More on Harvard/Princeton cross-admit story

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
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<p>[exerpt from long June 7, 2005 article in USA Today on the magic of the Harvard 'brand name."]</p>

<p>"There isn't any doubt that brand matters and that Harvard is the prestige brand," says Stanley Katz, director of Princeton University's Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. "It's the Gucci of higher education, the most selective place."</p>

<p>"It used to be the case that of students who were admitted to Harvard and Princeton or Harvard and Yale, seven of 10 would choose to go to Harvard," Katz says. "It may be more now. There is a tendency for the academically best to skew even more to Harvard. We just get our socks beat off in those cases."</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-06-06-harvard-usat_x.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usatoday.com/money/2005-06-06-harvard-usat_x.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>interesting!</p>

<p>harvard takes in the best of the best students in the world and it is one of the best schools in the world. But for debatesake, another interesting article</p>

<p><a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006623%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006623&lt;/a>
Sick of hearing about Harvard? So is everyone else--except Harvard-educated journalists.</p>

<p>"Most important, the media have long fawned over Harvard, treating its "brand" as pure gold. But while the school may have merited obsessive coverage in the past, it no longer does: Harvard is diminishing in importance as a factory for ideas and a breeding ground for future leaders. In all sorts of ways it is not nearly as pivotal to the life of the nation as it once was. You just wouldn't know that by reading the papers or browsing the bookstands."</p>

<p>"only two Harvard graduates have been elected president in the past 45 years, and one of them, the current occupant of the Oval Office, holds a Harvard MBA. By contrast, four of the six most recent presidents earned degrees from Yale, and two Yalies squared off in the past election."</p>

<p>"It is true that a few Harvard graduates (and one dropout, Bill Gates) have figured prominently in the digital revolution--unquestionably the biggest business story in the past decade--but Stanford is a much more prolific supplier of its brainpower. Google, Yahoo!, Cisco, Sun Microsystems and a raft of other marquee tech firms were partly or wholly incubated on the Stanford campus."</p>

<p>"Mr. Niederhoffer and Ms. Kenner looked at the nine Nasdaq 100 firms headed by Harvard grads and found that they had, over a five-year period, dramatically underperformed Nasdaq firms run by graduates of other Ivy League schools, Ivy League equivalents (Stanford, MIT, Berkeley) and state schools."</p>

<p>"Harvard is also a much less important intellectual hub than it once was. The University of Chicago, for one, has wielded much more influence in recent decades."</p>

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<p>if the other link dont work
<a href="http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006623%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.opinionjournal.com/taste/?id=110006623&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>The typical sour grapes stuff!</p>

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<p>also from the same article (how did he predict?? :) )</p>

<p>"And lest I, a journalist not educated at Harvard, be accused of sour grapes, rest assured: I developed my Harvard complex long before I took my vow of poverty and succumbed to the charms of journalism."</p>

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<p>personally, i think harvard is a great school EXCEPT for certain individuals from there</p>

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<p>The 'brand name' is more powerful than ever, despite such jealous whining.</p>

<p>The best course of action - as taken by the Princeton official quoted by USA Today - is simply to accept the truth and move on.</p>

<p>There is no shame in being 3rd or 4th best out of thousands of colleges and universities.</p>

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<p>i totally agree! except who determines the rankings? and what is it based on?</p>

<p>unfortunately, all rankings that I am familiar with are based on the quality of inputs rather than quality of outputs (which IMO is what counts)</p>

<p>Byerly, I was always curious about how Harvard graduates fared against MIT's and Stanford's (all with big diverse graduate schools) - have you seen any statistics on that? If you have and can post/pm me the link, i'd appreciate it</p>

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<p>
[quote]
The 'brand name' is more powerful than ever, despite such jealous whining.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>The problem is, of course, when the brand name has no substance to it - or at least, not as much substance as yore. I don't for a second doubt Harvard's credentials or its long, rich and storied tradition of excellence, but I do find it rather counter-intuitive that while America's (and the world's) population grows and more and more families have access to decent education (which should imply that the number of leaders, entrepreuneurs and general geniuses grows), Harvard still enrolls the same number of students - which should lead to a dilution of the Harvard brand (as, I suspect, most numbers do bear out). It's the intensification of the brand that baffles me. </p>

<p>On a somewhat related note, has anyone else found it weird that the Usnews rankings for research Medical schools places Harvard first over John Hopkins by 18 points out of 100 despite the fact that of the seven categories Harvard only does better in two categories - selectivity, 4.9% to 5.8% and average MCAT score 11.7 to 11.4 - while is outdone comprehensively in three (the ones I would have thought more important, namely NIH funding, faculty:student ratio and undergraduate GPA) and tied for the two most important categories, the peer assesments? While Harvard could be argued to be 'better' by these numbers, the gap is just too big. Perhaps the Harvard-educated owner of USNews is tweaking the formula again (this[/url</a>] and [url=<a href="http://slate.msn.com/id/89623%5Dthis%5B/url%5D">http://slate.msn.com/id/89623]this</a>) to make sure that Harvard comes out on top?</p>

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<p>Byerly, one can acknowledge that the brand name is the biggest without accepting that Harvard is "the best." After all, McDonald's is the world's best-known restaurant! </p>

<p>But why didn't you quote these sentences in the article? "In 1976, as a high school senior, Gene Sykes was accepted by Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and the University of California-Berkeley. He felt it would be best to go to school 'back East.' <strong>While he realized Princeton would be a more nurturing environment than Harvard,</strong> he was concerned about the rural setting. In trying to decide between the two schools, Harvard's proximity to Boston carried the day."</p>

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<p>Many experts have examined this question, and concluded that it is explained by the "winner take all" rule applicable to higher education.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp9901s.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp9901s.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.inequality.com/publications/working_papers/RobertFrank1.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.inequality.com/publications/working_papers/RobertFrank1.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/revealedprefranking.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/revealedprefranking.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>There is no question that the attraction of the Cambridge/Boston setting is - and always has been - an important part of Harvard's common admit edge over Yale and Princeton.</p>

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<p>i totally agree. byerly, this is what we have been telling u all along. MANY PEOPLE do NOT choose harvard because of its quality but because of its "brand name". ur mentioning of this statement only hurts what uve been fighting in the past. this is the perfect statement to use against harvard, where many students end up choosing it for its prestige and recognition than its actual amenities. yes harvard is the gucci of the education world - has the BAM of the name recognition. but other schools such as princeton (:D) which have less recognition is the hermes birkin. hermes birkin, although not as widely known with the public, is the number 1 luxury brand pursued by celebrities (known for its quality and luxury). so do u want gucci, the name-stopping brand, or hermes birkin, the quality.</p>

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<p>I agree. byerly, your logic is not beneficial to your cause.</p>

<p>I know of a harvard student who transferred there from UCLA. He said that the quality of education was comparable at both schools and the only way that harvard differed was because of its "name brand" value.</p>

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<p>shrek - I think the Birkin is just a brand too. Go look at my post on the Parent's Forum. Actually the most "insider brand" is Bottega Veneta. No logo, high quality, luxury you can feel:). The issue here is do you want to go to school with people who care first and foremost about identifiable luxury brands.</p>

<p>And of course Harvard has other kinds of kids too...just not as good as the kids on the cc Princeton board;)</p>

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<p>Year after year, the best students overwhelmingly prefer Harvard, even when ardently courted by its "rivals."</p>

<p>The result, inexorably, is to make Harvard the best school for bright, ambitious students, whose presence helps to attact an extraordinarily distinguished faculty. </p>

<p>Both students and faculty are also drawn by the matchless physical resources (thanks to the world's largest endowment) and the incomparable Cambridge/Boston setting.</p>

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<p>Endowment per student?</p>

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<p>So you think Rockefeller University is better?</p>

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<p>This is a little old but... <a href="http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/wp/cheri_wp16.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/cheri/wp/cheri_wp16.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>i hate to break the linkage of whatever you guys are talking about...but best quality students intake does not necessarily mean quality education.</p>

<p>If there is even a small truth in the WSJ article, than i find it amusing that inspite of taking the best of the best students in the world, Harvard's "output" has been not as impressive as its "input". I dont think that taking those few example is a good representation of the whole student/alumni body, but if it is the case - then all it tells ne1 is "the best students go here....to become the second best..." (which is still very admirable)</p>