<p>Hehe...I'm not a sports fan. I can handle athletic defeat. It's good to know I won't be beaten academically as a Yalie. ;)</p>
<p>Oooooh, a Yale-Harvard fight! <em>sits back to watch</em></p>
<p>whoa -- wait --- I NEVER come on the harvard forum!!! what is my post doing here? AHHHHHHHHH</p>
<p>(yale's still better)</p>
<p>Rivalries: Put Up or Shut Up By Steven Friedman</p>
<p>Ignorance, I sometimes think, really can be bliss. Being completely ignorant about a subject gives you that beautifully naive outsider's perspective that someone wrapped up in and knowledgeable about a subject can't have.
I'm so ignorant about UC Berkeley -- no, I don't go here -- that I actually walked into the Bancroft Library the other day wearing a T-shirt that proclaimed "STANFORD UNIVERSITY."
At first I thought I was paranoid for thinking that everyone in the library was giving me evil looks. But the perfect truth of Woody Allen's catchphrase, "Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not after me," quickly proved itself true, as person after person pointed out to me that Stanford is UC Berkeley's mortal enemy.
This immediately reminded me of my university. Even before my freshman year at the University of Pennsylvania, I was continuously told that Penn's mortal enemy -- complete with our own version of the Big Game every year -- was another Ivy League competitor: Princeton University. So one day I e-mailed a Princeton friend to hear his take on it.
He laughed in his response. Even if it was over e-mail, I could still hear it. No one at Princeton knew we were "rivals" in any way, other than just playing a dinky football game against each other once a year. I realized what was up and quickly created an imaginary dialogue between our two universities and two other schools in the Ivy League: Harvard and Yale.
Penn, I've noticed, proudly declares to the world, "Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Penn are the four greatest universities in the world. So our only competitors are Harvard, Yale and Princeton." Princeton then replies, "What are you talking about, Penn? The three greatest universities are Harvard, Yale and Princeton. So our only competitors are Harvard and Yale." Yale then says, "What are you talking about, Princeton? The two greatest universities are Harvard and Yale, so Harvard is our only competitor." Harvard then says, "Ha! What are you talking about, Yale? We don't have any competitors..."
I witnessed this myself at the Penn-Princeton game, when Penn students chanted, "Princeton, you suck!" and the Princetonians just quietly stood there, as if to say, "Whatever you say, Penn." Later, I saw a Yalie wearing a shirt that read "Harvard sucks and Princeton doesn't matter."
And Princeton is right. They're a better school than Penn precisely because they have the quiet and honest confidence to be able to stand there and listen to us. And Harvard is better than Yale because they have enough quiet and honest confidence that they don't need to wear "Yale sucks" T-shirts. Because they believe it, they don't have to shout it.
The same seems to apply to UC Berkeley. Stanford, sincerely confident in its stature, doesn't need to scream its hatred for Berkeley from rooftops. Still, this doesn't keep them from doing the same to Harvard, by wearing "Harvard -- the Stanford of the East" T-shirts. We don't see any of these T-shirts in reverse in Cambridge, though.
The way to greatness, as Harvard has recognized, is not to tell competitors how much better you are than them. Instead, you must quietly and confidently work at being best. Harvard has internalized Margaret Thatcher's summary of such competition: "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to say you are, you aren't."
Berkeley will truly triumph over Stanford the day when its undergrads stop saying how powerful they are, and instead, start believing it. </p>
<p>Steven Morgan Friedman, a senior history and English major at the University of Pennsylvania, thinks Berkeley is Penn's only rival. Reach him at <a href="mailto:opinion@dailycal.org">opinion@dailycal.org</a></p>
<p>I loved that article. Mostly for the gratuitous Princeton references, but still...it's so true! hehe :)</p>
<p>it bugs me how everyone says "i visited and the harvard kids seemed more stuck up"
you guys probly visited expecting harvard kids to be that way, and <em>surprise</em> they were
harvard is a perfectly normal school with good ppl
dont visit with biases cuz youll find them to be true if you do</p>
<p>Don't assume that's the case for everyone. When I did my round of college visits, I definitely was not expecting Yale to be any good (especially after hearing all the talk about New Haven), but Yale amazed me. And I had high hopes when I visited Harvard, but my tour guide (and I don't know if this applies to the rest of the student body) definitely gave off this very snobby, I-hate-this, you-peons-are-unworthy-of-walking-across-these-grounds vibe.</p>
<p>Students go to Yale b/c they think it's the best school in the nation. </p>
<p>Students go to Harvard b/c everyone else thinks it's the best school in the nation.</p>
<p>... of course it is often the case that some top students go to Yale simply because they didn't get into Harvard. It is well known that the overwhelming majority of common admits have always choosen Harvard over Yale by a wide margin.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.safetyschool.org%5B/url%5D">www.safetyschool.org</a></p>
<p>yea, but that's b/c of the prestige of Harvard, not b/c of any real differentiating factors. (which fits into the statement- "students go to Harvard b/c everyone else thinks it's the best school")</p>
<p>since there isnt really any difference between boston and new haven, right asterstar?</p>
<p>I agree with your point that Harvard has more "prestige" - whatever that is - but I think its earned that "prestige", and will continue to have more of it than Yale, simply because it has always attracted the brightest, ablist, most self-confident students. </p>
<p>As the R.P study shows, "the top students want to go where their peers go, and more of the top students want to go to Harvard than to anyplace else."</p>
<p>i also always enjoy it when ppl go out of their way to attack harvard
ppl are always jealoys of #1
i mean you dont see any "yale sucks" or "brown sucks" organizations
i dunno, i just find the fact that so many ppl need to explain why harvard is a bad school amusing</p>
<p>o haha, i just read that article and realized it said the same thing as i said
o well, its still a damn good point</p>
<p>Oh my goodness, this is really ridiculous. For those of you who are actually arguing seriously in this thread, you all are way too intelligent to waste your time with mindless bickering. You're all smart; you're all going to great schools. In my eyes, we're talking about fine institutions that only differ in fairly insignificant ways.</p>
<p>As people have already said, this rivalry is one-sided. I don't consider Yalies my rivals, more like my ivy league siblings. Please don't tarnish my naive and idealistic feelings of brotherhood. :p</p>
<p>But seriously, this is just stupid. And I'm getting tired of seeing this thread on the Harvard board...why is it here? And can the mods delete it since it's already on the Yale board?</p>
<p>I'm not upset or anything; I just wish people wouldn't get so worked up over nothing. Go do something meaningful; spend some time with the people you love! Merry Christmas Eve!</p>
<p>And for those of you who are kidding/just having fun, kudos to you for having a sense of humor, but some people seem to be getting offended/angry. So be careful! ;)</p>
<p>theres nothing wrong with rivalry, it makes life fun and interesting
if you look at it rationally, theres no need for a harvard-yale rivalry, but if you look at everything rationally, then theres no point in lving at all
the harvard-yale rivalry is great, as long it doesnt get too serious, and it doesnt seem to have gotten too serious, and the ppl who do take it too seriously get laughed at, so o well</p>
<p>sing me anything...</p>
<p>Harvard does attract the best students, and yes, Boston is a better town than New Haven. But why does Harvard attract the best students? Because of its name, not because of any <em>huge</em> difference between Harvard and Yale...</p>
<p>that said, I don't really prefer one school over the other. I'm just saying this from my personal experience with ppl from both schools.</p>
<p>I'd say they're equal. If I did get into both and I had to choose I would pass out. Of course, being a blonde, going to Harvard would get me a bunch of jokes pertaining to a certain movie... so I'm leaning Yale so I don't end up like that. Dumb reason, I know, but come on, they're pretty darn similar.</p>