<p>Well, yes... I know. Harvard has consistently been ranked #1 by US News (except for when Yale and Caltech were given a break like 8-9 years ago) and students have consistently been choosing Harvard over other schools. Harvard has also been around for a long time and has the best location a university can ever have. These two are enough to appeal to most 18 year olds, yes. Still, however, Harvard is not what it used to be and is definitely not a leader in every discipline.</p>
<p>P.S. Your link is just for undergrad, while my comment was for grad.</p>
<p>The Havard "brand" is actually stronger than ever, it seems.</p>
<p>"...There isn't any doubt that brand matters and that Harvard is the prestige brand," says Stanley Katz, director of Princeton University's Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. "It's the Gucci of higher education, the most selective place."</p>
<p>Never mind the price tag (upward of $40,000 per year for tuition, room and board), or the fact that guides such as the U.S. News & World Report ranking of colleges and universities say the differences between Harvard and other top-ranked schools are microscopically small. The gulf that separates Harvard from the rest in terms of reputation remains enormous.</p>
<p>"It used to be the case that of students who were admitted to Harvard and Princeton or Harvard and Yale, seven of 10 would choose to go to Harvard," Katz says. "It may be more now. There is a tendency for the academically best to skew even more to Harvard. We just get our socks beat off in those cases..."</p>
<p>Personally either one will be the best decision you could make, there is no wrng choice. Stanford seems really laid back and like a more all around college life and cali is stunning where as mass is kind of Cold. Academics at harvard may have a bit of an edge, but both are top notch. and as far as prestigious goes, who cares. </p>
<p>The reason that the overwhelming majority of common admits pick Harvard over Stanford, Yale or Preinceton is probably because Cambridge/Boston is widely seen as the world's best college town. The flip side of that "laid back" sobriquet (Stanford) is, for many, "boring."</p>
<p>So, I looked at it from every angle, Byerly. An adult at a board for 18 year olds making sure that there are no loose ends in every thread in which somebody says why he or she finds an alternate reality of Harvard better for them. You have been telling everyone, how the majority feels and how they should feel. You prescribe conformity as the only plausible way when it comes to academic pursuit. As a Harvard graduate, I am sure that you know better than that. I am sure that your mind is free and you can see the world in a great deal of many ways. Yet you come back and play the same old record. Sometimes, you yourself don't sound convinced and a get a feel similar to the one I get from infomercial.</p>
<p>So here is my guess. You have been appointed by Harvard to apply artificial peer pressure and make sure that nobody ever has any doubt that Harvard would be perfect for them. You are the guy that 'volunteers' to say "Yes, this acne treatment is the only one that works."</p>
<p>the title of the forum under which this thread was posted is "Stanford University"
yet it's amazing how you find your way onto any thread that has those magic 7 letters in it and spew your routine (tired) propaganda</p>
<p>byerly, you have the largest percentage of posts for one person, and nearly the majority of posts in this entire thread!
the truth is, the point of view that has been deliberated the most has been YOUR point of view</p>
<p>on the contrary, each and everyone of your positions has been "handled" already
you just keep bringing them up (i.e. posting the same links over and over again)</p>
<p>This is a pretty dead time in the admissions biz - waiting for the underground waitlist "battles" to sort themselves out and the semi-final yield numbers to emerge.</p>