<p>I am sorry to start a new thread. It is not a flame thread but I am just trying to help my kid in making an informed decision. So please provide only positive feedback. </p>
<p>Is it a myth that Yale people have much more camaraderie as compare to Harvard? My kid and I both are tilting towards Harvard. In addition, Harvard aid offer is the best. Their offer is superior to Yale's fin aid offer. </p>
<p>In past my kid's prep school teachers expressed that kids who matriculate at Yale tend to be happier than kids who matriculate at Harvard. This has been a concern for me. </p>
<p>My kid would be the first one to attend any Ivy college in USA and I have already asked this question previously on other thread. Recently, I asked one of my ex supervisor who is a Princeton graduate for his advice. He told me Harvard undergraduate tends to compete with each other and they severely lack camaraderie. His opinion is that Kid can always go to grad school to Harvard and attend the undergrad at Yale. He told me that Yalie tends to build relationships and help each other out. He sees them organizing many events even in our city. </p>
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Recently, I asked one of my ex supervisor who is a Princeton graduate for his advice. He told me Harvard undergraduate tends to compete with each other and they severely lack camaraderie.
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<p>The problem with evaluating statements like this is that the author has not actually attended Harvard and so goes by hearsay. In time, hearsay assumes the status of truth. I can't say whether Harvard students are more or less competitive, mor or less supportive, more or less happy than Yale students (having attended neither as an undergraduate anyway). All I can say is that my S is not finding his friends competitive or unhappy.</p>
<p>My D is at Yale: she adores it and finds it a very friendly place. One of her good friends is at Harvard and says exactly the same thing. They're both wonderful schools. Has your child visited both places?</p>
<p>I'm a Harvard grad. I don't think it's true that Harvard students compete with each other the way the Princeton grad suggested.</p>
<p>I do think that Harvard students tend to be very independent and less into rah rah school spirit than probably students are at many other universities including some Ivies.</p>
<p>Based on my visit to Princeton and Yale when recruiting for a corporation, my impression was that Princeton and Yale students have more cameraderie than do those at Harvard.</p>
<p>She is visiting all three schools admit weekends.</p>
<p>Marite: I think your answer makes some sense to me. One of my colleague’s daughter attends Princeton University. According to her every year local parents invited not only students but also the student’s families to a Barbecue party at one of the local parent’s house. It is a wonderful idea. Same thing my ex supervisor mentioned about that Yalie tends to do it. </p>
<p>As a Harvard undergrad’s parents does your kid get invitation to attend local parties for kids who are attending Harvard? In your case since you are in Boston it may be impractical. I am curious if other parents can shed light as it helps kids to mingle each other.</p>
<p>I don't know what other parents do. I've hosted S's roommates and they use my basement as their summer storage. I assume this is a very common thing wherever students attend a local college, whatever and wherever that may be.
But I do have a hard time convincing S to come home during term time. The usual excuses are:"I have too much homework" and "I want to be with my friends." There are also those ECs he's involved in.</p>
<p>I don't know about comparisons. Harvard is an excellent large private urban university. It is not a centralized, tightly campus, where everyone sees each other every day in the student center.</p>
<p>It's biggest strength...and really the organizing social structure...is an unlimited smorgasboard of high level special interest stuff -- EC activities, etc. So, for example, if you are involved in the school paper, you are REALLY involved in the school paper. If you are involved in the Phillips Brooks House service organization, you are REALLY involved -- to the point where those things may well define your experience. To a large degree, it's all of these activities (including, of course, the option of intense participation in your department, like a science researcher) that break up the campus into digestible social circles. </p>
<p>Like any college, each individual has to think about what he wants from a college experience and try to understand the fundamental cultures of the schools under consideration.</p>
<p>So much of a student's satisfaction with the culture of a school depends on the personality of the student. That's why people stress "fit" and the importance of visiting.</p>
<p>Is your daughter quiet and very studious by nature, or is she fairly outgoing, dynamic and people-oriented? I ask this, because, from my limited experience of Yale through my senior daughter, the majority of the students are pretty outgoing. I'm sure there are quiet types who love Yale, but it seems like it would be easier to fit in if you were a pretty social person, by nature. The social life revolves around activities - a variety of clubs, music, improv, and theater groups, and the students' energy is palpable. Most kids do more than one activity - most do several during their four years. It was a great fit for my kid, but not necessarily for everyone.</p>
<p>I don't know Harvard, but my daughter has visited several times and does feel there is a different, more subdued and serious vibe. Harvard has around 12,000 graduate students, which might lend a more "mature" tone to the school, as they outnumber the undergrads by a few thousand.</p>
<p>My daughter really likes Harvard, too, and will be attending in the fall as a Phd student.</p>
<p>My D is having a freshman year at Harvard that lives up to or exceeds all the bonding, personalized, warm stereotypes you've described about life at Yale. The difference, as Northstarmom suggests, is that Harvard students seem less overtly booster-oriented than students at other schools, even to the extent of sometimes feeling awkward about telling you where they go to school. Bear in mind that the big reason the rest of us tend to be rah-rah about our Alma Mater is because we want others to be as or more impressed with it than they are with the aspirational peers to which it's most often compared. As an undergrad at Wake Forest, it was important for me to try to convince you that I was attending a better school than were the students at Chapel Hill. I suspect it's the case even at Yale - in the Students' Guide to Colleges, when asked to sum up their school in five words, the Yale students interviewed come up with "So much better than Harvard." It may simply be the case that Harvard students are the only ones who don't feel compelled to bolster their school's PR efforts to catch up with the school ahead of them.</p>
<p>Just because someone gets into Harvard (or anywhere, for that matter) as an undergrad, doesn't mean that same person will be admitted as a graduate student. Make an informed choice now, but don't count on anything for later.</p>
<p>"It may simply be the case that Harvard students are the only ones who don't feel compelled to bolster their school's PR efforts *<em>to catch up with the school ahead of them *</em>."</p>
<p>Or maybe Havard students and parents are just more subtle about it. ;)</p>
<p>It's not warmth and bonding that I'm talking about. I'm sure that exists everywhere. And Yale isn't a rah-rah place at all. What I'm trying to get across is the personality types that dominate at Yale- high energy and outgoing types.
For some, this would be not something they would choose, which is why I felt it important to mention for the OP. </p>
<p>I don't think one is better than the other, but students do seem to think they have different personalities.</p>
<p>Probably true, ASAP. Also in response to ProudAmerican, there have been a number of invitations for Harvard gatherings, clubs, and social events for students, alumni, and friends living in Georgia. I'm sure the same is true of other states as well.</p>
<p>Congrats to your D!
I just want to point out that, although there are about 12,000 graduate students, most are are in GSAS, which has only about 3,000. Those 3,000 are the ones undergrads are most likely to meet, either as TFs or, if they are upperclassmen, as fellow students (there are lots of courses labeled as for both undergrads and grads). Undergrads are far less likely to interact with students from the Law School or B-School or Med-school.</p>
<p>I've met some members of singing groups who seem to be able to sing their way through world trips. For example, staying for free at 5-star hotels in return for giving a concert. I believe they're able to make use of those astonishing alumni clubs. If only my S could sing a note.... :)</p>
<p>Marite, thanks for the congrats. I have to say I was hoping for UCLA--
She told me all year she was coming home to warm, sunny CA - and I believed her! </p>
<p>She chose the right program for the right reasons. I'm thrilled for her, but not for me.</p>
<p>D loves it at Harvard and has developed many friends, some which have come to visit her (and us) here on the opposite coast. She has participated through the local Harvard Club in events to socialize with and recruit newly accepted freshmen.</p>
<p>I have no basis to compare any of this to Yale, since D has not attended there. But I can say that Harvard is a terrific school full of wonderful people.</p>
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<p>His opinion is that Kid can always go to grad school to Harvard....<<</p>
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<p>I am always much amused by the naive statements that one can "always" go to Harvard for grad/professional school. Getting into Harvard for grad school is just as competitive as it is at the undergrad level. You might make it in, but there is a much greater chance that you won't. How many times do you think lightning is going to strike?</p>
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Undergrads are far less likely to interact with students from the Law School or B-School or Med-school.
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<p>Particularly because the organizing structure of the university's various schools is set up like a series of feudal walled kingdoms. Imagine trying to get FAS and Law, for example, to agree on a shared purpose (or even worse, a shared contribution from their respective endowments!)</p>