<p>Byerly only knows quantity....he has no data on the quality of Harvard education.....think of 9% unemployment rate for Harvard grads - more than twice in the nation.</p>
<p>Source for that?</p>
<p>On the note of sports, Sports Illustrated once ranked Princeton in the top ten and Princeton has had the highest finish (among non-scholarship schools) in the Sears Director's Cup poll for 10 of the 11 years its existed. Regardless of what you may say about the Sports Illustrated ranking, which has many critics, the Director's Cup poll is far more reputable than any of us. Princeton had one of its worst years ever (athletic wise) and Harvard one of its best. Even then, Princeton finished ahead in the Director's Cup standings. Who cares about Harvard football when Princeton had two teams advance to the NCAA Final Four this year (mens water polo, w soccer). In fact, the 2005 Princeton women's soccer team was the first ivy league team to reach the final four in a 64 field tournament. Considering that Princeton had to face athletic powerhouses to get there, this is an unbelievable accomplishment. Harvard crew may have done quite well this year but Princeton men's heavies and womens were the only teams able to challenge Harvard so even in that, Princeton was able to hold its ground. Even in a down year where traditional winners (baseball, men's lacrosse, women's lacrosse, women's field hockey) didn't do to well, Princeton athletics still shined and one year of relative failure is little reason to claim that Harvard is better athletically.</p>
<p>Both teams very likely have the same number of players. Ivy recruiting quotas decree this. It just happens that the Harvard players are <em>better</em>.</p>
<p>SEE: <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349217%5B/url%5D">http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=349217</a></p>
<p>In this article, Harvard's chief football recruiter candidly observes:</p>
<p>"The only reason Harvard stays competitive ... is that its Harvard. Three out of four students who get into Harvard and either Yale or Princeton choose Harvard, and its no different with high-scoring athletes. Typically, if I want a kid, I get him, Westerfield says. I didnt lose any kids last year. Our best player, [quarterback] Ryan Fitzpatrick [05], is a fourth bander. Youll get excellent football players in the fourth band.</p>
<p>The so-called Director's Cup standings are a bit fraudulant, since they take into account only a tiny fraction of NCAA sanctioned sports, and completely ignore non-NCAA-regulated sports - such as rowing and sailing, where Harvard has been national champion the last two years!</p>
<p>Furthermore, through a quirk in the methodology, Harvard had its first 10-0 record in 100 years in the major Ivy sport - football - crushing their opposition and ranking #37 in the country, and received zero (0) points in the Director's Cup rankings for this achievement!</p>
<p>Harvard dominated Ivy sports this year as no team has ever done in the history of the League since 1954. 14 titles, 7 for males and 7 for females, 6 undefeated teams, and an overall winning percentage exceeding 70%.</p>
<p>Let me simplify this, Byerly. Given that Harvard has more teams, they will invariably have more athletes. (each sport from D-1 to D-3 typically fields similarly size teams for each sport) Even though Harvard has more teams thatn princeton and its ivy-league peers, it still loses in the directors cup. (the most generally accepted evaluative tool of measuring athletic quality)</p>
<p>As they say on the Prime Minister's Question Time: "I refer the right honourable gentleman to my answer to the previous question."</p>
<p>And on another matter, I use the PM function for responding to serious questions relating to admissions, often of a personal or confidential nature, rather than for casual chit chat, which seems more suited to the regular threads.</p>
<p>It's pathetic that we're arguing about sports. But, on that note, Stanford has now 11 straight Sears Director's Cup victories. Let's play Stanford versus Harvard in football and see how that works out, shall we? I'd love to see the match. </p>
<p>As for your argument at rowing and sailing, Byerly, it's somewhat ludicrous. IF Stanford rowed and sailed, it would probably dominate. There ARE benefits for being non-Ivy League, I guess! But since it doesn't, how can we compare Harvard to the nation? Moreover, your argument about the Director's Cup encompassing only a "tiny fraction" of "NCAA sanction sports," that is a gross simplification. Frankly, club sports and minor sports don't matter all that much because nobody watches them and not every school puts out a program. Of the major varsity sports, the DC includes almost all of them.</p>
<p>Oh, and on an interesing note regarding that "Higher Education as an Associative Good" article, I quote: "Many students, lacking better information, have been led to apply to the highest ranked institution they believe will accept them, and then to attend the highest ranked institution to which they were admitted...the rankings become a self-fulfilling prophecy."</p>
<p>If that doesn't describe the status quo at the top of the higher-education food chain, I don't know what does. Harvard is perceived to be number one, as you're so fond of proving, Byerly, but that doesn't make it any better.</p>
<p>Harvard could certainly compete quite well on the playing fields with Stanford if both sides used amateur athletes.</p>
<p>Stanford, however, relies on the nation's largest budget for paying salaries to professional athletic performers who wear the school colors - an obscene $12 million dollars a year!</p>
<p>And this at a time when the Stanford administration has said it will be *years" before the school can match Harvard, Princeton and Yale in reducing or eliminating tuition for worthy students of low income.</p>
<p>I'd say they've got their priorities screwed up!</p>
<hr>
<p>As to your second point, I beg to differ; the school that consistently enrolls the strongest students, and takes the lion's share of desirable common admits, is, by definition "better" if one agrees with most students and teachers that the quality of the student body is a prime factor in establishing the superiority of a school.</p>
<p>As the "Laissez Faire" ranker notes: "The best students want to go where their peers are going." Few admits willingly or knowingly enroll at a school where most fellow students are far beneath them in ability.</p>
<p>A "self-fulfilling prophesy?" Perhaps so. But as John F. Kennedy famously observed: "Life is unfair."</p>
<p>I thought for a second you had used the "Stanfurd" alternative non-spelling. My mistake. </p>
<p>"Stanford, however, relies on the nation's largest budget for paying salaries to professional athletic performers who wear the school colors - an obscene $12 million dollars a year!"
No, Stanford doesn't. They aren't professional athletic performers, nor are they paid. That, as you should know, would be a violation of NCAA rules. I presume that they are "paying" "professional" athletes in spirit, but even that falls short of reality. The fact that Stanford offers athletic scholarships doesn't mean it's corrupt as you seem to imply. When I visited the Ivy League schools, I found school spirit lacking (most of the school spirit at those schools seemed to come solely from Yale bagging on Harvard) and I wanted to be at a school where the students take pride in not only the greatness/prestige of their school (which HYP, and certainly Stanford, have no shortage of) but also a less arrogant form of school pride. Duke & Stanford both had this feeling when I visited, and no student at Stanford seems to mind that our water polo, tennis, volleyball, and swimming teams, to name a few, are all singularly dominant. </p>
<p>Most state schools, using PUBLIC money, spend far more on their athletics programs. The football coach at Colorado, is, by definition, the highest-paid public official in the state. Interesting. Stanford has every right to spend private money on sports if they wish. They certainly haven't suffered in academic areas considering the new Bio-X/Clark Center and the Engineering Quad and the dorm renovations. Why doesn't Harvard spend a little of their "unmatched financial resources" on sports? You, an alumnus, certainly seem to value a good athletics program. I am sure others do as well. </p>
<p>As for the low-income tuition problem, I agree, and I think Shaw will change things around considering Stanford's first-place per-capita fundraising prowess. Stanford's in the middle of a large campus expansion but that's no excuse, I agree. But that doesn't mean that a top sports program isn't fun to have, and a benefit to the university. We, unlike Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, like to have football games against our rival schools that are actually good football games with talented players with people actually watching the game. All HYP seem to have to be rivals about is lackluster football teams that no-one cares about and debating the latest cross-admit rankings.</p>
<p>You are, moreover, assuming a perfect market when it comes to higher education. That is flawed reasoning (which the article supports) Applicants have in no way access to "perfect information" about which of their options is best for them. Oftentimes, they turn to rank and name to determine their choices. Does a higher rank mean a better college experience? Measurably, it does not (a la the COFHE survey, alumni giving rates, and so on).</p>
<p>Byerly,</p>
<p>The USNews sports ranking issue is now 3 years old and did not rank Harvard as #1. It listed a number of schools to its honor roll, Harvard being one of them but so was Princeton and 3 other Ivy league schools.</p>
<p>Here is the complete list:</p>
<p>The U.S. News College Sports Honor Roll recognizes 20 schools with the best overall rankings across four categories of achievement. They are listed alphabetically. Schools with major NCAA infractions in the past 10 years were excluded.</p>
<p>Boston College, Boston</p>
<p>Brown University, Providence, R.I.</p>
<p>Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.</p>
<p>Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.</p>
<p>Duke University, Durham, N.C.</p>
<p>Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.</p>
<p>Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.</p>
<p>Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa.</p>
<p>Pennsylvania State University-University Park</p>
<p>Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.</p>
<p>Stanford University, Stanford, Calif.</p>
<p>University of Connecticut, Storrs</p>
<p>University of Hawaii-Manoa</p>
<p>University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign</p>
<p>University of Maryland-College Park</p>
<p>University of Massachusetts-Amherst</p>
<p>University of Michigan-Ann Arbor</p>
<p>University of New Hampshire, Durham</p>
<p>University of Utah, Salt Lake City</p>
<p>Villanova University, Villanova, Pa.</p>
<p>The graduation rate ranking was not computed for Ivy League schools, which do not offer athletic scholarships and do not report that rate to the NCAA. Other data indicate that the Ivy League schools in the Honor Roll have athletic graduation rates that are among the highest in Division I.</p>
<p>I still do not see the issue with athletic scholarships provided a schools meets 100% of financial need of all its students.</p>
<p>I haven't read the whole thread, but i haven't read byerly condeming athletic scholarships- he merely said that harvard, a member of the ivy league and thereby a school unable to give traditional athletic scholarships, cannot athletically compete with schools like Stanford which pump huge money into drawing the wanted student athletes.</p>
<p>some of the headlines in China:</p>
<p>Harvard students most unhappy: poll - News Guandong</p>
<p>Harvard trails behind elite schools in student satisfaction: Beijing Portal</p>
<p>and some of the blogs at /<a href="http://www.danieldrezner.com/archives/001972.html:">www.danieldrezner.com/archives/001972.html:</a></p>
<p>Knowing a bit about Harvard students from having been a grad student there, there are many who would give the Garden of Eden no more than a 3 on a 5 point scale. Which is not to deny that many faculty view students as an annoyance.</p>
<p>Matt Yglesias had a funny post in this, to the effect that Harvard selects students who don't know how to have fun.</p>
<p>I went to Harvard and have taught at a good, though not quite top-tier, liberal arts college. There's no comparison. If you want a first-rate undergraduate experience, go to a place where that's the stock in trade, not to a research university where it's an often-neglected sideline.</p>
<p>On a 60 Minutes piece a few years ago, the report projected the idea that sometime in the future there will be a lawsuit over false advertising of the "prized faculty" that undergraduates (especially) never see.</p>
<p>Is Harvard leaving itself open for trouble?</p>
<p>You sound like a daddy whose kid didn't get in!</p>
<p>As for China, the Harvard name there is golden.</p>
<p>See, for example, "Harvard Girl".</p>
<p>everything that glitters ain't gold.</p>
<p>In the COFHE study of 31 peer institutions. Harvard ranked 27th. Only four other schools scored lower than Harvard.</p>
<p>Your reference is useless - written by Harvard jester.</p>
<p>Care to address my comments, Bylerly?</p>
<p>Which comments did you have in mind?</p>
<p>This daddy's son didn't bother to apply. In his field of study Harvard sucks.</p>
<p>26 schools out of the following 30 schools ranked higher than Harvard.....care to guess which 4 of the following ranked lower?</p>
<p>Amherst College | Barnard College | Brown University | Bryn Mawr College | Carleton College | Columbia University | Cornell University | Dartmouth College | Duke University | Georgetown University | Johns Hopkins University | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Mount Holyoke College | Northwestern University | Oberlin College | Pomona College | Princeton University | Rice University | Smith College | Stanford University | Swarthmore College | Trinity College | University of Chicago | University of Pennsylvania | University of Rochester | Washington University in St. Louis | Wellesley College | Wesleyan University | Williams College | Yale University.</p>
<p>"You sound like a daddy whose kid didn't get in!"</p>
<p>takes one to know one, i suppose.</p>