs and research, and less from pure undergraduate teaching. That's why, fair or not fair, the LAC's have minimal brand name. And let's face it. Brand name is useful because it can help you get your foot in the door in terms of getting a job. </p>
<p>Finally, I would point to the nature of the 'market' for education. That market seems to resemble the 'market' for celebrities and entertainers, where small differences in quality result in large changes in demand. For example, the best basketball player in the NBA is not THAT much better than the 2nd best player. Michaell Jordan was not that much better than Karl Malone. They're both legendary basketball players. But that slight difference in quality between Jordan and Malone resulted in Jordan winning 6 titles and Malone winning none. That's why Jordan was by far the top draw in the NBA for years in terms of boosting overall NBA ticket sales and merchandising, and Malone was not. A lot of people who would otherwise not be interested in basketball at all bought an NBA ticket just so they could see Michael Jordan play. It reminds me of how a lot of Americans in the 1970's bought tickets for the New York Cosmos professional soccer team in the now-defunct NASL just to be able to say that they saw Pele play, even if Pele was over-the-hill. </p>
<p>I would therefore argue that the market for education, just like the market for entertainment, is a strongly 'tipping market'. After all, in either case, a large chunk of the investment is probably your time. To go to an NBA game, not only do you have to pay for a ticket, but you also have to take the 3 hours to go there and watch it. So if you're going to invest that time anyway, you might as well go to the best possible game you can go to. Hence, given the choice between buying a ticket to see Michael Jordan or Karl Malone, the vast majority will probably choose to see Jordan. If you are going to take the time to see a Broadway play or a concert or a ballet performance or an opera, you might as well go to the best one available. That's why the top performers sell out, whereas the not-so-good performers play to exponentially smaller crowds. I would argue that this effect is more pronounced for education, because you will have to invest years of your time getting that education. Hence, if you have to spend so much of your time anyway, you might as well go to the highest quality school (or at least the highest perceived quality school) you can go to.</p>
<p>sakky,</p>
<p>definitely check out Karabel's book "The Chosen." From your previous post, I'd say it was written for you. Don't be misled by the rest of the title, though ("The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at HYP") - he's actually pretty balanced and very historically grounded in his remarks.</p>
<p>Harvard beats Oxford and Cambridge because of it benefited from rise of the US and the Boston area, bringing a lot of manpower and resources at a time when Oxford's and Cambridges went down.</p>
<p>I do agree that Harvard was managed well. It first adopted many of the practices now used by colleges and was quick to realize the need for specification, which eventually allowed its graduates to acheive global domination and leverage its powerful alumni association and legacies to forever ensnare future generations.</p>
<p>Maybe stiff competition but if you look at any world rankings for science not technology - Harvard is ranked first.</p>
<p>Sakky is correct in the fundamental fact that only a small perceived difference in quality can have a huge resulting difference. How many Intel or Siemens Science winners go to other schools comparable to Harvard? Most end up at Harvard even though the actual difference in the schools is minimal.</p>
<p>Doc are you sure? In fields of chemistry and physics Harvard is actually better than Caltech and MIT?</p>
<p>Can you source me please? Might make a difference where I eventually decide to go to school, provided of course, that I get accepted.</p>
<p>Percieved difference turns into actual difference when so many qualified undergrads choose Harvard instead of other schools.</p>
<p>Look at the faculty, publications, us news. Maybe not applied physics but surely pure physics - read up on superstring theory and you'll find that the math and physics departments have hugely impacted this. Biology and chemistry, there is no contest - particularly biology.</p>
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sakky,</p>
<p>definitely check out Karabel's book "The Chosen." From your previous post, I'd say it was written for you. Don't be misled by the rest of the title, though ("The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at HYP") - he's actually pretty balanced and very historically grounded in his remarks.
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<p>Uh, I don't need to check it out because I've already read it. Nobody is denying that HYP have excluded people in admissions, notably the Jews. But the point is, * so did most other top schools *. The Jewish quotas were not a problem specific to HYP, but to many schools. Oxford and Cambridge also had episodic problems with anti-Semitism. And of course I don't think I need to get into what happened at German universities in the 1930's-1940's. </p>
<p>The issue that I have with Karabel is one of perspective. Yes, HYP have not always been totally fair in admissions. But honestly, which schools have been? Even in the worst days of the Jewish quotas, Harvard still let in some Jewish students. However, for decade after decade, most universities in the South allowed precisely ZERO African-American students to attend. Desegregation of Southern universities was often times met with violence. The Federal government didn't need to intervene to help more Jews attend Harvard, but Kennedy did have to send in US Marshals and federal troops to escort James Meredith when he attended the University of Mississippi because his presence on campus sparked a violent riot where 2 people died and scores of Federal officers were injured by gunshots. </p>
<p>Again, I will reiterate. W.E.B. Dubois got into Harvard, but couldn't get into ANY white school in the South. </p>
<p>The point is, I would reiterate that while Harvard is far from perfect, I would argue that its record for fairness is still probably better than most other top universities in the world. If you think that Ivy Jewish quotas were bad, think about what was happening to Jews in German universities during the Nazi era.</p>
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Biology and chemistry, there is no contest - particularly biology.
As a Harvard biology PhD student who did my undergrad at MIT, I'll take issue with this.</p>
<p>Harvard's biology department is obviously bigger, but in terms of quality and rigor of undergraduate education, Harvard and MIT are equivalent. There's no difference in quality between the biology departments at Harvard, MIT, and Stanford.</p>
<p>Ooohhhh....
according to US news, Caltech, MIT, and Stanford are all better than Harvard in physics? Stack around the same in Chemistry, loses out in Earth Sciences, and is lower than MIT even in Biology...the ranking methods are obviously flawed, but since you mentioned it...</p>