<p>Another counter here, UVa is a LOT bigger than Duke; plus, it has plenty of school spirit (i.e., rah-rah). In addition to being large, at ~$50k UCLA is just not worth the OOS cost IMO, and neither is UVa (assuming no financial aid). For that kinda money, a student could attend a private, any private, and have smaller classes, better counseling/advising, better career center options, etc…</p>
<p>Stanford should not be a significant part of this discussion. Stanford vs. Harvard is a choice he does not yet have. Getting in off <em>any</em> waitlist is the longest of long shots.</p>
<p>All the choosing and discussing should be focused on H vs. UVa. Until and unless Stanford accepts him, all the “gut feel” about liking Stanford better than Harvard is completely beside the point.</p>
<p>Harvard should maybe rethink their admitted students program. Something about it is turning kids off, perhaps unjustly.</p>
<p>Having a laid back California born and bred kid who went to Harvard, I can tell you that she had a fabulous time! Neither she nor her roommates, accomplished as they are, were type A personalities. Not that there aren’t such people at Harvard, just as there are at any university. I do agree that the kids spend an inordinate amount of time on their ECs!</p>
<p>My concern is that if I were interested in engineering, I don’t know that I would pick Harvard as my undergraduate school. They are in the early innings of setting up a school of engineering and I would be surprised if the big companies do a lot of recruiting there yet.</p>
<p>Stanford or Harvey Mudd sounds like a much better bet on that front. I do hope the Stanford WL comes through, but you really can’t live your life counting on it.</p>
<p>One thing that you may have mentioned: are you from the New England area? I noticed that the schools that he really likes are both known for being “not New England.” That could be a factor in his choice.</p>
<p>My D got into both Stanford and Harvard and chose H based a lot on the fact that it wasn’t California–and she wanted something different for college. She’s glad she did make the effort to try something new.</p>
<p>I agree that your S has great choices and that you really should let him choose among his many opportunities. As much as it may seem “crazy” to some to turn down Harvard, 20% of acceptees do and probably only a few regret it later on in life (I personally know only one).</p>
<p>Years ago, my older d. visited Harvard, where she was a quite logical candidate (one of 6 students in the nation to get a perfect score on the SAT verbal at age 13 - would have been 8th grade, but we homechooled; had written an opera which was performed in a concert version, and was a finalist for the most prestigious composition award in the nation for composers under 26 - that means including all the graduate students, etc., etc.) Anyway, she visited with the music department undergrad chair. She was told that the Harvard professor composer she had already worked with while he was on sabbatical in Oregon only taught graduate students, and that only in alternate years, and no, there were no exceptions. The facilities were poor, dingy, and not in good repair. She met some students and just didn’t hit it off. She found out that study abroad was relatively discouraged.</p>
<p>She ended up at Smith, where (she believes) the undergrad academics were better, and is now on a 5-6 year fellowship at Princeton in musicology and Italian Renaissance Studies. And more, I hope it opened up a place for a future Harvard student for whom Harvard is just perfect!</p>
<p>Go with gut.</p>
<p>^Agree with mini, that Harvard if they don’t have your program (and they aren’t big into music either) isn’t worth it.</p>
<p>you mentioned that harvard was a fit for your son bc of the engineering program - the engineering program at harvard is definitely not its forte. what about it does he like?</p>
<p>i’m kind of surprised pre-frosh weekend turned people off (not your son in particular…other people mentioned it too). it was such great weather!!..especially in comparison to what i heard about yale’s BDD. yeah, i know weather is not that huge a part of it, but my visit was in the middle of february, and i almost didn’t come bc i was SO FREAKING COLD.</p>
<p>my personal opinion is that visits aren’t <em>that</em> helpful in deciding on a school. a lot of times, esp with a school like harvard, people go in with pre-conceived notions of what it’s going to be like and then - surprise, surprise - their attention is drawn to everything that fits with their stereotypes…like the idea about harvard being really type-A. most likely, the top 30 (or so?) schools are pretty type-A. i don’t think harvard is significanlty more type-A than uva. plus, most type-A kids at harvard are type-A in the good sense (driven, motivated, passionate) rather than in the bad sense (overly competitive, arrogant, narcissistic). </p>
<p>sometimes i think ‘fit’ is over-emphasized on this forum. i worried and worried about whether harvard was the right ‘fit,’ but i found my place here after some time. there are definitely certain general things about a school where fit is important (eg, a student who needs hand-holding should not come to harvard nor should a student who wants greek life), but i think determining fit based on the feeling one gets during a two-day weekend is potentially missing a great opportunity. there are so many things that are nerve-wracking during pre-frosh weekends. ok i’m just rambling…and yeah i don’t necessarily know a better way…btw, what is the cost comparison?</p>
<p>Does the OP have a problem with her son not picking Harvard, or does the son have a problem? If the former, then… there is nothing to talk about. A person who was accepted at Harvard must be a bright kid who has already made a lot of good choices. He should now make the next good one, which, it sounds like, is to go to UVa, or Stanford in the very unlikely case that he gets off their waitlist.</p>
<p>Mazatl:
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<p>Mazatl is a student, I believe. As a parent, I’m older and have met many UVa and Harvard grads. In my experience, Harvard grads are way, way more Type A than UVa grads.</p>
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<p>Yes, this.</p>
<p>Also, discourage him from the “what if I regret it?” type of thinking. He’s making the best decision he can with the information he has. That is all we can ask of ourselves. Time spent on the “what ifs” is time wasted. Learning to make a decision and then make the decision to be happy with it are important lessons to learn early in life.</p>
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<p>That sounds like a good plan, assuming he’s been to UVA and likes it.</p>
<p>“i don’t think harvard is significanlty more type-A than uva”</p>
<p>I went undergrad to Harvard, and have recruited or visited at all of the Ivies except Dartmouth. I went to grad school at Stanford and GW, and have taught or recruited at a variety of colleges, have visited a variety of colleges including U Va., and have lived all over the country.</p>
<p>By far, Harvard has the highest concentration of Type A people that I have ever been around. What a Harvard student would consider a nontype A person is what other people would definitely consider to be Type A. </p>
<p>Some people – including bright Type As love that kind of environment; Some don’t want to be in that kind of environment. One needn’t be in a Harvard environment to be or become a success unless one’s narrow definition of “success” is being a Harvard grad.</p>
<p>From what the OP has posted, it sounds to me like her son is making a thoughtful decision that’s right for him, and I hope the OP will give him her blessing.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there are some very miserable students at Harvard who are miserable because they or their parents thought it would be a big mistake to turn down Harvard when they would have been much happier, more fulfilled and even more academically and personally successful if they’d gone to a college that was a good fit for what they wanted out of their college experience.</p>
<p>Anecdotal data here. All of which completely agrees with Northstarmom. Two siblings of my siblings attended Harvard. I must point out, we are a very tender sort of people, wear our feelings on our sleeves, always ready to take the blame, prone to anxiety and self-examination. Both my siblings found Harvard tough. Not academically. But as my sister said, even the record collections were competitive. Not cutthroat. For people who have those genes, it is fabulous. There’s nothing mean-spirited about it. It’s just hard on those of us who are prone to for example Stendhal’s Syndrome. And suburban campuses, with lawns, and trees, and a hill or a forest nearby, are better for us.</p>
<p>“Harvard should maybe rethink their admitted students program. Something about it is turning kids off, perhaps unjustly.”</p>
<p>I think that the program is probably fine the way it is. If some students are turned off by the program, that’s probably because Harvard isn’t a good fit for them. That’s perfectly fine, and doesn’t reflect poorly on the students or Harvard. Far better for those students to select a school that gives them the college experience that they want than for them to go to Harvard and be disappointed, unhappy or to accomplish less academically or socially than they would have in a place that was a better fit.</p>
<p>One of my Harvard undergrad friends transferred to Stanford. She didn’t like Cambridge and didn’t like the intensity of Harvard. She loved Stanford, went to medical school there and continues to live happily in California. Meanwhile, her brother went to Harvard, graduated from there and loved that experience. People are different.</p>
<p>Mazalt-- I never said the Type A’s at Harvard were narcissitic. But when my company does an undergrad presentation at UVA and 100 undergrads show up, maybe 5 of them stay afterwards to shmooze and to network and to ask questions. At H, of the 100 undergrads who show up, 98 of them would still be there unless the custodians came in to flicker the lights on and off. They just don’t want to leave any stone unturned-- and it’s that intensity that I’m talking about. It’s not about smarts or intellect or capacity for deep thinking- but my guess is that if a kid who is usually intuitive about what’s a good fit and what’s a bad fit comes away turned off by H there’s probably a good reason for it.</p>
<p>The two kids in my town that I know who just came back from Cambridge didn’t want to come home to finish off the HS year- that’s how comfortable they felt. So I don’t think H needs to rethink the way it does accepted student visits-- some kids will love it, some won’t. Some reluctant students will end up loving it, and some students who turn down H and go elsewhere may end up regretting it- that’s called life. We don’t get perfect information before we have to make a decision, do we???</p>
<p>Also, the OP has said that her son “doesnt’ like the city atmosphere” of Harvard. That’s a good reason to go elsewhere. Not everyone wants to spend 4 years in a college that’s smack in the middle of a busy urban area. </p>
<p>Being in an urban area happens to be my idea of bliss, but many people feel differently, and their preferences are fine.</p>
<p>Agreed that he should follow his gut feeling.</p>
<p>He/You can still be proud and mention that he WAS accepted to Harvard!!! In a few months, after the year has started the name won’t matter, but his happiness will.</p>
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<p>Just or unjust, I’d say any accepted students weekend that actually leads to a decision is a success. Even if that decision is unfavorable, the weekend fulfilled its objective: a decision. </p>
<p>In this case I don’t think the OP’s kid needs to give the school a second chance just because it’s Harvard. (Applicants don’t get a second chance.) I’d tell my son to walk away proudly, knowing he tried to like it best, but in the end, H came in third.</p>
<p>OP,
Was Prefrosh the only visit your S has made to H? If not, how did he feel about it during the other visits?</p>
<p>My nephew had a terrible time at Stanford’s prefrosh, but went there anyway and absolutely loved all 4 years. Another family friend’s D hated Yale’s BDD, but is now a happy sophomore there. I don’t think those Prefrosh days reflect reality.</p>
<p>"The only time I made a bad job decision, it was over the objections of my “inner voice”… "</p>
<p>I had the opposite experience – following my gut led me to take a couple of jobs that, rationally, I should have known weren’t right.</p>
<p>There’s no wrong choice for the OP’s S, so the stakes aren’t very high. I just don’t agree that gut decisions are necessarily better decisions.</p>
<p>I think Harvard does it’s accepted student weekend pretty well. The first thing they do is give the parents a t-shirt, a map of Boston and then tell them to go away. (They did grudgingly have a Q&A session Sunday evening where the head of dining when asked about their healthy breakfast choices couldn’t seem to do better than bagels.) The students get a wide variety of panels to attend and all the clubs have open houses of one sort or another. On the Monday the departments have open houses and you can attend classes. My son found more kids like him than he expected (he spent a good part of the weekend playing board games and watching the DaVinci Code with a group that was watching it to make fun of it), but when he talked to the engineering school they really couldn’t articulate why he should go there instead of Carnegie Mellon. “Well we’re Harvard” was about as good as they could get. CMU showed them examples of their work, had detailed lists of where their graduates went and what their salaries were, they had a separate tour of the computer building. It was completely different. And CMU didn’t feel the need to toss the parents out completely, while at the same time making clear that it was the kids’ weekend. I thought the two events reflected the culture of the school pretty well.</p>
<p>“I’d tell my son to walk away proudly, knowing he tried to like it best, but in the end, H came in third.”</p>
<p>He doesn’t need to try to like any school that accepted him best best – as long as something like an important factor like money isn’t a consideration. He should go with the school that he feels would offer him best what he wants from his college experience.</p>