<p>Harvard has twice as many graduate students as undergrads</p>
<p>Harvard is controlled by graduate students </p>
<p>This is why Harvard undergrad has a bad reputation despite having some of the brightest students in the world.</p>
<p>Byerly: I thought that Harvard had a strong affiliation with MIT? Wouldn't greatly expanding the engineering program "steal" some students away from MIT? Would they have an equally strong affiliation afterwards?</p>
<p>Harvard undergrad has a pretty good reputation, I think. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Currently USNews ranks it #1 (tied with Princeton) as America's best undergraduate institution. </p></li>
<li><p>This group also ranks it #1 <a href="http://www.consusgroup.com/news/rankings/colleges/colleges.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.consusgroup.com/news/rankings/colleges/colleges.asp</a></p></li>
<li><p>The "revealed preference" ranking of top college applicants ranks Harvard undergrad #1, <a href="http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/revealedprefranking.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://post.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/revealedprefranking.pdf</a></p></li>
</ol>
<p>and -</p>
<ol>
<li><p>As we know, students admitted to Harvard College and also to one or more of its leading "competitors" - Stanford, MIT, Yale and Princeton - overwhelmingly prefer Harvard, as they have for some years.</p></li>
<li><p>This year, there were 23,000 applications for 1,640 slots, and nearly 80% of those admitted agreed to enroll - a higher yield rate than any other elite undergraduate institution in the United States of America.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>So, I guess I'd say your views are in the distinct minority!</p>
<p>Yes, Harvard does have a close affiliation with MIT in many areas, and I would expect the relationship to continue - and even grow stronger - as Harvard expands its engineering program.</p>
<p>That is not to say that the schools don't compete vigorously for the top math and science students from America and other lands. </p>
<p>Harvard's chief rivals for these top math and science students have always been MIT and Stanford; this situation is unlikely to change soon.</p>
<p>Harvard and MIT should just get it over with and mate.</p>
<p>What an incredible institution their child would be!</p>
<p>
[quote]
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)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not clear on how maintaining a STEADY supply with an INCREASING demand dilutes the Harvard brand. If anything, such a scenario would make the Harvard brand more sought after, not less (which fits with current trends, if USA Today is to be believed).</p>
<p>And where do those that don't make it to Harvard go? Because the number of Harvard graduates is a constant while the number of 'notable alumni' grows, it must follow that the Harvard share of that number falls over time. This is, of course, assuming that that number grows.</p>
<p>The brand, after all, depends more on what Harvard produces (in terms of leaders and visionaries, as well as research) than what Harvard takes in (or more accurately, doesn't take in).</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Harvard and MIT should just get it over with and mate.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>I think they are both better off remaining next door neighbors and platonic friends. They are very different institutions. A marriage between those two would be a messy divorce just waiting to happen.</p>
<p>No one said they should get married. Just mate.</p>
<p>There are many attractive offspring from the extra-marital relationship!</p>
<p>hmmm if it were harvard students mating mit students....oh how hideous! dare not suggest such an idea! what ugly babies they would have =P</p>
<p>Well... with Natalie Portman as a Harvard student, I cannot conceive of any child of hers being ugly.</p>
<p>The Miss America runner-up last year was an MIT student!</p>
<p>And of course Miss America 2003, Erika Harold, is a student at Harvard Law School!</p>
<p>
[quote=Adides, from Opinion Journal,]
Sick of hearing about Harvard? So is everyone else--except Harvard-educated journalists...
[/quote]
Interesting. Greg Farrell, the author of the USA Today piece promoting Harvard as the "ultimate brand," went to--guess where?--Harvard. And Stanley Katz, the Princeton professor who supposedly clinched the argument by dubbing Harvard "the Gucci of higher education," has three Harvard degrees.</p>
<p>Btw, I agree with Adides: Harvard is great, except for a few individuals who lower the tone by boasting about it. As former Harvard president Derek Bok put it:
[quote]
I wont say there arent any Harvard graduates who have ever asserted a superior attitude. But they have done so to our great embarrassment and in no way represent the Harvard I know.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Thank you, ivyqueen :)</p>
<p>Typical jealous rationalizations! Farrell also has an MBA From Columbia!</p>
<p>:D u funny byerly...</p>
<p>And Derek Bok, by the way, was a Stanford grad. He never quite fit in.</p>
<p>What a good point, Byerly. After all, if a bunch of people who went to Harvard all say that Harvard is the best, why then it must be the gospel truth ;).</p>
<p>It's sad, though, to see you clinging so hard to this notion at this stage in your life:
[quote]
Boast is always a cry of despair except in the young, when it is a cry of hope.
--Bernard Berenson (Harvard 1887)
[/quote]
P.S. As for fitting in, am I incorrect in recalling that your own B.A. was not from Harvard? (I believe it was from the University of Michigan. Not that most people care, but you seem to do so....)</p>