<p>FYI: I think that Princeton is a great school for many things, and all the languages you mentioned are really strong there. Princeton has been #1 or 2 on my list for a long time, just because of that. If you’re looking to pursue those areas (history, econ, polysci), definitely take a look at Princeton.</p>
<p>Oh, and the mathematicians of Princeton are so incredibly cool. Incredibly.</p>
<p>@FermatABC: How is student-student competition at Princeton vs. Harvard? Are students there more for education, or the brand name? Are students more competitive with themselves?</p>
<p>Thanks FermatABC and alexandrafitzmor! I’m going to start looking at the course offerings at a bunch of different schools now to find out more.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t think it’s fair to generalize this question. The competitive nature depends ultimately on the individual, not on the institution. I’ve seen really friendly, study-group type of people at Harvard, and fiercely competitive people at Princeton. And I’ve also seen the reverse: Harvard students who would rip out pages of a library textbook so no other students can see them, and laid-back, knowledge-seeking people at Princeton. It’s up to the individual. Same goes with brand name.</p>
<p>But I must say, the grade deflation (35% A’s) at Princeton has instilled a greater sense of competitiveness among students that hadn’t existed before, having spoken to Princeton alums at my high school reunions (who were fortunate enough to face only 50% A’s back in their day).</p>
<p>Fermat, I started a thread in the Harvard forum (called Harvard fact or fiction) and I asked about the grade inflation. I also wrote in that thread that I can’t stand grade inflation (even when it works in my favor. It just annoys me). </p>
<p>Lots of people who don’t go to Harvard say the grades are ridiculously inflated, but people at Harvard (or at least the few who posted comments in the thread) say that they don’t see it. Usually I would say that the people who go to the school know best, but it’s difficult to figure out what’s true when almost everyone on the outside is saying the opposite. </p>
<p>And thanks again for your help</p>
<p>Thank you to randombetch and FermatABC for answering questions. It’s always good to see fellow Princetonians on these boards.</p>
<p>I think languages and math were well covered, so I’ll tackle music and political science. (BTW, I did Princeton in Beijing. Phenomenal!)</p>
<p>First, music at Princeton is top-notch. We’ve got dedicated faculty and intense student groups. If you’re looking for serious study, you can definitely find many opportunities to grow and progress as a musician at Princeton. That being said, I can’t tell from your post whether or not you’re looking for the competitive and demanding structure of the Princeton University Orchestra, or for the chilled, relaxed self-started quartets that perform for friends on weekends and charity benefits held on campus. Both are popular avenues.</p>
<p>I’m a singer, so I spend quite a lot of time in Woolworth where there’s a wonderful music library complete with audio room, as well as private practice rooms downstairs which anyone can use. You can even ask to use a locker downstairs to store your cello so you don’t have to lug it around campus. </p>
<p>My favorite thing about Princeton’s music scene is the pure TALENT. And, this isn’t talent that’s holed up, but rather celebrated and imbued in campus life. There are pianos scattered all throughout the campus, and I love just pausing to listen to someone perform a piece as their study break, or hearing the music from dorm rooms that filter out at night. I sing a cappella, and goodness those arch sings are things to remember. </p>
<p>Second, I’m a Woodrow Wilson School major, so I have passing knowledge of the political science department. Although I myself am approaching public policy from a psychology perspective (am also pursuing a Neuroscience certificate), the nature of WWS is interdisciplinary, meaning I interact with many students from the political science perspective.</p>
<p>Princeton’s political science department is one of the absolute best. You’ll be studying with professors at the top of their fields, and with a cohort of students who will make insights that sometimes just blow you away. It’s one of the largest concentrations, so you’ll need to be sure to take advantage of the polisci department’s spectacular seminars in order to really delve deeply into certain material. It’s very theoretical in nature, so do give thought to what you’re attracted to in academic study, the theoretical or the practical. My friends in political science all have good things to say. </p>
<p>Finally, a quick note on competitiveness. I think FermatABC presented a very balanced picture. It does depend on the person, and it has been slightly influenced by Princeton’s grade deflation policy. I myself have never had a negative experience with competitiveness… in fact, it’s really collaboration with strong study groups that have helped me succeed in increasingly tougher courses, but I have heard the occasional horror story as well. However, I do have this to say, when you get that A at Princeton, you absolutely KNOW you earned it, and that just feels amazing. Take the leap. Challenge yourself.</p>
<p>Thanks SO much, debryc, FermatABC, and randombetch! It’s really nice to hear from people. It’s also interesting that Princeton, not Harvard students have been helpful in this thread. It certainly warms the spirit to hear good, spontaneous music. I look forward to such experiences.</p>
<p>Wouldn’t that be expected, considering this thread is in the Princeton subsection of the Ivy League forum?</p>
<p>Also, before you get carried away with wonder at the caliber of the academic/career accomplishments of any university faculty, do remember that teaching quality is not necessarily correlated with intelligence or academic achievement. You may have access to groundbreaking concepts, more interesting research opportunities, or better insights by virtue of your professors’ standing, but this is not the case for their ability to help you understand the material of the class, or gain thinking skills. Equating the two is a common mistake, and one I hope you avoid.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t know whether it’s true that MIT cyclically becomes the top choice for science kids and then recedes again; all I can tell you is that right now (and for the past couple years at least) it’s drawing way more of them than Harvard. I’m not sure why you say that it hasn’t gotten sexier, since that’s clearly exactly what’s happened.</p>
<p>At any rate, the historical pattern is probably not very relevant to Princeton12, who will be going to school exclusively with people who’ve recently matriculated or will matriculate soon. That’s why it frustrates me when people point out how dominant Harvard’s been, historically, on the Putnam. The strength of a school even five years ago has almost no impact on whether a kid should go there (if more recent data is available).</p>
<p>“The strength of a school even five years ago has almost no impact on whether a kid should go there (if more recent data is available).”</p>
<p>You sound as if Harvard’s peak occurred more than 5 years ago; in fact, it’s still going strong.</p>
<p>Putnam #1, #2, #3 school</p>
<p>2000 Duke, MIT, Harvard
2001 Harvard, MIT, Duke
2002 Harvard, Princeton, Duke
2003 MIT, Harvard, Duke
2004 MIT, Princeton, Duke
2005 Harvard, Princeton, Duke
2006 Princeton, Harvard, MIT
2007 Harvard, Princeton, MIT
2008 Harvard, Princeton, MIT</p>
<h1>Top 5 students – Harvard 54, MIT 39, Caltech 29</h1>
<h1>First place finishes – Harvard 27, Caltech 9, MIT 5, Princeton 1</h1>
<h1>Top 5 finishes – Harvard 54, MIT 39, Caltech 29, Princeton 27</h1>
<h1>Top 5 finishes since 1990 – Harvard 18, MIT 13, Duke 12, Princeton 12</h1>
<p>As I said, there are year-to-year variations. Harvard didn’t even make the top 5 in 2004, for example. MIT does edge out Harvard every now and then but overall Harvard is still the clear #1. Princeton has never finished first with the sole exception of 2006, so I don’t think it’s really fair to claim that Princeton’s performance has been equal to Harvard’s, historically or recently. It seems MIT got more top students this year than Harvard so it might do better in the next few years but I just don’t think it will be a lasting pattern.</p>
<p>What’s clear from this discussion is that Harvard, Princeton and MIT are the top three schools – in some order – for students who are absolutely sure they are serious (and very serious) about math. You can argue all day and night about modestly different numbers of this or that medalist. The simple truth is that your experience at a school will have almost no relationship to any of that. It will be shaped by a random sequence of events such as who your roommates turn out to be; which professors are assigned to which courses the semester your taking them; who does and doesn’t become a mentor to you for all sorts of chance events; and which non-math courses do or don’t enchant you enough to stay with math or abandon it for another field, etc. etc. etc.</p>
<p>But keep the big picture, although the quality of the Princeton student body overall is quite good, the two schools are not quite comparable; no other school truly rivals the breadth of talent found at Harvard.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>Harvard has twice the number of national merit scholars as princeton has, adjusted for size:</p>
<p><a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;
<p>and a Harvard grad is almost 50% more likely to end up in a top professional school than a Princeton grad:</p>
<p><a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;
<p>The overall quality of your peers is just a slight notch above. It has ever been so.</p>
<p>And at Harvard, you won’t have to deal with all that eating club nonsense that is always the albatross around Princeton’s neck when competing with its peers for cross-admits. (Oh, they’re selective; no they’re not!; just some are selective … blah…blah … blah…)</p>
<p>Correction to my previous reply. Wrong site link.</p>
<p>[The</a> Top Universities Recruiting National Merit Scholars](<a href=“http://www.blackexcel.org/06-top-universities-recruiting-national-merit.htm]The”>The Top Universities Recruiting National Merit Scholars)</p>
<p>The number of national merit scholars at Harvard and Princeton can be found on this site. Harvard has about twice as many as Princeton, adjusted for class size, and well over twice as many in total!</p>
<p>What’s clear from this discussion is that Harvard, Princeton and MIT are the top three schools – in some order – for students who are absolutely sure they are serious (and very serious) about math. You can argue all day and night about modestly different numbers of this or that medalist. The simple truth is that your experience at a school will have almost no relationship to any of that. It will be shaped by a random sequence of events such as who your roommates turn out to be; which professors are assigned to which courses the semester your taking them; who does and doesn’t become a mentor to you for all sorts of chance events; and which non-math courses do or don’t enchant you enough to stay with math or abandon it for another field, etc. etc. etc.</p>
<p>But keep the big picture, although the quality of the Princeton student body overall is quite good, the two schools are not quite comparable; no other school truly rivals the breadth of talent found at Harvard.</p>
<p>For example:</p>
<p>Harvard has twice the number of national merit scholars as princeton has, adjusted for size:</p>
<p><a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;
<p>and a Harvard grad is almost 50% more likely to end up in a top professional school than a Princeton grad:</p>
<p><a href=“WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights”>WSJ in Higher Education | Trusted News & Real-World Insights;
<p>The overall quality of your peers is just a slight notch above. It has ever been so.</p>
<p>And at Harvard, you won’t have to deal with all that eating club nonsense that is always the albatross around Princeton’s neck when competing with its peers for cross-admits. (Oh, they’re selective; no they’re not!; just some are selective … blah…blah … blah…)</p>
<p>I think, due to the nature of threads comparing two top schools, that the topic has really gone from comparison to another “which top 10 school is the best” with students and prospectives alike arguing their sides.</p>
<p>The reason I remarked on the lack of Harvard voice is because even in the Harvard section I rarely see Harvard students: that actually may be a good thing, it was just an off-hand remark.</p>
<p>I agree, but I wasn’t asking which one was better. I just wanted information on both…</p>
<p>
</h1>
<p>Just to recap:</p>
<p>I (correctly) argued that Putnam data from more than three years ago is irrelevant. You responded by citing aggregated Putnam statistics from its entire history and from the last 19 years, respectively.</p>
<p>What’s the matter with you? Didn’t Harvard teach you about intellectual honesty?</p>
<p>Now, you also cited some relevant data: team placements from the past four years, which indicate that Harvard is still dominant. The thing is, a school’s team placement on the Putnam is only loosely tied to how well that school actually does on the test, because the method that the Putnam uses to determine team rankings is ■■■■■■■■. Moreover, the team ranking provides virtually <em>no</em> data beyond what you can get from individual results. Since individual results are available, there’s no reason to ever ever ever use team results as a measure of a school’s performance on the Putnam.</p>
<p>Here are some actually useful statistics:</p>
<h1>putnam fellows 2008</h1>
<p>MIT: 2
Harvard: 1
Princeton: 0</p>
<h1>putnam top-two-tier-finishers 2008</h1>
<p>MIT: 5
Harvard: 3
Princeton: 3</p>
<h1>putnam top-three-tier-finishers 2008</h1>
<p>MIT: 7
Harvard: 4
Princeton: 5</p>
<h1>putnam top-four-tier-finishers 2008</h1>
<p>MIT: 22
Harvard: 11
Princeton: 11</p>
<p>It would be useful to look at appropriately weighted aggregate data from the last three years – which would be less flattering to Princeton, since it’s done somewhat worse than Harvard up til this year – but I don’t want to collect them right now.</p>
<p>natsherman:</p>
<p>The professional school thing is obviously useless, because</p>
<p>a) the success with which a school places students into professional schools isn’t necessarily a precise reflection of the strength of its students, since the school’s prestige obviously comes into play and in that area Harvard is still unequalled </p>
<p>and </p>
<p>b) Harvard’s professional schools are themselves “elite professional schools” so the incestuous relationship between a college and its affiliated prof schools obviously favors Harvard over Princeton in the WSJ’s stats.</p>
<p>But the NMS thing is interesting. I’m inclined to say that it’s not <em>that</em> interesting because National Merit Scholars are frankly not much more interesting than their peers on average, but it’s certainly the best hard data I’ve seen to support the argument that Harvard’s student body is noticeably stronger than its competitors’.</p>
<p>razorazor:</p>
<p>Even Yale gets almost 40% more National Merit Scholars than Princeton, even though its class is only 10% larger. And it clearly lags on the math front. (It does rake in, though, a disproportionate share of super-talented writers and artsy types).</p>
<p>I have always wondered why Yale’s SAT data generally slightly exceed Princeton’s means and medians, when Princeton attracts many more serious math and engineering types.</p>
<p>Well, razorazor clearly gets upset when presented with the truth.</p>
<p>“I (correctly) argued that Putnam data from more than three years ago is irrelevant. You responded by citing aggregated Putnam statistics from its entire history and from the last 19 years, respectively.
What’s the matter with you? Didn’t Harvard teach you about intellectual honesty?”</p>
<p>No, I responded by showing that Harvard has in fact placed higher than both Princeton and MIT the past two years. They have placed number 1 five out of the past 9 years, and placed in the top three 8 out of the past 9 years. I think this shows that Harvard is doing pretty well at present, as it always has. The aggregate statistics are there as merely an addendum, but you distort it and imply that the aggregate statistics were my primary response. Speaking of intellectual dishonesty.</p>
<p>The Putnam data from more than three years ago are NOT irrelevant. As I have shown beyond any doubt, there are year-to-year variations and focusing on a year or two does not reveal the true underlying pattern. I’m not sure if you are familiar with the basic notions of sample sizes and statistical significance. What you call “useful statistics” consists of numbers from just a SINGLE year, which to me strongly suggests that you are not familiar with these elementary ideas. But you are excused, since you are merely a Princetonian. </p>
<p>He even makes the absurd argument that we should disregard the team results because there is no correlation between team results and individual results (the real reason, of course, being that the team results indisputably show Harvard at the top). Sure, every now and then, there may not be a strict correspondence, but over many years, how can they not correlate? That’s the beauty of aggregate studies and statistical significance. </p>
<p>Given the choice of signing up for the New York Yankees and the Colorado Rockies, razorazor will obviously go for the Rockies since they did better than the Yankees last year. Most intelligent people, however, would look at the big picture. They will at least consider that the Yankees are the most famous and successful franchise in the history of baseball. Twenty years from now, the Yankees will still be the Yankees, and you will be able to tell your children that you played for the greatest baseball team in history. Is this really all irrelevant as razorazor claims?</p>
<p>I might add that Harvard’s domination of the Putnam puts the New York Yankees to shame.</p>
<p>The World Series has been around since 1903 and the Yankees have won 26, for which they are considered the most successful franchise in the history of all sports.</p>
<p>The Putnam has been around since 1938, and Harvard has won it 27 times and placed in the top five 54 times. Wow. That’s a true winner.</p>
<p>Yes, there is no doubt that Harvard is better than Princeton at the Putnam because it attracts stronger undergraduate math majors. Why MIT doesn’t get first place on the Putnam despite having many more strong math students than Harvard and Princeton combined is because it has been extremely unlucky in the past few years due to the scoring methodology of the Putnam. The top three students at the school are chosen before the competition takes place and they represent the school’s score, even if other students in the same school scored higher than the students on the actual team. MIT has about 40-50 students getting into at least the top four tiers, while Harvard has about 20, and same with Princeton. I’m not sure how familiar all you are with math competitions, but having qualified for USAMO twice and placed in the Putnam top 200, I can assure you that competition math is little more than a combination of speed and repetition. </p>
<p>I don’t think the Putnam is a good indicator of the strength of a school at math. Three students at the school shouldn’t represent the strength of the entire department. To the average layperson, sure, competition math might seem like the “real deal” since they don’t have much experience with tackling the same type of problems over and over. I’ve been doing competition math all my life and it’s really nothing compared to discovering new mathematical knowledge in research, something that takes much more guts and ingenuity. What real math comes down to is research, which requires far more creativity, patience, discipline, and much more mathematical ingenuity than any competition can ever ask for. And Princeton’s success in this area is unparalleled in any part of the world, giving it hands down the best math department there is. Just ask Terence Tao, and the other 8 Fields Medallists, Wolf Prize winners, Abel Prize winners, and NAS mathematicians. Princeton is, simply, math heaven.</p>