<p>This is a topic started on another thread that I thought could turn into an interesting Discussion.</p>
<p>Many believe that there is no comparison in the world to Harvard. I would tell them to take a look at a school known as IIT (Indian Institute of Technology). They might be surprised.</p>
<p>yeah the argument was made that... just because they accept a fewer percentage of students does not mean it's a better school</p>
<p>i tend to agree with this.</p>
<p>I think it all depends on how u qualify "best in the world." If you're talking about raw brainpower, IIT prolly has more than Harvard due to its much larger applicant pool and complete meritocracy. However, Harvard's students, in addition to being extremely intelligent, possess a range of other talents (leadership, service, athletics) that may be lacking at IIT.</p>
<p>very true. Some IITians might possess these talents, but the number of students of such calibre are very few. Leadership skills might be more common than service and athletics. My dad did his undergrad at IIT bombay, the most selective out of all the IITs. After 4 years there, he said the place was excellent academically, but so subject-focused that he didnt have time to develop any hobbies or have a decent social life without lagging behind in collegework. He had no life in H.S cuz all the time was spent in studying for school exams or the IIT entrance exam (JEE).</p>
<p>Harvard kids might actually be able to have a life..and might have had a life in school. I guess this is what makes the difference between human and a machine.</p>
<p>No. 421 on list of the World's Top 500 Universities.</p>
<p>I tend to think that list may be a little flawed though, Byerly...Brown, for instance is ranked #51 behind University of Arizona. What's up with that?</p>
<p>that list is a bunch of crap i mean</p>
<p>Penn state in front of case Case Western Reserve, Univ Mcgill, and BROWN!!??</p>
<p>Univ Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh, in front of BROWN Case Western Reserve UMD, RICE!?!?!</p>
<p>You want my opinion the best schools in the world are IIT, Cambridge, Oxford, and "Polytechnique" in france and HEC Paris the Fench system is the MOST intensive, the best in the US go to Harvard thats what makes it so good, it attracts the best. There are many schools in Europe that are better.</p>
<p>Don't get me wrong Harvard is good but not the best...</p>
<p>The Times does not agree with you, if you will consult their latest ranking of the world's best universities.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.thes.co.uk/worldrankings/%5B/url%5D">http://www.thes.co.uk/worldrankings/</a></p>
<p>They've got U texas austin 15th in the world.......</p>
<p>All these tables are flawed you can't compile a table like that it doesnt make sens, some universities are better than other for different things. Universities like Cambridge and the ones I stated earlier are exellent in many diciplines and have been around for ages (litterally, Cambridge will be 800 years old in 2009!) they are some of the most intensive in the world of course there are places where is not as good as others.</p>
<p>However UT-austin in front of Mcgill COLUMBIA cornell upenn
thats not a ranking methodology I would trust</p>
<p>The Shanghai rankings are heavily weighted towards math and science, which is why the London School of Economics is in the same rank range as Louisiana State University - Baton Rouge.</p>
<p>I wouldn't discount UT Austin. It may not hold the same name value as other more "prestigious" private schools, but its programs are second to none in the country, and UT is well represented at many of the top grad programs. It's engineering is top-notch, business school is very well-known (especially business honors), the liberal arts plan II program is harder to get into than most of the tier 1 schools (avg SAT for plan II students was 1540 in 2003). The research is world-class. The school itself is well rounded despite its size. If the ranking is based on resources, I'm not so sure 15th is as out of wack as most would think. Just because a school is a state school doesn't make it less than.</p>
<p>Yeah... I personally have problems with UT Austin, but Jacobian is right... it's a decent school, especially if you're a Texas resident and get in under top 10% automatic acceptance.</p>
<p>This thread is ridiculous. IIT is better than Harvard...HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA</p>
<p>Anyone who is familiar with the Indian education system would be incredibly impressed with anyone who has a degree from IIT. Ask any MIT, Harvard, or Stanford engineering major, and they will tell you that the average IIT student trumps the average HMS student. Why? India's ultra-competetive school system sends only the best and brightest on to IIT, at which point they traverse through an incredibly rigorous curriculum. </p>
<p>I absolutely agree with the idea that students at prestigious Ivy League university are more well-rounded and will generally have better social skills and leadership skills. To say otherwise would be ridiculous. To attend IIT, your entire application is based on your testing performance. </p>
<p>Of course, since IIT is not taking students who are well-rounded, who have demonstrated excellence in extracurricular activities or avenues of leadership, they are taking the truly academic students. At Harvard, a student with a 1450 SAT who has saved Wild Boar from extinction by tying himself up to a tree naked to stop a tractor will be considered seriously. (Well, maybe not, but you know what I'm talking about.) This is not the case at its South Asian counterpart. IIT is filled with students who achieve perfect or near perfect scores on all their exams, whether they be JEE's, SATs, or their high school midterm exams.</p>
<p>As the article suggested, the Silicon Valley is the heart of high tech firms in the 21st century. 1 out of every 3 CEOs in the silicon valley is Indian, and most are IIT alum. What makes this even more impressive is that these CEOs attained their position without the connections or old money that is normally affiliated with Ivy League universities. Instead, IIT alumni succeed simply because they are the top .1% of a country and because their preparation has given them the experience necessary to run a fortune 500 company.</p>
<p>At least for Indians, IIT has been a catalyst in terms of making the American Dream come true. The brilliant minds that come out of IIT are hugely responsible for both the economic boost of America in the 1990's and the rapid globalization of the world in the 21st century. </p>
<p>For America, Harvard represents the best of the best. The same is true for IIT in India. The difference is the drive of the typical Indian student compared to the typical Ammerican student. The American student lives in the strongest economy in the world, and can achieve relatively little to live a successful, comfortable life.</p>
<p>This is not the case in India. Babies suck smog into their emaciated bodies and never have a chance to live. Leprosy and other viruses are omnipresent in every major city. Education is the way to attain financial security, and students work feverishly to obtain their goal. </p>
<p>Harvard, from a college perspective, is a much better university. Everything from social life to humanities to location trump any IIT university. However, we must not fail to recognize how incredibly strong IIT is for any technological or mathematical field, whether it be engineering, computer science, or differential equations. IIT trumps Harvard and any other Ivy League university in these fields. To me, this is not an opinion, but simply a fact.</p>
<p>A lot of what I was about to say has been said already...</p>
<p>I believe IIT is one of the best schools in math/science in the world, but as I said earlier in another forum, even if I were to go into math/science major(s), I'd still go H over IIT (heh, because I'm going to get admission to both, right?) because it's not as harsh as IIT undergraduate, and it's much more social/liberal.</p>
<p>Is IIT the best school in the world if you want to study english (or any language), history, Literature, philosophy, film, art, poli sci, or business? Or is it a big old trade school with a tiny focus?</p>
<p>@GentlemanandScholar: Nah, dude. That's actually why a lot of people criticize IIT--it's pretty one dimensional; it's for students who want to focus on physical science, math, and any type of engineering. It's in India, though, so it doesn't really matter; that is, most people in India (I'm being a bit stereotypical here, but it's OK, I'm Indian :-P) only want that anyway. If I were to tell my dad I wanted to be a history major he would probably laugh at me :-(</p>
<p>This topic is both silly and trite.</p>
<p>If you're going to compare Harvard against international universities, at least mention either Beijing, Moscow, Oxford, Seoul, Cambridge, or Tokyo University.</p>
<p>ITT is nowhere close to these schools in any academic field save Indian history and language. </p>
<p>iv4me:</p>
<p>While your post bears truth, the same can be said for any of the international universities I just mentioned, except they're much, much better.</p>
<p>More importantly, however, you confuse the average student with the elite student.</p>
<p>The best Harvard students would easily beat the corresponding IIT students in practically anything.</p>
<p>oh yeah? by saying that IIT is good only at indian history and language, its like saying harvard is good only for the history of the american civil war, and they suck at everything else. i'd suggest you better stop writing crap before you start getting flamed. You obviously cant differentiate between fact and fiction. and if you truly are a harvard alum as your sn suggests, it simply shows that some harvard grads cant separate innate stupidity from facts.</p>
<p>IIT doesnt even have an Indian History and Language major, way to be uninformed. IIT may not have the same resources as Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and the rest, but its student body is just as smart. To say that the student body is smarter at IIT than in Harvard is just as foolish as saying the reverse. HYPSM pull the best students out of the US and (to a lesser extent, the rest of the world) while IIT pulls the best out of India. To say that the "best Harvard students would easily beat the corresponding IIT students in practically anything" is completely unfounded and just plain wrong. The best Harvard students and the best IIT students will be more or less the same. To call IIT a trade schools would be akin to calling MIT one too.<br>
The power of an IIT degree is just the same as an HYPSM degree in America and I believe this is most evident in Silicon Valley as someone mentioned earlier.
Would I go to HYPSM over IIT? Of course, but thats only because I'm from the US and HYPSM and basically every college in the Top 25 would have better resources than IIT. I think iv4me summarized IIT's role quite well although the fact is IIT does not "trump" HYPSM, it is an equal. Take a look at HYPSM's grad schools which are filled with IIT grads. If IIT was so superior to these schools, why would they come to do their PhDs here? And if IIT was so inferior to these schools, how would they beat MIT grads to get into Stanford's grad programs?</p>