Should I attend Harvard or Yale?

Parents Forum
1

<p>Hi everyone, </p>

<p>I was lucky enough to get accepted into both Harvard and Yale, and I am having an extremely difficult time deciding where to go. I was wondering if you guys could help me figure this out?</p>

<p>I was accepted into Yale early action last December. Over the last few months, with the help of a wonderful admitted students website and lots of e-mails and phone calls, I have really come to like Yale a lot. I especially like the residential college system and commitment to undergraduate education. It just seems like a great place to go to school.</p>

<p>Then, I was accepted into Harvard last week. Given that I probably want to major somewhere in the sciences (possibly biology), I feel like Harvard would be a better academic fit for me. In addition, you can’t beat the Cambridge location. </p>

<p>A little about me: I am a very quiet, reserved person but still like to be around people. I would rather hang out with some friends and study together, watch a movie, or go out to get something to eat than go to a party. Academically, I have really enjoyed the natural sciences and math in high school and have tried my hand a little at research. I might pursue medical school after college although I feel like I should explore my many interests before committing myself to a pre-med track.</p>

<p>Any thoughts or suggestions?</p>

2

<p>I don’t think the quality of your scientific education will be much different between Harvard and Yale for undergrad. Cambridge is a 10000x better location than New Haven, so there’s that.</p>

3

<p>I’ll second the location advantage of Harvard.</p>

4

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<p>YALE. No question about it. You will love it there. Yale is strong in biology.</p>

5

<p>I think they’d both be fine. (Harvard grad myself.) Can you get to both accepted student’s weekends? Maybe you can decide based on the other prospective students. I do prefer Cambridge to New Haven.</p>

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<p>You can do all that at Harvard.</p>

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<p>^^^ and much better. Cambridge is a real college town, you not only get to mingle with students from Harvard but also from many other great universities/colleges close to it.
It is definitely the best place to spend undergraduate years.</p>

8

<p>Unless Yale’s program in your area is better than Harvard’s, I’d go with Harvard. Cambridge is really a nice place to live as a college student – New Haven not so much. But then, Yale has always bugged me.</p>

9

<p>Neither one of them is an above-average school in a city served by Southwest Airlines. Still, they are both pretty good. Flip a coin.</p>

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<p>kd – Son, a prospective chem major with other academic interests all over the board, chose Yale over Harvard. In the end, campus culture was the determining factor for him. He actually preferred the gritty urban environment of Yale, and for him the Residential College system won hands down. Either school will more than meet your academic needs. </p>

<p>Are you able to attend BDD and Harvard’s Admitted Students Days? That’s the best way to determine which campus and culture suits you better. Either way, you can’t go wrong. Congratulations!</p>

11

<p>Go and visit, chat with current students and alums you might know from either. Both are wonderful places for sure. I went to Y and found its campus culture to be very vibrant and its RC system breeds intense loyalty and devotion to the college. Since NYC and other locales require extra effort to venture into, there’s a lot of on-campus activity --any given Thursday to Sunday is just packed with oncampus happenings. While Boston and Cambridge offer a lot, sometimes I’ve heard, that these extra options dillute the on-campus vibrancy that I found regularly at Yale.</p>

<p>Let me end with an anecdote: at a large alumni function in Chicago once, then-President Schmidt came to speak. Afterwards, I was chatting with one of the other Y administration that attended. In conversation, he mentioned that he had attended H for college and Y for grad. Jokingly I said to him: “As much as we want to deny it, we Yalies are curious about Harvard. What’s your take on it?”</p>

<p>He said:“Well, graduating from Harvard, I felt there was nothing I couldn’t accomplish”</p>

<p>I thought:“Wow, that’s quite the compliment!”</p>

<p>He continued: “But I LOVED Yale.”</p>

<p>That encapsulates it pretty succinctly in my book. </p>

<p>Best of luck to you with your “problem”. HAHAHA</p>

12

<p>Attend either, I’ll still hate you.</p>

<p>(j/k). I’d recommend Yale if you don’t like the big cities.</p>

13

<p>You can’t go wrong, so go for the cheaper alternative. Other than that, Yale has better dorm food.</p>

14

<p>Go with Yale. First, bio is a VERY strong program at Yale. I’d give different advice if you were thinking of physics. Second, social life is different at H and Y. I’ll grant you Cambridge is nicer than New Haven–though NH, at least the area right around Y, is much nicer than most people think. (If you visit WALK around. If you drive, you’ll end up in some not so nice neighborhoods that are far beyond the distance a typical Yalie goes from Yale. Moreover, because of NH’s weird real property tax, some of the buildings that look like slums are actually nice inside. BAR, a restaurant and bar, is a good example of this. )</p>

<p>Because New Haven is less enticing than Cambridge, social life at Y tends to focus more on Y than it does at H. At H, students are just as likely to head off to a party at MIT or Wellesley or into Boston on a weekend night as they are to do anything on campus. And that’s also in part because of the social rules at Harvard. (My understanding is that you have to register a “party” to have more than about 20 people in your room. Y doesn’t have the same sort of restrictions. ) </p>

<p>Now, for some people, college social life can get claustrophobic and being able to do so much off campus is a real plus. But, just as at Columbia, the presence of so many wonderful off-campus things to do means social life on campus is less cohesive than it is at Yale. While some Yalies do head into NYC now and again, for the most part, social life at Yale centers on Yale in a way that it just doesn’t at Harvard. It’s a plus or a minus, depending on your personality. For the shyer kid, I think Y is a better choice. </p>

<p>There’s also a lot more “hand-holding” at Y for frosh than there is at H.I knew a parent with kids at both. He’d extolled the virtues of H a LOT when his older kid went there. When his second kid ended up at Y, I asked him how they compared. To my surprise, he said that in terms of the support it gave to incoming frosh, there was no comparison–Y won hands down. He said he was stunned by how much less impersonal Y was. </p>

<p>Again, a lot depends on your personality . For someone who is very assertive and mature–or just a few years older than the typical frosh–H may well be a better choice. </p>

<p>Another thing to check is ECs of interest to you. There are some important differences. People tend to thenk that because it’s H, everything must be well-funded. That’s simply not true. Funding of ECs is really unpredictable and while H is DEFINITELY better funded for some ECS, in others it isn’t. You really do have to check it out on a case by case basis. </p>

<p>Do visit both. They are both great schools, so there’s no wrong choice. But this is just my two cents.</p>

15

<p>jonri wrote exactly what I would have–Yale has a particularly vibrant on-campus social life because it’s not in a major metropolitan area. Yale students are ridiculously happy in a ways that are hard to understand unless you visit. It is a really positive, accepting, open-minded place where you can be yourself. Also, Yale has a very strong biology major.</p>

<p>I think being pre-assigned to a residential college for all four years would be a better system for a quiet, reserved person than Harvard’s house system. You’re part of a family from day one.</p>

<p>Can’t go wrong. Both are great schools. An overnight visit to both is strongly recommended. Although H and Y are more alike than different, they have discernibly different campus vibes if you spend a couple days at each.</p>

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<p>Great post (#14) jonri and I agree. I recommended Yale based on OP’s self-reported personality. And the biological sciences are very strong at Yale. </p>

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17

<p>Thanks for all the comments! </p>

<p>I’m from Houston and cannot attend the admitted students days, but I did visit both schools. I noticed that Yale students were more passionate about their school than the Harvard students, which I definitelly liked. </p>

<p>The problem in comparing the two is that I know so much more about Yale than Harvard. Does anyone know how the houses at Harvard compare to the residential colleges at Yale? I know that Harvard places students in houses sophomore year rather than freshman year, but is there a significant difference in the amenities / environment of each?</p>

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<p>well, the fact that you love yale is a plus for that school…but if you want my opinion, i have visited harvard multiple times and it is absolutely amazing (though i do admit yale is prettier hahaha) BTW, if you want to major in bio and then go to medicine…GO TO HARVARD :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: and then go to harvard med school!! absolutely amazing. but honestly, this whole thing is your own choice!! i don’t think anyone can really help you when they’re both extremely amazing schools haha :slight_smile: good luck!!</p>

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<p>& oops sorry didn’t see your initial post.
i can’t exactly help with that sorry :frowning:
i have no hope at harvard, i visit because i love the environment haha :)</p>

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<p>kd5qdf - No one on CC can really make that decision for you. H and Y, for all their smack-talking, are about as similar as two universities get. You’ll probably hear more passionate comments about Y because H has the slightly bigger brand-name, so Y fans have more incentive to promote their school. Both are incredible, both are fun, both offer the world’s greatest peers. You can make the decision on the basis of whatever factor you like, or you can make it on the basis of no factor at all, by flipping a coin. Either way, the outcome will be great and you’ll love it.</p>