<p>For all of the people who say harvard undergrad is perfect and without flaw and the best in the ivy league...</p>
<p>
[quote]
For all of the people who say harvard undergrad is perfect. . . .
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What a nice change of pace: a thread that is directed to no one.</p>
<p>I've never heard anyone say that Harvard is "perfect". Public perception, however, seems to believe that just because Harvard is home to some of the most intelligent people in the United States, the school MUST be flawless. When I applied to Harvard, I knew there were concerns over the social aspect of the campus. I knew the Core was under review. I knew that Larry Summers had a slip up that was nationally televised. However, why is this all news? Because Harvard is Harvard. I'm sure many schools have more flaws than Harvard, but I didn't apply to those schools because I wanted what Harvard could provide. Despite it's flaws, I applied to Harvard because of everything that makes the school the premier institution in the United States.</p>
<p>Harvard can be the real deal to a student who is a good fit. If you're pretty self-confident, self-motivated, you have a sense of where you're going, and you're smart enough to take advantage of the opportunities available to you inside and outside of the classroom, Harvard has resources that are pretty much unparalleled. But they're not going to be served up to you on a platter; you're going to have to do things like going to office hours, attending lectures in the evening, applying for Travelling Fellowships, and so on.</p>
<p>If, on the other hand, you're a lost soul who's trying to find yourself, Harvard's frenetic pace and the aggressiveness/ambition/energy of your peers could produce a nightmarish experience. But the AO knows this, which is why few lost souls make it through the admission process.</p>
<p>"Today's undergrads echo the findings. "If you come here expecting to work one on one with professors," says econ major Michael Kopko, "don't hold your breath." Profs at Harvard may be undeniably brilliant. This is the home, after all, of a genuine all-star team of big brains, including psychologist Steven Pinker, African-American studies guru Henry Louis Gates, and economic historian Niall Ferguson. Students regularly stand and applaud at the end of some large lectures. But that doesn't make the school a cuddly place. "They sell the college like it's Amherst" --small classes, close contact with faculty--says recent graduate Matt Mahan, "but we're not even close." At smaller schools, he says, "you're going to have substantive academic conversations with professors who know your name. Here, you see a famous professor walk through the yard, and it's almost mutual avoidance.""</p>
<p>So says the article. What I want to know is who is selling the college like it's Amherst? I haven't seen anyone do that. If one wants warm and cuddly, lots of one on ones with nurturing professors, go to a LAC.</p>
<p>If one wants to run with one's talents pursuing passionately any EC or course that one cares about, go to Harvard. It is not warm and cuddly. It is intense and has a swim with the sharks atmosphere that its adherents find liberating, and that others would find isolating and depressing.</p>
<p>Just because one is brilliant, has great grades, wonderful ECs and scores doesn't mean that Harvard is a good match for you.</p>
<p>I agree with everything Northstarmom had to say, but things like research with professors, knowing your professors personally, and having small classes aren't impossible at Harvard. </p>
<p>I just finished my freshman year and I have two friends who are interested in science that are working in Doug Melton, a very well-known biology professor's lab this summer doing research with him. In a lecture class of 60 students last semester, the professor, a well-known historian and best-selling author learned my name and the names of other friends I had in the class after going to shake his hand after class one day. Another class I took last semester was composed of 10 people and led by novelist Jamaica Kincaid. </p>
<p>Every professor at Harvard holds office hours. They won't come to your room and knock on your door, but can always go knock on theirs. Sure, some professors aren't the most personable, but plenty of professors use office hours as an opportunity to get to know their students on a personal level. </p>
<p>If your concern is getting to know your professors, doing research, or having small classes, you can find that at Harvard. You just have to put in the work to do it yourself. It won't come to you like it would at a LAC like Amherst.</p>
<p>Echoing Lindseylujh, my son, who is also about to start his second year and whose interests include India and economics, had no problem at all setting up a meeting toward the end of last year with Harvard Prof (and Nobel Prize winner) Amartya Sen, who gave him (among other things) some valuable suggestions for summer reading. And he's now talking with another professor - a recent MacArthur "genius" grant winner - about doing research with him during the coming year. </p>
<p>The opportunities to engage with professors outside the classroom are definitely there. It just takes a little gumption.</p>
<p>Would you say that Harvard is a place where students compete against each other in the classroom as rivals or a place where students compete against themselves?</p>
<p>The latter.</p>
<p>Definitely the latter. </p>
<p>I've found that students are typically very eager to help each other.</p>
<p>How can you compete against yourself?</p>
<p>No...it's actually the fake deal! you didn't hear??</p>
<p>Hearing that other schools have higher student satisfaction ratings than Harvard has a certain "Man Bites Dog" quality to it, so it gets reprinted widely. But there are a couple of logical reasons why this will probably always be so. First, most other schools are constantly striving to move up the pecking order, and when they can do so, it heightens the perception of value of their students' degrees. So their students typically want to tout the greatness of State if only to prove that State is better than Tech. Even Yale folk enjoy proclaiming why Yale is the equal of Harvard. But with the public perception consistently putting Harvard atop the pecking order, its students have no aspirational foes to catch, and no real reason to fear being cauught from behind.</p>
<p>But a second, quite practical reason that Harvard students might be less effusive (and it really is a matter of less effusive - on the cited survey of 31 schools, the mean Harvard satisfaction rating was a 3.9 on a 1-to-5 scale), is that accepted students there probably do not choose to matriculate because they have fallen in love with the school more than they have their other acceptances. They attend Harvard because they got in. And their personal preferences may or may not be a strong match for Harvard's culture.</p>