<p>I was lucky enough to get into these 2 awesome schools (Stanford and Harvard), but I'm torn regarding which to chose. </p>
<p>Any suggestions?</p>
<p>I think there's already a thread about this, but anyway...I chose Stanford over Harvard because I was and am still very interested in doing research as an undergrad and Stanford puts over $4.3 million a year into undergraduate research while Harvard only puts $1.5 million. I think this also demonstrates that Stanford really cares about undergrads a lot, while people have criticized Harvard for only caring about grad students. I also encountered some really unhelpful, snobbish people working there. I had to visit after admit weekend because of a mix up with my flight, and a lady actually said to me, "What are you doing here? Admit weekend was last week!"
That said, I have a really nice friend in '09 at Harvard and I felt good hanging out with her and her friends.
You should visit both places and see where you feel you fit the best, although it's very hard to do that in a couple days. Also, don't be too enchanted by the lovely buildings and flowering trees in MA because they will eventually be covered in cold, cold snow. I have heard it's actually not really cold in MA in the winter; it's just PAIN.</p>
<p>Yeah there is an identical thread but it's under Harvard University so that probably contributed to somewhat biased replies. If some more Stanford savvy people could contribute that'd be great!</p>
<p>I did summer programs at both Harvard and Stanford and can honestly say that Stanford is way better. The main difference I think is the people: Stanford is MUCH more friendly, laid back, and nurturing. Harvard is very cold and the professors don't really care about the undergrads. For law school or medical school I would definitely consider Harvard over Stanford. But undergrad? Goodness, go Stanford HANDS DOWN! Plus, it's in california!</p>
<p>Stanford is more nurturing. Harvard has become a factory.</p>
<p>Yeah, I felt like Harvard was an undergraduate branding system. They trick the "best and the brightest" into going, then just metaphorically stamp "HARVARD" on their foreheads, without actually helping the students grow as members of academia, society, and research circles.</p>
<p>Basically, I hate Harvard College. Stanford all the way.</p>
<p>I don't know much about the Stanford summer programs., but going to summer school at Harvard is very different than being a studemt there.</p>
<p>73% of top high school students in the U.S. choose Harvard over Stanford.<br>
73% choose Harvard over M.I.T. 65% choose Harvard over Yale. 75% choose Harvard over Princeton.</p>
<p>M.I.T. and Stanford split about evenly 51:49.
Yale does somewhat better than Stanford, 60:40.
Stanford and Princeton also split about evenly, 52:48.</p>
<p>Based on these, the pecking order is Harvard> Yale > M.I.T.=Stanford=Princeton.</p>
<p>I would say Harvard> Stanford> Yale for graduate school, but for undergrad, Stanford is still a notch below Yale, which is a notch below Harvard.</p>
<p>Interesting data, but to the OP, I hope you will be able to visit both schools or at least speak to people who are students there so that you can find what's best for YOU. I do hope that you'll choose based on much more than just the prestige. I had this same option 3 years ago and chose Stanford, and I have never regretted it. And while I can rave about how great it is here for so many types of students, I can't tell you what it's like to be at Harvard, so I hope you can see for yourself.</p>
<p>ske293,</p>
<p>The NYtimes article gives estimates, not real numbers. How did they come up with those numbers? What method did they use to derive their estimates? Those should be your questions to ask before you draw any conclusion from that. </p>
<p>But I agree with you that for overall prestige, harvard is #1 for undergraduate. After that, Stanford=MIT=yale=princeton for undergraduate.</p>
<p>For graduate, Stanford, Berkeley, and MIT are as good as Harvard. Yale is NOT at their level.</p>
<p>ske293: I don't see how those numbers are relevant...</p>
<p>datalook: I wouldn't put MIT among the ranks of Stanford/Berkeley/Harvard for grad; it's much more specialized and thus has fewer programs, though the programs it does offer are clearly among the best.</p>
<p>MIT deserves to be in the group of Stanford, Berkeley, and Harvard at graduate level. It is a school super strong in virtually all science fields and engineering fields. Plus, it has a top bussiness school, a top economics department and a top linguistics department. I believe these 4 schools are the big 4 giants in graduate education. They have most distinguished faculty across the board, each having more than 200 faculty members selected into national academy of sciences (NAS+NAE+IOM).</p>
<p>After them, Caltech, Princeton, and Yale deserve a special recognition. Caltech is super strong in physics, chemistry, geology, and aerospace engineering. If everything is normalized by size, Caltech might be #1 in the whole world.
Princeton is super strong in humanity fields, math, and physics.
Yale is super strong in law and humanity fields.</p>
<p>The numbers are relevant because the most academically gifted high school students across the U.S. see Harvard as the place to be, much more so than any other college.</p>
<p>Stanford still relies very heavily on California residents to fill its class (41% of the current students are from CA alone; #2 and #3 states among admitted students are Texas (6%) followed by New York (4.3%). </p>
<p><a href="http://www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/facts/undergraduate.html#profile%5B/url%5D">http://www.stanford.edu/home/stanford/facts/undergraduate.html#profile</a>
<a href="http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/april4/admits-040407.html%5B/url%5D">http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/april4/admits-040407.html</a></p>
<p>In comparison, Harvard students are evenly distributed. 27% from NY/NJ/CT/MD/DC, 20% from CA and other western states, 17% from MA/NH/VT/ME, 16% from the South, 11% from the Midwest, and 10% from abroad.</p>
<p>In other words, Harvard is a true national university and it is the only university to be held in the highest esteem throughout the U.S. as well as abroad. Schools like Stanford, Yale, and Princeton are highly regarded in their home turfs, but their standings drop precipitously once you are outside their regions.</p>
<p>You do realize that California is by far the biggest state in the US and has a population that is not much less than allllll the states of NY/NJ/CT/MD/MA/NH/VT/ME combined (CA has 37 million, the rest combined have ~44 million). California is basically the West Coast and all the states are essentially the East Coast. So having 44% of students from that contingent of states, all on the east coast, isn't much more diverse than 41% of students from CA. West Coast students are more represented at Stanford, and East Coast students are more represented at Harvard. Harvard students are no more evenly distributed than Stanford students; they're just distributed in a different way.</p>
<p>i know a bunch of seniors last year (nearly 20) who got into Harvard, along with other places like Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Princeton, Yale...no one went to Harvard (and Harvard gave most of them a LOT of money). i guess that's the way to tell where a school is in undergrad. for grad school though, Harvard's tops in everything. go to Stanford. you won't be disappointed.</p>
<p>The U.S. has 300 million people so California only accounts for 12% of the entire U.S. population and yet accounts for 41% of Stanford students. That's a 3.5 fold enrichment.</p>
<p>I don't know where you are getting your numbers but when I add up all the New England/Mid-Atlantic/DC populations, I get 60.7 million, which is 20.2 % of the U.S. population. That's a 2 fold enrichment at Harvard.
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_states_by_population%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_states_by_population</a> </p>
<p>Some enrichment is inevitable because the coastal states are the most developed in the Union and have the best schools. But Stanford's enrichment is 1.75 times that of Harvard's, which still supports my point.</p>
<p>In any case, my point that Stanford is more provincial than Harvard remains valid regardless of how many people are squeezed into a single state. Outside that state, Stanford just does not command the same level of respect.</p>
<p>OP. Go with your gut. These arguments are ridiculous. The idea that 51/49 or whatever matters in the least bit shows only that many of those who want to go to these places are provincial. They are all good. It is these types of threads that makes my kid want to turn down offers from places like this and makes others not even want to apply. The only thing that matters is your attitude and effort after you enroll. The idea that some statistic is going to give you some edge is amusing and naive. If you can't separate based on weather, location, area of study--- then draw straws. You will do fine. Great opportunities. Good luck.</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> This is ridiculous, and frankly not important to anything the OP wants, but I'll play along.</p>
<p>Here's the data I have, it's practically the same as numbers in the link you gave me.</p>
<p>California: 36 million</p>
<p>New York: 19 million
New Jersey: 9 million
Connecticut: 3 million
Maryland: 5.5 million
Massachusetts: 6 million
New Hampshire: 1.5 million
Vermont: .5 million
Maine: 1 million</p>
<p>That's about 45 million. Not 60 million. And most of it is New York, which we don't have isolated statistics for.</p>
<p>And also, let's look at MA/NH/VT/ME: about 3% of the US population, but 17% of Harvard's population. That's a "5.7 fold enrichment," as you would say.</p>
<p>And again, let's look at NY/NJ/CT/MD: about 12% of the US population, but 27% of Harvard's population. That's a "2.3 fold enrichment," as you would say. But </p>
<p>Taking the aggregate population of all the aforementioned states, we get about 15% of the US population, but 44% of Harvard's population. That's a "3 fold enrichment" for east coast states. Stanford's enrichment for California is 3.4 fold. Again, not too much of a difference. And California is, by far, the biggest state in the US.</p>
<p>
[quote]
In any case, my point that Stanford is more provincial than Harvard remains valid regardless of how many people are squeezed into a single state. Outside that state, Stanford just does not command the same level of respect.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not really sure I grasp your argument concerning how "level of respect" corresponds directly to number of applicants from a state. You get the best and brightest students, no matter where they're from, you're going to be respected. And saying something like "outside CA, Stanford does not command the same level of respect," isn't saying much, even if I were to agree with it. Because CA isn't just any state. It's the most significant state and most populous state in the country.</p>
<p>Though I just flat-out disagree with what you say, because your argument is asinine in this respect. No pun intended.</p>
<p>As I said, West Coast students will be overrepresented at Stanford. But, then again, East Coast students will be overrepresented at Harvard. And the overrepresentation is of roughly the same magnitude.</p>
<p>That is completely bogus. The overrepresentation is not the same at the two schools, not even close. I guess you can add but you don't know your geography. Read what I wrote again. I said: "when I add up all the New England/Mid-Atlantic/DC populations, I get 60.7 million, which is 20.2 % of the U.S. population"</p>
<p>New England States:
MA 6.4 million
ME 1.3 million
RI 1.1 million
VT 0.6 million
NH 1.3 million</p>
<p>Mid-Atlantic States:
NY 19.3 million
PA 12.4 million
NJ 8.7 million
CT 3.5 million
MD 5.6 million
DE 0.9 million</p>
<p>District of Columbia 0.6 million</p>
<p>The New England, Mid-Atlantic, and the D.C. together account for 61.7 million, or 20.5% of the U.S. population. At Harvard, they together make up 44%, so that's a 2.1 fold enrichment. As I noted above, this enrichment can be attributed to the fact that coastal students are academically better qualified.</p>
<p>California accounts for 12% of the population but make up 20%, so that's a 1.7 fold enrichment. In other words, THERE IS MINIMAL BIAS IN FAVOR OF THE EAST COAST AT HARVARD RELATIVE TO THE WEST COAST.</p>
<p>At Stanford, California makes up 41%, so that's a 3.5 fold enrichment. As I pointed out before, that's much greater than the corresponding 2.1 fold enrichment for the East Coast students at Harvard. The Great State of New York, which has 19.3 million people (6.4% of the population) has by far the largest pool of high-achieving students on the East Coast, and is the third most represented state at Stanford. And yet it only accounts for 4.3% of students at Stanford, which is 0.67 fold underrepresentation. Similarly, Texas, which has nearly 8 % of the U.S. population, only has 6% representation at Stanford. In other words, THERE IS A MAJOR BIAS IN FAVOR OF CALIFORNIA STUDENTS AT STANFORD.</p>
<p>Once again, the enrichment ratio at the two schools are:</p>
<p>East coast/CA at Harvard = 2.1/1.7= 1.2, which is hardly significant.</p>
<p>CA/New York at Stanford = 3.5/0.67= 5.2, which is VERY significant.</p>
<p>The admissions office at Stanford is putting a major emphasis on traveling around the country to recruit more students from other parts of the Union to Stanford, precisely for this reason. If everything is just fine as you claim, why is Stanford admissions office doing this?</p>
<p>Hello! I've been following this thread for a while now, and I really appreciate the detailed analysis ske293 and Hrteexz provided. I think you guys are really helpful, recourceful, and apparently very good at statistics! :) But you both know that Stanford and Harvard are AMAZING schools with terrific students and admits (such as you guys) and there's really very little point arguing about which is better. IMHO, the OP probably wants to know more about different qualities of both schools so that he/she can decide which one is a better fit, instead of learning a lot about which state has how many people. (Very informative by the way, I live in Taiwan so this is pretty much all news to me). ;)
Anyway, just my two cents. :)</p>