<p>To all of those applying to Princeton and Harvard:</p>
<p>At this point in the year, I'm still not sure which of these 2 schools is my first choice. If anyone would be willing to share some advantages and disadvantages of one over that aren't necessarily made claire in the brochure/website/or tour, that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>Harvard's got a bigger endowment, Pton is more undergrad-focused. Harvard's student body is a bit more diverse, Harvard's got a better name and is consistently ranked higher. I think it largely depends on what you want to major in though. I want to be a math major, so that kinda tips the scales toward Princeton for me. Oh, and Harvard's got the better surrounding city if you ask me. Cambridge rocks IMO. I'm applying to both but neither are my first choice. Stanford all the way man.</p>
<p>Harvard isn't consistently ranked higher. For instance, they're both #1 on USNews right now. Besidse, ranking is a dumb reason to pick Harvard over Princeton.</p>
<p>chibearsfan17 wrote, "I want to be a math major, so that kinda tips the scales toward Princeton for me." </p>
<p>I'm the coach of a middle school math team, so I'm very interested in how math majors choose their schools. I have one boy on my team who is very focused on Caltech already, at seventh-grade age. (He is more of a physics guy than a pure math guy in his personal pattern of interests.) Other guys on the team are still thinking about various schools. What have you found out about Princeton that leads you to prefer it to Harvard for math? And why is Stanford your first choice?</p>
<p>to me, tthere aren't many real difference. one big one though is location. do you want to be in the middle of a city, with all of its resources available. But maybe the large access to the city would somewhat deter from a community atmosphere, where the social activities have to be on campus, like in Princeton. ALthough there is a city near princeton, its not nearly the size of Boston, so most of the activities would probably have to be on campus. </p>
<p>another difference is the eating clubs thing. princeton has those (which i guess are similar to greek life) whereas harvard has no greek at all. </p>
<p>3rd--the housing system. its past midnight, and i can't quite remember how Princeton's works, so they might be the same, correct me if they are, but i know that harvard groups all the freshman together in Harvard Yard, in their respective houses, dorms, whatever they're called, so they get an opportunity to bond with a smaller group. Princeton, <em>might</em> do something different.</p>
<p>...academically, they're all great. the education u'll recieve from either is great.</p>
<p>Princeton is an hour away from two of the nation's largest cities (NYC and Philly). I'm sorry, but that's kind of hard to beat. True, Harvard's in Cambridge and has all of the resources of Boston at it's disposal (which is awesome; trust me, it was one of the reasons why I was going to apply if I didn't get into Princeton), but Princeton has (IMO) the best of both worlds: you can escape the hustle and bustle of city life in a quiet, extremely safe town while still reaping the benefits of two world-class cities that are only a short train ride away :)</p>
<p>And Princeton freshmen are assigned to a residential college for the first two years (although three of the soon-to-be six colleges will be four-year by the time we're juniors). It seems that the rescol scene is less at Pton than it is at Harvard and Yale.</p>
<p>In recent years, about 3/4 of common admits have tended to choose Harvard over Princeton.</p>
<p>where'd u get that data? i've heard that like 80% of yale / harvard common admits choose harvard, but thats from hearsay on xoxo</p>
<p>I chose Stanford over Princeton and Harvard because the Bay Area rocks my socks off. Eat that, you 3/4 common admit rate! :)</p>
<p>Exact numbers are almost never reported (the cross-admit story at Stanford this year being rather unique) and are viewed as confidential, but occasionally rough percentages are mentioned - such as, for example - by a member of the Harvard Admissions Committee in THIS story:</p>
<p>You can rest assured that all the top elites calculate these numbers with great precision.</p>
<p>...could u link the stanford story too?</p>
<p>This was rather unprecedented, really, as this data is usually considered quite "sensitive". It looks to me as if some professor demanded it, the admissions people complied (presumably against their better judgment) and the story got out. Of course this story only gives Stanford's "losses" in the common admit wars, and not its "wins" - but interesting nevertheless.</p>
<p>"where'd u get that data? i've heard that like 80% of yale / harvard common admits choose harvard, but thats from hearsay on xoxo"</p>
<p>Xoxo is a very reliable source of information.</p>
<p>HTH.</p>
<p>The only uncensored source, surely.</p>
<p>i don't see how that graph shows how many people take whatever school via crossadmits. its just showing where those 880 who don't take stanford's acceptnace go. for all we know, all of stanford's admits could be harvard's admits. it just tells us that 28% of those stanford doesn't get go to harvard. right? i might be delirious cuz its 345 AM</p>
<p>Did you read my post?</p>
<p>I don't think so. </p>
<p>As for Harvard, the rule of thumb is that there are 2,050 admits to fill 1635-50 slots - meaning that there are only 400+ admits who go elsewhere ... not enough to fill a quarter of Stanford's freshmen class even if they ALL went to Stanford, which they obviously don't.</p>
<p>Whoa, how can Harvard ignore early decision policies from other schools? You mean Harvard will accept people who BROKE AN HONOR CODE? Somebody who was accepted early decison and yet still applies to Harvard is a scum bag who violates the honor-bound agreement he or she made to the early decision college. I personally would not want to go to school with the type of person who is not ethically bound by the agreements he or she makes. This type of person would probably be more prone to breaking Harvard's honor code and cheat on tests. </p>
<p>Is Harvard getting desperate or something? Are they feeling the heat from Stanford? Too bad Stanford and Yale don't do early decision anyway, and Harvard's arrogant decision to ignore the early decision policies of other schools wouldn't affect them. Also, Harvard is going to have a student body full of opportunists and cheaters. (oh wait, it already does :) )</p>
<p>Harvard seems so much more stinking arrogant than better schools like Stanford. For example, constrast Stanford's article with Harvard's:</p>
<p>Stanford
Its not surprising that the exceptional students admitted to Stanford often have other impressive college options, Wire said. We are always thrilled that so many of them choose to enroll here. Still, we know that the college admission process is about more than gaining admission -- it is about finding a campus that is the best fit intellectually, socially and emotionally. </p>
<p>We want the students who enroll at Stanford to be happy that they are here, and we recognize that there will always be a percentage of admitted students who will choose to enroll elsewhere, Wire said. Its all about fit.
<a href="http://news-service.stanford.edu/ne...ecline-106.html%5B/url%5D">http://news-service.stanford.edu/ne...ecline-106.html</a></p>
<p>Harvard's
Our yield rate is so much better than anyone elses that we can make decisions other schools cant make, Dowling said.</p>
<p>If someone makes a deal with another school, thats their business, Wofsy said. But as far as I know, that honoring procedure is out the window for next year.</p>
<p>Theyre going to talk to other schools, but its not going to be negotiation, he said. Were just going to tell them what were doing.</p>
<p>[Why] would we honor a system that stinks? he said.
<a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=214992%5B/url%5D">http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=214992</a></p>
<p>the arrogant b*******
only 28% chose Harvard and 8% chose Pton???what horrible taste</p>
<p>The Crimson article was posted in response to a request for a link on the matter of cross-admit rates. This 2oo2 article reflects an extreme hostility to binding Early Decision programs felt not only at Harvard but in the media generally at the time. Recall that among other things, USNews was cowed into dropping "yield rates" as a selectivity measure, for 2003, since critics felt using ED rates as a selectivity measure in the rankings was encouraging the spread of binding ED - which those critics - including most high school guidsance counselors, felt was getting out of hand.</p>
<p>While there were certain hardliners who wanted Harvard to do whatever it could to sink binding ED (as people such as James Fallows in the Atlantic had urged them to do) most of the views expressed - if you read closely - were not coming from Admissions Office top leadership.</p>
<p>In the end, this rumbling about Harvard taking "unilateral action" served as a shot across the bow at Yale and Stanford, who not long thereafter agreed to move in tandem to a "compromise" position with "Single Choice Early Action". If they hadn't done this there was a very real chance Harvard MIGHT have taken a hard line. </p>
<p>(Remember - at the time, for the Class of 2003. Harvard was in an untenable position - thanks to an odd ruling by the Admissions Counselors group forcing "Open EA" schools to allow applicants to apply to a single "binding ED" school as well, but also forcing the EA schools to gracefully bow out if one of their admits was currently admitted "binding ED elsewhere. Sort of like enforcing the "Fugitive Slave Act" for the competition, the way some people at Harvard viewed it. Nearly 80 Harvard EA admits were barred from accepting, and were required, rather, to comply with binding ED commitments elsewhere. This did not sit well.)</p>
<p>In the end, when Yale and Stanford agreed to drop binding ED, Harvard agreed to join them. The following, more conciliatory article came - I think - 3 weeks after the earlier one:</p>