<p>For RD, which is harder to gain acceptance?</p>
<p>How about you call and ask. :-) </p>
<p>Just kidding. /Shrug. Does it matter, really? I would imagine Harvard, but who's to say what will happen this year?</p>
<p>true...I'm just trying to decide which school to waste my app on</p>
<p>It might be Harvard . . . but now that I think about it, Stanford is a bit funny about its admissions. I'll look it up for you . . . let you know if I find anything.</p>
<p>[No, I don't normally do things for strangers. But anything is better that sitting on my butt waiting for the 14th . . . ]</p>
<p>I know someone who got into harvard but was waitlisted at stanford....</p>
<p>and I know someone who was waitlisted at harvard and got into stanford.</p>
<p>I'd say it's a toss-up</p>
<p>the difference, if any will be like 2%, which is very neglibile. If you're gonna apply to just one, you'd be better off applying to the one you personally like better, or the one whose application you feel would allow you to present yourself better.</p>
<p>Even though Harvard has the big "prestigious" name, I would think it would be almost as difficult to get accepted into Stanford as it would be to Harvard. Don't forget the same over-achieving-straight-A-superstar students who apply to Harvard will also be the ones to apply to Stanford. No matter how you look at it you'll still be competing for admissions to Harvard or Stanford with hundreds of other VERY competitive candidates.</p>
<p>The overwhelming percentage of the top students admitted to both choose Harvard over Stanford. Both schools confirm that this is so.</p>
<p>It's probably equally hard to get into both schools. I mean come on....Harvard vs. Stanford!! If you can get into either you're set!</p>
<p>To determine whether it is "harder" to get into Harvard or Stanford, you will have to make sure you are comparing apples and apples - ie, the degree of difficulty for applicants with the same credentials. </p>
<p>Since Harvard matriculants are measurably superior, and Harvard has a larger number of superior candidates in the first place, it is pretty easy to say that Harvard is "harder" to get into.</p>
<p>"Since Harvard matriculants are measurably superior, and Harvard has a larger number of superior candidates in the first place..."</p>
<p>please support this Byerly</p>
<p>Well, to begin, see this exerpted data from the Harvard Gazette re the Class of 2008:</p>
<p>"By standard measures of academic talent, including test scores and academic performance in school, this year's applicant pool is impressive. For example, 56 percent [or nearly 12,000] of the candidates scored 1,400 or higher on SATs; 2,700 scored a perfect 800 on their SAT mathematics test; nearly 2,000 scored 800 on their SAT verbal test; and 2,800 are valedictorians of their high school classes."</p>
<p>Further, the entering Harvard class has a higher median SAT score, and a far higher fraction who are National Merit Scholars, than the entering Stanford class.</p>
<p>Perhaps 3/4 of common admits - who tend to be the most talented, desirable applicants - choose Harvard over Stanford. See, for example:</p>
<p>I notice your screen name is Byerly--any intentional connection to the Admin office @ Harvard?</p>
<p>Yes but your data is referring solely to the entering Harvard class. It might be true that the entering class is slightly more "qualified" than the entering Stanford class, but that does not necesarilly mean that Harvard is much harder to get into than Stanford. Even if 3/4 of those that were admitted to both choose H over S, you still know that these are kids that applied to BOTH. </p>
<p>When you look at admissions, look at the people who are applying, not the people that are going.</p>
<p>When you are calculating which is "harder to get into" you really have to look at the qualifications of those who matriculate.</p>
<p>Similarly, when rating parties, you go by who showed up - not who was invited.</p>
<p>That said, an interesting tidbit is that nearly 30% of all high school seniors in the nation who got an 800 on either the math or verbal SAT 1 test applied to Harvard.</p>
<p>"Since Harvard matriculants are measurably superior, and Harvard has a larger number of superior candidates in the first place..."</p>
<p>Tsk tsk. Such haughty and harsh words for somebody who badly wants some validation that there is actually a difference between Harvard and Stanford. The fact of the matter is that Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, and Caltech are all EQUALLY good and EQUALLY hard to get into. Anybody trying to flaunt the stupid little admissions statistics between those six schools is seriously misguided.</p>
<p>First, it doesn't make one iota of difference whether somebody chooses any of the HYPSM. To get into any one of them is a tremendous accomplishment. </p>
<p>Second, schools like Caltech have higher SAT averages and higher scoring matriculants than HYPSM. Does it make it superior to any of them? No!</p>
<p>Third, it won't affect any matriculant's future outcome whether he goes to Princeton or Yale or MIT. Any of the six aforementioned schools give adequately enough opportunites for anyone to not only be successful, but to be the top of the field. Likewise, just because somebody got into Stanford it doesn't mean they will end up any more successful than somebody who got into Harvard or vice versa. It's what you do in college that counts, and a graduate school adcom board could care less whether you got your diploma at Stanford, Caltech, or Harvard.</p>
<p>While the previous poster's cliches are certainly politically correct, they are, neverheless, irrelevant. </p>
<p>It is still possible to answer the question posed by the OP - namely: which is "harder to get into," Harvard or Stanford? Answering this question does not involve any consideration about which schools are - or are not - places where you can get an excellent education. No criticism of Stanford is either implied or intended.</p>
<p>I urge the previous poster to relax ... he's fighting the wrong war.</p>
<p>I think it's funny that Byerly is trying to argue that one impossible-to-get-into school is harder to be admitted to than another impossible-to-get-into school. Is infinity greater than infinity? Does infinity plus 1 even make a difference?</p>
<p>well said rooster</p>
<p>no infinity plus makes makes a sum, not a difference. Technically speaking, infinity plus one is no greater than infinity. In terms of ratio.</p>