<p>Anyone else think Harvard is overrated?</p>
<p>Ummm... No.</p>
<p>no....i dun think so</p>
<p>Well. tough crowd.</p>
<p>Maybe a little...but I still want to go there. Does that count? ;)</p>
<p>Go to Yale's message boards and ask the same question. You'll get the answers you're looking for.</p>
<p>You mean ask if Yale is overrated or if Harvard is, on a Yale board? Lol.</p>
<p>Why would you go to the Yale board and ask if Harvard is overrated...You obviously know what kind of answers you would get.</p>
<p>^^Why indeed. Nevertheless, people use the Yale and Princeton boards to ask "questions" about (i.e. bash) Harvard all the time. It's a cottage industry over there. </p>
<p>Similarly, you should also know what sorts of answers to that question you would, and did, get from the Harvard board.</p>
<p>Overrated? Very.</p>
<p>The worst of it is how it goes to parents' heads (as if they were the ones going to college...). </p>
<p>It is the perfect school for some students, of course (meaning: the place where they will get the best possible education), but not for everyone -- by a long shot. Here's to the kids who look below the surface and beyond the names, wherever that may take them.</p>
<p>I'd say the same thing about Yale, by the way, and I'm an alumna.</p>
<p>Actually, with all the (seemingly endless) noise about how "overrated" Harvard is, how anyone who goes there is just a "prestige whore," how little "undergraduate focus" there is, how "inflated" the grades are, how the "finals clubs" dominate the social scene, how the ratio of plagiarists to nonplagiarists - for both students and faculty - is at least 125 times that of any other institution of higher learning, etc., etc., etc., if anything, Harvard seems to be (to borrow from Gertrude Stein [or is it Yogi Berra?]) way overrated for being overrated.</p>
<p>One thing I really like about the Harvard discussion forums is that (in general) most people can spell and punctuate adequately. Although I'm pretty spotty on punctuation myself.</p>
<p>Most posters also seem to refrain from flaming and using profanity and that's refreshing. I haven't checked out Yale specifically but another Ivy my son is considering makes me wonder about the academic culture at that school.</p>
<p>I agree with others that this isn't exactly the place to look for Harvard bashers, or people who think Harvard is "overrated". </p>
<p>I also agree with Grace that Harvard is not for everyone... people get really caught up in the name. I, personally, have a little more respect for someone who has chosen their college list carefully- and has 1 or 2 (maybe 3 or 4) Ivies, along with other (perfectly wonderful) schools. People who ask for their chances "to all the Ivies" cannot possibly have looked for right 'fit' schools. I'm glad there are people who recognize that there is more to a school than a name. </p>
<p>I sort of went off on a tangent to the OP's question, but my point is: Harvard is not overrated, but it certainly is not right for everyone.</p>
<p>There's no such thing as "overrated" or "underrated," really- college quality isn't linear! The only reason U.S. News and World Report tells you it's linear is so they can sell magazines!</p>
<p>If you are looking for any of the following things in a college, Harvard is not for you:</p>
<p>-A very small liberal arts college
-Warm, sunny weather
-Greek life
-Off-campus housing
-An undergraduate business major</p>
<p>That's an oversimplification- there are other things Harvard doesn't offer- but you get the idea.</p>
<p>My point is, cookiemunster, your question is immature and underdeveloped. Ask a question that would actually show you whether Harvard would be the right fit for you. For example, "Does Harvard have a strong science program?" (The answer, by the way, is a definite yes), or "Does the campus often get foggy on cold nights?" (The answer is also yes- a price you pay to live so near the ocean in New England).</p>
<p>Seriously- this whole ranking business has got people that think they're "winning" or "losing" the college process, and that whoever gets the highest spots are better than everyone else. Geez, just go to a college you like and stop worrying about how it's ranked! And stop asking meaningless questions like is such-and-such college overrated!</p>
<p>Unless, actually, you mean "Are students thinking and worrying too much about how to get into Harvard," in which case my answer is a resounding yes, just because most students on these boards shouldn't be worrying this much about ANY college out there.</p>
<p>ETA- One other flaw about going to Harvard: People will think you're an arrogant jerk. It will have nothing to do with how you act or anything you say- some people will just assume it. (It could be that they're thinking, "If I went to Harvard, I'd act like an arrogant jerk.")</p>
<p>Ha, well as you can tell I have no plans of applying to Harvard. I chose Princeton instead because it's the better fit for me.</p>
<p>K, cool. Sorry I called your question "immature and underdeveloped," I didn't mean to go after you. I was overreacting to the general trend in college discussions of treating rankings as if they really definitively show which school is better- as if Caltech is a better school for everyone than Penn is, or Duke and the University of Chicago are academically identical.</p>
<p>Still, "Anyone else think Harvard is overrated" isn't the right question to ask. In your case, since you'd decided not to apply (which is of course cool and up to you), it doesn't seem like too productive a question anyway. I decided not to apply to Princeton for my own reasons, but I didn't feel the need to knock them on their boards.</p>
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<p>So what possible purpose could you have had in posing your question? Why do you care what other people think of Harvard?</p>
<p>If by saying you "chose" Princeton you mean you chose to apply, well, best of luck. If you mean you are already a Princeton student, then congratulations on your admission to a great school. You should realize that attempting to put down another school does not make your school any better and actually makes you come across as insecure in your choice. You should be thrilled with your "choice" and should be talking it up on the Princeton board.</p>
<p>All ivy leagues are overrated.</p>
<p>All Ivy League colleges are good, but it just so happens that some are better than others, and Harvard is the best. To corroborate this go to
<a href="http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_Top100.htm%5B/url%5D">http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_Top100.htm</a>. U will see that Harvard scores 100 abd then Yale and the other unis go down to 73 and bellow. The point is what does one want to study. For instance, i wanna study international relations, so Brown has a better programme than harvard, but i am aiming at harvard for other reasons. Similarly, one may choose Yale instead of Harvard for its great architecture courses, where Harvard is not as good as Yale. </p>
<p>Sooo, one has to be objective and see what is best for oneself.</p>
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All ivy leagues are overrated.
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<p>California boy. We Easterners were making academic history while you guys were panning for gold. :)</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
All Ivy League colleges are good, but it just so happens that some are better than others, and Harvard is the best. To corroborate this go to
<a href="http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_Top100.htm%5B/url%5D">http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2005/ARWU2005_Top100.htm</a>.
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</p>
<p>You think that a list of college rankings is worth anything, or that it proves anything? (Also, the link doesn't work, at least not for me.) I love Harvard, but your "Harvard is the best because rankings say it is" attitude is kinda silly. The formulas that they use to calculate these lists are completely bogus. Just because something's quantitative doesn't mean it's objective.</p>
<p>Did you know that when U.S. News and World Report first hired a statistician to calculate their college rankings, he gave them a list that had a non-elite school (not an Ivy or Stanford, MIT, Duke, etc., what you'd expect) at the top of the list? Well, when it happened, they just fired the statistician and had the new one come up with a new formula that gave the results people would want to read. It's bogus!</p>
<p>I'm not arguing about Harvard qualities. I still feel that it's among the top schools in the country, but I know why I think so- it has many of the best professors and grad students in the field, its selectivity means that the student body is very intelligent and passionate in general, and other things about my experience here so far that are great. No, I'm arguing against your argument that because Harvard scores highly on this list you link to, it's clearly the best in the country. That just doesn't make sense.</p>