@Midwestmomofboys I agree Cambridge is more urban. It’s just that Princeton downtown is hardly a village. A village would be something like Williamstown, MA (home of Williams College).
I think one of the biggest differences for the OP would be the culture. Final clubs are a different game than Eating Clubs and the VERY big differences in how students are graded can definitely be felt in how Student Life manifests itself.
Harvard grad here - though of the University, not the College (grad degree, not undergrad). Some members of my cohort were heavily involved with mentoring undergrads though, and one held some kind of position overseeing the students in one of the houses (I forget which one).
My experience at Harvard was that the students were collaborative and NOT competitive. From what I could glean from my fellow grad students who worked with undergrads, there was/is a tremendous amount of support for everyone. No one wants a student to do poorly, and help is there in spades if an undergrad needs it. There is a tradition of grade inflation (as opposed to a tradition of grade DEflation at Princeton), so if you are looking for comparatively less stress regarding grades, Harvard, with all its support and with some grade inflation, might be the way to go.
I have heard that for social and club activities at Princeton, a student has to apply, they can’t just join, and that the process is competitive. Maybe someone else can speak to that?
My experience at Harvard was fourteen years ago - so maybe things there have changed, and maybe they haven’t.
Visit both colleges and approach students randomly and ask. See what responses you get.
Princeton has 6 “selective” eating clubs – basically, social houses with meals (a/k/a “bicker” clubs) as well as 5 “open” eating clubs (“non-bicker).” Each eating club has its personality and traditions, we know many alum, and they were all over the map, both in “bicker” clubs and open. Harvard has residential houses for students after 1st year, which are lottery, but each also has its own personality and includes dining. Those houses are sprinkled through Harvard Square, all the way down to the river. Ancient history, but I went to law school with many Harvard College grads, and there was fierce loyalty to their house, whether Adams, Lowell etc. Again, ancient history, but at Harvard, there seemed to be a lot of pressure to be “distinctive,” to show one was worthy of the Harvard name, kids were very busy, very engaged. Harvard definitely is known for grade inflation whereas Princeton has changed its policies to remove the grade deflation pressure, and average gpas are drifting up. Any US grad school or professional school knows that Princeton has been known for grade deflation as compared to Harvard’s inflation.
and @yikesyikesyikes Agreed – if one thinks of Williamstown, MA or Gambier, Ohio as a village, then Princeton is no village. I suppose a better comparison would be a town on the Main Line in Philadelphia, such as Bryn Mawr or Haverford – plenty of car traffic, but a walkable community.
Thank you everyone very much for taking the time to write your responses, I sincerely appreciate it a lot!
At the moment, Princeton does seem like the better fit in terms of my major and what I look for in a campus/environment. It was also my top choice throughout the application process (after being rejected by Yale, my dream school, EA)
@CU123, your post seems quite accurate to my thoughts right now, however I am indeed convinced that both institutions are incredible and equal in terms of prestige, recognition and overall quality. While I do agree with all posts mentioning that the people that will matter for my future career will regard both schools as equals, Harvard does hold the advantage of providing me with instant credibility among the general public, especially in my country and other places overseas (Princeton does, but not on the same level). This is something I have been experiencing in the past few days since receiving my decisions. How important this might be for my future is something I will have to determine in order to decide if it is significant enough to influence my decision in any extent.
However, the most important thing that is making me so clueless about this decision is that I feel like I know little about Harvard—especially compared to the extensive research I did with every other school I applied to. Applying to Harvard was certainly a last minute decision, making the acceptance even more unexpected. For example, I know the advantages of WWS, but I need to learn more about the possible advantages of HKS as an undergraduate. @jzducol, @fauve your posts have been very insightful in this matter, and I will definitely look into that. Also, if anyone else has experience in pursuing an interest in IR through a Government / Social Studies major, it would be greatly appreciated.
Ultimately, I think my decision will be based on how I feel visiting both colleges. I am waiting to hear back regarding whether they would provide me with travel grants to go to Visitas and Preview. Otherwise, I will be in a tough situation.
My decision process is still in the very, very early stages, but I will continue to report back—if anything, in order to document my train of thought which can in itself be helpful. Thank you all again for your congratulations!
LOL @GnocchiB, that’s one way to take my point! Though it’s really that I couldn’t be bothered to google, because while I was vaguely aware that Princeton named their degrees differently, it’s not a difference pertinent to the point I was making.
There may be a lot of differences that make Princeton a better fit for the OP than Harvard (it sounds like it might be).
But the international difference in „perceived prestige“, in name or rather brand recognition, if not in familiarity with arkane academic differences, is REAL, and for an international student who wants to major and presumably work in international relations and may not ever work in the US, it is a factor to consider.
I do understand that the received wisdom in this community is that, barring financial impediments, choice should always be made on perceived fit - or at least the wisdom of the savvy parents, students, recruiters from the US - those „in the know“.
And that it’s mostly the international students, and their families and surroundings, recruiters and employers, and recent immigrant parents, those from outside the US, who strongly, for US posters even irrationally, care about name brands and „perceived prestige“.
Yes. Yes, they do.
See?
I think that the real problem here is that it appears that the OP wants to concentrate on IR and neither school offers an “IR program” at the undergraduate level. This means that neither of these schools is an “optimal fit” academically.
Debates about about the relative “prestige” or “mystique” of these two schools or the relative “greenness” or “clutter” of their local environs is not going to change their undergraduate offerings, and at best, they represent “third order effects”.
I suspect that what is making the situation “overwhelming” for the OP, is that she/he almost has to design an “IR program” from scratch at each school before a proper academic comparison can be made. This is an almost impossible task for a high school student to do on their own - especially if they are from outside the US.
Interestingly, the source of this problem is actually Yale. Back in 1828, they authored a document that has come to be known as “The Yale Report of 1828”. It is a good read for those interested in the history of curriculum design. At that point in history the US was ramping up for the industrial revolution, and higher education was being challenged to meet the needs of the changing times. In the report, Yale dug in its heels and came to the defense of the “classical curriculum”. Yale stated that “professional training” had no place in the undergraduate curriculum, and that it should be the sole province of professional/graduate schools, or dedicated “trade schools”. The group of colleges who (much later) formed the sports conference called the “Ivy League” followed Yale’s lead and to varying degrees, they have maintained that academic ideology up to the present.
In this academic model, WWS and HKS are considered graduate professional schools that should be kept separate from the undergraduate liberal arts colleges. Princeton is, in effect, breaking the model by making some of their their public policy offerings (but not their IR offerings) available to undergrads.
In this academic model, one pursues a general undergraduate education in a traditional academic discipline,
then one goes to work to obtain “real world” experience, and then one returns to graduate professional school to study a profession, such as IR.
The closest traditional academic discipline to IR is Political Science. Some schools call it “Government” (Harvard) and some schools call it “Politics” (Princeton). What can get a little confusing is the fact that academics consider IR to be a specialization within Political Science, while practicing professionals consider Political Science to be one of several academic disciplines that make up a professional IR degree…
My first suggestion for evaluating these two schools would be to compare the Harvard concentration in Government to the Princeton major in Politics. Both programs should contain some undergraduate courses related to IR and they should both provide some access to courses at their respective professional schools (Harvard allows Government Majors to take two courses at HKS and Princeton has the WWS undergrad program)
https://handbook.fas.harvard.edu/book/government
https://undergrad.gov.harvard.edu/courses-harvard-kennedy-school
https://undergrad.gov.harvard.edu/
https://politics.princeton.edu/undergraduate
https://politics.princeton.edu/fields-study/international-relations
http://wws.princeton.edu/undergraduate-programs
My second suggestion is that if you want to be better prepared for an IR related job/career directly out of undergrad, you should look at the undergraduate degree programs at schools that have true interdisciplinary (i.e.“professional”} IR majors (for example, Georgetown and Tufts), and use them as a guide to design your own undergraduate major.
Both of these schools have professional graduate degree programs (through SFS and Fletcher) that are more “IR centric” than WWS and HKS. Fletcher actually started as a joint Tufts/Harvard initiative and there is cross enrollment between the Harvard Law School, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and the Kennedy School of Government, because they each have a different focus. The diplomat in residence for the US State Department for the New England region is located at Tufts, because one of its focuses is international diplomacy…
Tufts undergrad IR is probably easier to use as a guide, because it is organized as an interdisciplinary program office within the school of Arts and Sciences rather than as a part of the professional school. This means that it’s structure maps more readily onto the structure of Harvard and Princeton’s undergrad programs. They also provide a summary of requirements for the 6 thematic concentrations which are accessible via links embedded in the link provided below.
Note that both Tufts and Georgetown have a very rigorous language requirement (relative to Harvard/Princeton). The intent of this requirement is to develop cultural literacy and sensitivity which is critical to the success of IR professionals. Based on this, I would recommend considering the language/culture opportunities at both Harvard and Princeton as a part of your decision.
https://ase.tufts.edu/ir/academics/
Best of luck, and I hope that you enjoy your time in America!
Harvard! both schools are great but no place beats Boston for students-none (and I include NYC and SF in this). It’s like an entire city for the under 30’s. Amazing place to go to school.
Princeton is in the suburbs but with easy train access to Philadelphia or New York
Harvard is in Boston.
I think you should go where you want to go, not where others want you to go.
If you are looking at IR/PS, then doing a AB in political sciences in Princeton followed by Law at Harvard or Yale may be better way. Princeton, Yale and Columbia are better known for their Political Sciences than Harvard. IR will require a legal framework and Harvard and Yale offers best legal degrees and connections. (Harvard is better known for medicine, business and basic sciences and now trying to enter engineering.)
No IR, but here’s PS: http://www.shanghairanking.com/Shanghairanking-Subject-Rankings/political-sciences.html
Harvard: http://www.shanghairanking.com/World-University-Rankings/Harvard-University.html
Princeton: http://www.shanghairanking.com/World-University-Rankings/Princeton-University.html
An old thread: http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/international-students/233003-survey-relative-prestige-of-oxbridge-hypsm-internationally-p1.html