<p>ske293, that's taking it to another extreme. I turned down MIT and an Axline to Caltech to study astrophysics at Yale for the simple reasons that Yale offered more. It's hard to tell you how many of the best young scientists in the nation I know who turned down tech schools to go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, or Stanford, because they have more diverse interests. A small liberal arts school, meanwhile, rarely if ever offers a science program even on the level on Yale's.</p>
<p>I've done a lot of thinking about what kingduke has been saying as well and I think his question is legitimate.</p>
<p>I wonder about the future of Yale on the world stage as well, because they are not as strong in the some of the science branches as many of the other top institutions. But I think Yale realized this some time ago and has been pouring a couple billion into the sciences to help play catchup. Yale certainly is aware that unless modern institutions can produce scientific and technological breakthroughs, they may fall into obsolescence. Yale got a late start, I think, but it will never allow itself to become irrelevant.</p>
<p>However, I also think that while Yale's sciences in many fields aren't as credentialed as Harvard, Stanford, and MIT/Caltech, I really do think that it holds a special place in America (perhaps rivaled only by Harvard) as a university that produces leaders. And I do believe that will keep Yale at the forefront of the world's places of higher learning.</p>
<p>Best,
DMW</p>
<p>Interestedmom: </p>
<p>Having transferred to Harvard from a top school known for its supposed "attention to undergrads," I must say that I have found Harvard faculty to be <em>exceedingly</em> approachable -- much moreso than professors at my previous school. I'm sorry your husband's anecdotal experience dissuaded your daughter from applying.</p>
<p>1) I looked at Swarthmore's course catalog and there are at least several dozen courses offered in each science department. Physics dept's offerings go well beyond the standard sequence of mechanics, electromagnetism, waves, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics, and they have courses on general relativity, particle physics, nonlinear dynamics and chaos theory, solid state physics, quantum optics, and plasma physics. Their math offerings go up to complex variables, topology, group and ring theory, advanced geometry, and advanced algebra. Biology goes up to human genetics, developmental neurobiology (aside from separate courses on developmental biology and neurobiology), cell cycle, biomechanics, developmental genetics, ecology, evolution, etc. I don't think you can really complain about these offerings. Granted, if you are interested in taking a dozen courses in astrophysics, they only have six or seven. If you want to take a graduate level quantum mechanics course as a freshman (every year at Harvard, there are a handful of cocky freshmen who start out in graduate-level math and physics classes), you won't be able to. But I think Swarthmore's offerings should satisfy 99% of budding scientists and should be a viable option to anyone who feels very strongly that they have to be in an environment where teaching comes first.</p>
<p>2) A lot of people on this site have provided anecdotes to the effect that Yale values its undergraduates much more than Stanford or Harvard. While it is possible that Yale is a magnet for the unusual breed of faculty members who are altruistic enough to value undergraduate teaching over their own careers, Im just pointing out that the rules of promotion and tenure that exist at Yale are powerful forces against such behavior. My own suspicion is that the academic environment at Yale is probably much closer to Harvard and other research-intensive universities than you are willing to admit. There are many professors at Harvard who do care about teaching undergraduates and do teach well. But teaching will never be their first priority, which most of us accept. I think kingdukes message is basically that trying to occupy the happy middle ground between a research-intensive university and a liberal arts college runs the danger of being good at neither. </p>
<p>3) With regards to interestedmoms daugher, Im not sure if its really appropriate for a college freshman to be involved in research with a faculty member, unless she has a very advanced background in the field. Instead, she should be taking solid introductory classes and getting a good foundation of knowledge. I actually agree with the Stanford professor.</p>
<p>4) I wouldve chosen Yale over MIT myself any day.</p>
<p>5) I'm not sure if a letter from a summer course instructor at a public university would have made a huge difference in getting the Harvard undergrad into HMS. HMS has a separate admissions committee just for Harvard College students, and they communicate extensively with the premedical tutors who live at the students' Houses (dormitory), who are usually HMS students themselves. They know literally everything about the student. "Remote" professors or not, Harvard College students do better than any other school in getting into the best medical schools across the country.</p>
<p>Do you have a link for point #5. As an alum of HMS, I can assuredly say that you are wrong. I didn't know a single med student who lived in a Harvard house (a med student has no time for peer tutoring undergraduates nor would it be convenient in the least to live in cambridge and commute to Longwood - though there are intercampus shuttles). Nor is there a separate admissions committee for harvard college students, though they are at nepotistic advantage when applying to HMS.</p>
<p>ske, is there a reason you spend all your time (by the looks of your posting history) in the Yale forum talking about how great your school is?</p>
<p>Crimsonbulldog: Yes, indeed, each of the thirteen undergraduate Houses has a premedical committee (there are also prelaw and prebusiness committees as well) composed of at least two resident premed tutors and a doze or so non-resident tutors. Being a "tutor" is just a title, it doesn't mean you actually tutor anybody. I'm surprised - you should have gotten an invitation to be a tutor while you were at HMS. You get free room and board at a Harvard House, and in return you write letters of recommendation for the premeds at your House and help out with their application process. The resident tutors write the bulk and the nonresident tutors help out. Premed tutors are almost always HMS students, and they often went to Harvard College as well. Occasionally premed tutors are residents, but this is usually because they were picked when they were students and stayed on during residency. Often M.D.-Ph.D. students get picked and they sometimes stay up to 15 years (M.D., Ph.D., internship, residency). George Daley, one of the Harvard professors who are starting to clone human embryos at the Children's Hospital, was a resident tutor at Quincy House years ago. He went to Harvard College, Harvard M.D./Ph.D., followed by Mass General Hospital internship/residency, Dana-Farber oncology fellowship, before becoming faculty. He wrote a small book called "The Premedical Guide for Harvard College students" while he was a tutor. It's true that Longwood is a 20-30 min bus ride from Cambridge, but it's not a two hour drive, either. Because premed tutors get free housing and food, with the money they save, they are often able to maintain a car.</p>
<p>HMS does have a subcommittee for Harvard College students. They also have a subcommittee for black/hispanic/native american applicants, although they are now discontinuing this practice because of fears about possible litigation by the Federal Government. I would disagree with you about any unfair advantage Harvard College students might have. Harvard College has the highest quality undergraduate student population in the country, and it's merely a consequence of that they do well in getting into HMS.</p>
<p>GuitarManARS: </p>
<p>I'm actually pretty busy doing research during the summer, and you are right, I shouldn't be checking this website so often. </p>
<p>However, if you look carefully at my posts, they were usually generated in response to claims made by some other people that I happen to disagree with, e.g.</p>
<ol>
<li>Yale has a science program that's just as good as any.</li>
<li>Yale gets as much research money as Harvard.</li>
<li>Yale graduates have been the most dominant political force in this country.</li>
<li>Yale Law School has an admissions yield that is over 90% while Harvard Law School's yield is 60%.<br></li>
<li>Yale students all get awesome teaching from their caring and approachable faculty while Harvard students languish neglected by their professors.</li>
</ol>
<p>If in the process of refuting these claims I elaborated too much on how great Harvard is, well, sorry! But it's useful for everyone to know the perspective from the other side.</p>
<p>Here's a link to info on how to apply for a House Tutor position. </p>
<p>In addition to the premed tutors, there are tutors who are in charge of prelaw, prebusiness, fellowships, study abroad, cultural activities, gay/lesbian issues, as well as individual academic subfields, e.g. biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, psychology, sociology, music, art, etc. There are several dozen tutors per House, who can range from graduate and professional school students all the way to tenured professors, and together they form what's known as the Senior Common Room of the House, under the House Master. All tutors are selected by the House Master. This is an imitation of the Oxford/Cambrige College system with individual faculty associated with each College.</p>
<p>Ske, that seems more than a little dishonest. Don't forget these gems from the "Yale good at everything????" thread. You really seem to have it out to show that Yale is unequivocally second-rate to Harvard, and to do it in a rather rude fashion.</p>
<p>"U.S.A. and Harvard:
the most powerful minds in the world, well-rounded, unsurpassed wealth, unparalleled scientific achievement</p>
<p>France and Yale:
artsy, gay, second-rate in science, delusions of grandeur, persistent hostility to #1 above"</p>
<p>"As I said before, there's no point in reasoning with the Yalies. They are the Intelligent Design folks among colleges."</p>
<p>"I do grant that Yale has a nursing school and Harvard doesn't, so if you have a nurse fetish of some sort, it's the place to be."</p>
<p>"Well, maybe I was a bit too harsh. If there are any bruised egos out there, remember you can still apply to Harvard for grad school."</p>
<p>You comments seem to go beyond simple disagreement and extend into contumely. Make sure you don't get blindsided by some talented Yale or even state-school grad because you think your only competition is those who attended the world's best university. </p>
<p>Respectfully,
DMW</p>
<p>I appreciate your advice DMW - but I'm not so naive to think that talent can be measured by one's academic pedigree. Nor am I counting on my diploma for anything in the future.</p>
<p>Those comments were obviously made in jest and when I was trying to provoke posterX. If you didn't think they were funny, well, you are free to ignore them. I'm actually mildly flattered that you remembered them at all.</p>
<p>Ha! I had to go back and check. But I will admit, your comparison of Yale to France did stick with me, as did your "nurse fetish" line. I will tell you that the Nursing School was NOT my primary motivation to go to Yale - but it may have been a small bonus ;)</p>
<p>Best,
DMW</p>
<p>For undergraduate education in the sciences, Yale and Caltech are the best colleges in the United States. In terms of research expenditure per undergraduate student, they are at the top of the charts. MIT is up there with those two, however it is overrun by graduate students in my opinion. Besides Caltech and Yale, the other candidates actually might be places like Swarthmore. If you want to actually study with professors (and therefore get the best recs to get into the best grad school), have opportunities to do the most cutting-edge research and work in laboratories from your first day as a freshman (or any other time), these are your best options.</p>
<p>In engineering specifically, Yale has historically had a small department and in terms of research "quantity", it is obviously smaller than say, Purdue or Illinois. But so is Caltech. However, in research QUALITY, Yale - like Caltech - does quite well. See:</p>
<p>Don't be absurd.</p>
<p>I might note that Harvard is in the same boat - it ranks fifth. Along with Princeton, I'd put it almost up there with CYM. This should alleviate your fears a bit.</p>
<p>PosterX, Yale would be high on that list also because there are so few science students. That is as detrimental to one's science education as anything. Listen, I'm going to Yale for a science major but I'm not going to make a pretense of saying that you'll do better in science education there than you would at Harvard or MIT.</p>
<p>Unlike Harvard and to a large extent Stanford and Princeton, Yale cannot be all things to all people. However, because Yale has focused on the humanities and social sciences, the overwhelming majority of common admits intending to major in the humanities choose it over Harvard and these other schools. [source: NBER Revealed Preference Survey, December 2005.] Sadly, it routinely loses the battle with Harvard, Stanford and Princeton for highly-motivated premeds and brilliant Asian students who are not terribly interested in literature or cultural matters.</p>
<p>Your statements are based largely on (misguided) perception among a small subset of people, not hard facts. When it comes to the ISI/Sciencewatch - which places Caltech, Yale and Harvard at the top, overall, in science across the board - I think the numbers speak for themselves.</p>
<p>PosterX, what are these numbers, out of curiosity? You know I love Yale and never regretted that decision, but I know a lot of the best young scientists in this year's graduating classes and of the cross-admits, I know of very very few who chose Yale. Harvard, Stanford, and MIT (not so much Princeton, actually) took most of them. I can't give you hard numbers but between the people I've met at Siemens, Intel STS, and Intel ISEF, I think my sample is pretty good.</p>
<p>I've posted the ISI/Sciencewatch info numerous times, no need to repost that. Those are the figures I'm talking about. Regarding Intel STS winners, according to Science Service, which runs the competition (you can call the company directly if you don't believe me), since 1996 the majority of winners have chosen either Harvard or Yale. MIT is a close third, with Stanford trailing fourth, Princeton fifth and Cornell, Caltech about tied for sixth.</p>