<p>yeah but if u live in KALifornia, why da hell would u go across the country and make ur-self miserable at frozen-thundra blistering cold (or sticky-dicky hot humid) harvard when stanford is right here in your backyard? Wait - unless ure a ivy whore :eek:</p>
<p>to experience something new :-D</p>
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DRab cross admits go both ways. Look at engineering students that got accepted to both schools. I'm pretty sure that most went to Stanford.
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<p>Well, I think it was shown in other posts (i.e. Byerly's) that Harvard overall wins the cross-admit battle with Stanford, as with everybody else. That's not a mark of shame of Stanford by any means, it's just a simple indication that, let's face it, Harvard has a better pop-culture name brand than anybody else, and that's not going to change anytime soon. </p>
<p>Sure, engineers will prefer Stanford to Harvard. But there aren't THAT many engineering students to shift the balance to Stanford overall. Besides, when you're talking about engineering, Stanford has some notable other powerful competitors for students, notably a certain other school in Cambridge Mass. A certain other school in Pasadena also tends to provide some stiff competition.</p>
<p>^^Yeah I know but I wanted to point out that not everone who gets into both Harvard and Stanford go to Harvard. Yeah Stanford has some mighty competitors in engineering but Harvard isn't one of them.
PS:I think one thing that really differentiates Stanford from Caltech and MIT is the quality of life there.</p>
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Yeah I know but I wanted to point out that not everone who gets into both Harvard and Stanford go to Harvard.
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<p>I don't think anybody is disputing this. Obviously no cross-admit battle goes 100% one way. Heck, I know a guy who chose a CalState over Harvard. Of course there were some highly highly unusual circumstances around it - mainly that he had some really really good reasons to go to a school near his family, not because he really thought Harvard was worse than a CalState. Basically, he wasn't really choosing the CalState over Harvard, he was choosing his family over Harvard. </p>
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Yeah I know but I wanted to point out that not everone who gets into both Harvard and Stanford go to Harvard.
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<p>I would point out that there are some people who really really like the lifestyle of Caltech/MIT, and hence to them, they would think that it is Stanford that actually has the lower quality of life. You might think that these are rather strange people, but these people do exist.</p>
<p>Yes sakky someone did chose CalState over Harvard but not because of academics. I just wanted to point out that Stanford is academically better than Harvard in certain subjects.</p>
<p>What would the subjects be in which Stanford is academically better than Harvard?</p>
<p>Well I would say engineering in general is better at Stanford than at Harvard. I really don't know much about the other subjects so I can't comment on them but there's bound to be more.</p>
<p>If you are talking about engineering programs, you should really be talking about a comparison with MIT rather than with Harvard.</p>
<p>One could always just go to Harvard and receive all the advantages of an MIT engineering program, though. Heck, even if Harvard isn't the best, it's probably one of the best 20 programs in the nation (if not the world). While there are some differences between the best and 20th best program, I think Harvard's isn't too shabby in many fields for its undergraduates, and one can access much of MIT if there isn't enough stuff for you. Sure, it's a tad inconvenient, but it probably takes the same amount of time (if not more) to bike to the engineering area of Stanford from many dorms (and probalby even longer to walk) as it does to walk to the T and take it to MIT from Harvard.</p>
<p>^Sure you could take a few classes at MIT but that really doesn't equal to an education from MIT or Stanford.
tokenadult that was my point, Harvard doesn't compare to Stanford in engineering and so if someone got into both he would probably choose Stanford.</p>
<p>But my point is that an engineering major will apply to MIT, and which college will that student enroll at if admitted to both MIT and Stanford?</p>
<p>Having seen three years of admits come through the school (including my own class), there seems to be a very nearly 50-50 split on Stanford v. MIT. I've had friends at Stanford who say they should have gone to MIT, and friends who went to MIT to later say they wished they'd gone to Stanford. During admit weekend, the hot discussion topic among engineers is that choice- the ones who are still deciding argue with the ones who are already sure they're coming to Stanford... who knows what happens after that. At that point it seems pretty much a question of where do you want to be- Boston or Silicon Valley? The programs themselves each have their strengths and weeknesses, and I think that engineers who really don't want to put their time into other subjects go to MIT, whereas the ones who are still interested in academics for the sake of learning end up at Stanford. But I'm not an engineer, so these are all just observations.</p>
<p>I thought the OP was looking for pros and cons about Stanford, not Stanford vs Harvard vs MIT. There are other threads where people discuss those things...
to the Stanford students who gave rounded responses to the original question: thanks! they were helpful, although I already decided to go to Stanford (yes, over Harvard). I still always like hearing about life at Stanford so I'm not so freaked out about actually going there next year ^_^</p>
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^Sure you could take a few classes at MIT but that really doesn't equal to an education from MIT or Stanford.
tokenadult that was my point, Harvard doesn't compare to Stanford in engineering and so if someone got into both he would probably choose Stanford.
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<p>Yeah, but you're making the strong assumption that people actually 'know' that they want to be engineers. From what I have seen, it is a far more iterative process. A lot of people simply don't know what they will major in and use their first few semesters to explore before settling on something. High school seniors know whether they are more artsy or more science-oriented, but their self-awareness is rarely granular enough that they know that they specifically want to major in engineering vs. a hard science. </p>
<p>Hence, it's nice to say that you should choose a school depending on the major you want. However, in reality, that's not what always happens. What often times happens is that many people choose a major depending on what school they actually go to. For example, if you get into MIT but no other top school, then you may go to MIT and end up majoring in engineering, not because you originally planned to major in engineering, but because MIT was the only top school you got into, and MIT is known for engineering. In contrast, if they had been admitted to Harvard, you might have gone there instead, and ended up majoring in something else (probably a science). I know some former MIT engineering students who have admitted, quite frankly, that they'd rather be going to Harvard but they didn't get in, so now that they're at MIT, they're going to make the best of the situation (which to them means engineering). I know former engineering students at Berkeley who have said the same thing - that they would have gone to Harvard if they had gotten in, and probably majored in a science at Harvard, but since they didn't get in, they're going to make the best of their available options, which to them means majoring in engineering. I have to imagine that the same thing is true at Stanford - that there are students who at Stanford who had Harvard as their first choice but didn't get in, and so now that they're at Stanford they're going to major in engineering. </p>
<p>There's nothing wrong admitting that you didn't get what you really want. The vast majority of people in the world do not get what they really want. If I really had what I wanted, I'd be tall, handsome, rich, and be dating Jessica Alba. I didn't get anything that I wanted, darn it. </p>
<p>Note, this is not to say that everybody at Stanford would rather be at Harvard. I didn't say that. Clearly there are plenty of people who considered Stanford to be their first choice. </p>
<p>I'm simply saying that it is an open question as to how many people chose Stanford over Harvard for the purposes of engineering, when the fact is, a lot of people don't even know that they want to study engineering until they learn where they were admitted and where they were rejected. It's not just a simple matter of people who like engineering deciding that they want Stanford or MIT. In many cases, it's a matter of people getting into Stanford or MIT, and only then deciding to be engineers. In other words, you have to be cognizant of what is cause and what is effect.</p>
<p>sakky, I've actually met quite a few people who at least think they want to major in engineering before going off to college. Many of them did consider the strength of the engineering department. Given the number of units you need to complete to be an engineer, you really do have to know freshman year that it's at least something you're considering. Seeing as people do major in engineering at Stanford (25%) I think it's fair to say that a large percentage of them had at least SOME clue that they might want to major in engineering if not when they decided on Stanford at least during freshman year at some point. </p>
<p>Even if you are right that they rarely know if they went engineering vs. a hard science, it makes sense for a student to want to go to school where both engineering and hard science are options. </p>
<p>I'm not sure how many students chose Stanford over Harvard simply because Stanford has stronger engineering and more students who are majoring in engineering. I suspect some people who really want to be engineers don't even bother applying to Harvard in the first place so even if you looked at cross admits you wouldn't know. I still strongly disagree that most people chose to be engineering majors after finding out where they got it. If they applied to a bunch of schools with good engineering and got rejected from all of them they might change their plans if they only got into schools with poor engineering programs, but I think many potential engineers have a good idea that it's at least a possibility for a major for them when they start applying to colleges.</p>
<p>Yes sakky most incoming freshman aren't sure whether they want to go into engineering or hard science (hell I'm one of them) but because I know that there is a good chance I'll go into engineering I made sure that all the schools I applied to had good engineering departments (no I didn't apply to Harvard and my first choice was MIT but I didn't get in). Saying that someone chooses his career based on which university he got into doesn't seem too plausible IMO. Also as marlgirl said if you plan on going into engineering and graduating within 4 years you need to plan ahead. I can tell you honestly that except for a few exceptions wherever I would have gotten into would probably not have affected my career choice too much.</p>
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One could always just go to Harvard and receive all the advantages of an MIT engineering program, though. Heck, even if Harvard isn't the best, it's probably one of the best 20 programs in the nation (if not the world). While there are some differences between the best and 20th best program, I think Harvard's isn't too shabby in many fields for its undergraduates, and one can access much of MIT if there isn't enough stuff for you. Sure, it's a tad inconvenient, but it probably takes the same amount of time (if not more) to bike to the engineering area of Stanford from many dorms (and probalby even longer to walk) as it does to walk to the T and take it to MIT from Harvard.
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<p>Just so you know, there are many great engineering programs around the world!!! Top-20 programs in the US is FAR from top-20 programs in the world, especially at the undergrad level. Just not far up north in Canada, Waterloo has great engineering program that would proabbly be ranked in the top-5 in the US. Countries like China have quite a few engineering schools whose undergrads can compete with the best here. Just look at who won the ACM international programming contest last year and the year before. They are schools from Russia and China! In fact, if I am not mistaken, no US college has won that contest since 1997. When I was at Stanford for grad school, the girl that graduated from Tsinghua consistently got top marks in our classes. I would advice people to open their horizon to get to know schools outside of the US; otherwise, please don't make unfounded assumption/implication on the quality of them. Also, Harvard doesn't have "many fields" in engineering. Their engineering curriculum is pretty limited. If you want to be a chemE, go luck in finding couple chemE core courses, let alone coming anywhere close to a full-blown chemE curriculum out of that "general engineering" degree. The argument that a Harvard student can get MIT education is kinda lame and in reality, do many Harvard engineering students really take many MIT courses, not just one or couple? If I really feel so insecure about Harvard's offering, I probably just transfer to MIT, instead of taking the T so extensively to cross-register 10+ courses at MIT and sit with students that aren't really your schoomates.</p>
<p>sakky you sound so educated on things like graduate student life, undergraduate student life. Are you in college?</p>
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Saying that someone chooses his career based on which university he got into doesn't seem too plausible IMO
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<p>I never went so far as to 'choose a career' based simply on what university he got into. I am simply saying that what universities you go to will tend to influence what you major in. For example, if the school you go to is known to be strong in X, that will tend to attract a lot of students to X. </p>
<p>Secondly, choosing a major is not the same as choosing a career. See below.</p>
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I still strongly disagree that most people chose to be engineering majors after finding out where they got it.
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<p>I'll put it to you this way. I may have said this before, but I'll say it again. It's become something of a running joke at MIT that many of the best engineering students will end up never working as engineers, but instead will take jobs as management consultants or investment bankers. I even asked a few MIT engineering students who are taking jobs at major consultancies why did they study engineering in the first place, and their answers were all consistently the same - that they never "really" wanted to be engineers. It's something that they did because it was fun for them to study and good for getting them a backup career, but they were never really all that interested in actually doing it for a living. </p>
<p>The same is true of professional school. Another large chunk of MIT engineers go on to law school or med school or some other sort of professional school in which it doesn't really matter what you majored in for undergrad. </p>
<p>Think about what that means. These are some of the best engineering students that MIT has to offer. So clearly they could get an engineering job quite easily if they want one. But from the career patterns evidenced, a lot of them simply don't seem to want one. The point is, you can get an engineering degree and never ever actually work a single day in your life as an engineer. </p>
<p>So, that basically means that you are not 'choosing a career' by choosing a major. All you are really doing is choosing something to study for 4 years. That's it. That's all you're doing. You are certainly not making an irrevocable decision about what you are going to do for a living. </p>
<p>Even at Stanford, there are plenty of engineers who have no intention of actually working as engineers. I know quite a few. They got their Stanford engineering degrees and then took jobs at McKinsey or Goldman Sachs or similar firms. Or headed off to med school or law school. </p>
<p>Hence, what that means is that that throws into question the basic assumptions about choosing a school that is strong for engineering. After all, if you don't really intend to work as an engineer (as apparently is the case for many MIT and Stanford engineering students), then, honestly, what does it matter how strong your school is in engineering? What's so bad about taking a lesser ranked engineering program at Harvard? You're not really going to use the engineering degree anyway. </p>
<p>Look, clearly there are some people who know from day 1 that they want to be engineers. I don't dispute this. However, my point is, there are plenty of other people who just aren't sure what they want to major in and are hence going to be influenced by the offerings of whatever school they end up at. And furthermore, in the grand scheme of things, the your choice of major doesn't really seem to matter much anyway. A lot of people who get elite engineering degrees will decide not to work as engineers. Furthermore, some people who don't have engineering degrees will work as engineers. </p>
<p>Don't believe that last sentence there? I know 2 girls who have had very successful careers as process engineers at Intel. Yet they don't have engineering degrees. One of them majored in chemistry. The other majored in physics. In fact, Intel itself was founded by 2 men, neither of whom were engineers. Robert Noyce had degrees in physics, Gordon Moore has degrees in chemistry and physics. So when engineers in the semiconductor industry invoke the famous "Moore's Law", they are invoking an axiom that was pronounced by a guy who himself never earned an engineering degree. </p>
<p>Or take the realm of computer science. The Turing Award is considered to be the "Nobel Prize" of computer science. Yet many (probably about 1/3) of the winners did not actually major in CS or EE as undergrads. Instead, they majored in physics or math as undergrads. Granted, most of them have PhD's in CS. But the point is, you can get into and complete a CS PhD program without actually having a CS undergrad degree. Some of the most important advances in modern computer science, such as encryption (the basis of all secure ecommerce and online banking), are basically an outgrowth of math. Google or similar online search services, are basically an application of algorithms and graph theory, which are also concepts from math. </p>
<p>So again, the point of all this is that just because you have an engineering degree doesn't mean that you have to work as an engineer, and just because you don't have an engineering degree doesn't mean that you can't work as an engineer. That therefore means that it's not as important to choose a school with a strong engineering program as many people seem to think it is. If the CS program at Harvard is supposedly weak (which I don't think it is, but let's assume this), then you can major in math. If the EE or ME program at Harvard is supposedly weak, then you can major in physics. It's not that far off. And in the real world, honestly, nobody is really going to care. Nobody hassled Robert Noyce or Gordon Moore because they didn't have "real" engineering degrees. They did good work, and at the end of the day, that's all that really matters.</p>