<p>Okay since Harvard is ranked number 1 I am going to guess it is the nerdiest...am I right? If not who?
PS my nerdy I mean:
*Diverse student body
*Students care more about academics and world issues than anything else (ie sports)
*Students study more than party (big time)
*And any other stereotypical nerd thing</p>
<p>U. of Chicago and Cal Tech make Harvard look like a party school.</p>
<p>most of the hardcore engineering schools are much nerdier than Harvard…CalTech, MIT, Cooper Union, etc. Also as fauve pointed out UChicago is notoriously nerdy. </p>
<p>I’d actually say that HYP,etc. are not that nerdy, in my experience, as a good percentage of each class is made up of athletes, legacies, wealthy non-legacies (well known families), international students (who generally tend to be very wealthy), etc. Only a small subset of the student body is made up of true nerds that only care about academics, etc.</p>
<p>I see Carnegie Mellon, Caltech and UChicago as pretty nerdy schools. Harvard, not so much.</p>
<p>Harvard has the largest Division I athletic program in the country, 41 varsity sports - more athletes than any other school in the country. Not that you can’t be a nerdy athlete, My nerd money is on UChicago.</p>
<p>Okay so how hard is it to get into U. of Chicago?</p>
<p>I’m a student here (actually taking a break from studying for my midterm) at Harvard and I can say truthfully that Harvard is not as nerdy as you would expect. The student population here is indeed very diverse and while there are students that go to the library on Friday and Saturday nights, there are very many students that party on weekends. About half the student body drinks (all over 21, of course) and we have fun here.</p>
<p>As varska said, we have the largest D1 program in the country, and a lot of my friends are athletes. Don’t worry about us being too nerdy or not nerdy enough. People here definitely care about their academics. They wouldn’t be here otherwise. But that isn’t to say that it consumes our lives.</p>
<p>And as far as how hard it is to get into UC, I can’t really tell you. I applied and was accepted, but I put as much effort into that application as I did to my application to all the Ivies I applied to. But their acceptance rate is higher than Harvard’s.</p>
<p>I’ve heard from people who visited that Swarthmore is pretty darn nerdy.</p>
<p>Cal Tech IMO.</p>
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<p>I’d say it’s more accurate to say, at least in Harvard, that the reason it’s non-nerdy is because of these people and because most of the non-wealthy non-legacy non-athlete population isn’t even “nerdy,” if you’d define nerdy as the type that stay in libraries day and night and lack social skills. A lot of the high-achieving students (even relative to the rest of the Harvard student body) are perfectly “normal” kids.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon, U of Chicago… though diversity and caring about “world issues” dont fit the typical definition of nerdy.</p>
<p>@varska - Other schools (i.e. NESCAC schools like Amherst/Williams) have a much higher % of students who are athletes, though!</p>
<p>I agree with HIGHreach. Since when is a diverse student body an indication of nerdiness?</p>
<p>Maybe MIT…</p>
<p>"though diversity and caring about “world issues” dont fit the typical definition of nerdy.'</p>
<p>Yeah I think you are right. Nerdiness would probably mean a specific area of focus.</p>
<p>MIT, Cal Tech, and U Chicago all the way. </p>
<p>Harvard actually isn’t even that nerdy. A ton of students who go there, go there not because they’re smart, but because they did something great whether it was in athletics or music.</p>
<p>I would say the engineering and science schools, like CalTech and MIT, and the guys at Cornell are pretty nerdy.</p>
<p>cornell is a major party animal place, but i agree on caltech, carnegie mellion, UoFC, and MIT</p>
<p>I like the equation made by some posters: a smart person never party, or a “non-smart” (athlete, music, legacy) party more…</p>
<p>/sarcasm off</p>
<p>MIT, Caltech, RPI, Carnegie Mellon, Harvey Mudd…these are the ones that come to mind for me</p>
<p>bump anyone else have any ideas?</p>