<p>I should also mention that for Harvard, just an admissions pre-read (basic stats only) was required before she was invited on an official visit. At Stanford, for sports with later signing dates, athletes must first complete the entire application and be ACCEPTED by admissions before even being offered an athletic official visit.</p>
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<p>I have certainly heard this too. Is there good evidence that it has some real basis? I find it hard to believe there aren’t already a ton of small classes at either Harvard or Stanford. This is especially for the more specialized material. And as for the professors not taking to their teaching duties with enthusiasm, how on earth is this measured? Do undergraduates who respond to surveys about teaching just generally not approve, and is the fact that the unhappy often take the time to vent taken into account here?</p>
<p>I personally don’t think it makes sense for a professor to have to be the one to initiate getting to know the students better. I’m pretty sure professors show enthusiasm sort of universally if and only if the students are enthusiastic about learning, aside from professors who keep to themselves. </p>
<p>Perhaps someone should post department-specific complaints. I know some of my younger professors and some graduate students were once undergraduates at Harvard, and they certainly had a lot of great professors to talk about in the maths department, to the point where it didn’t even seem a problem worth bringing up. But certainly there could be varied experiences – I am just curious where the complaints actually come from.</p>
<p>And what does getting to know undergraduates mean? On what basis should the professors and students converse? In the case of graduate students, they converse on the basis of common research interests. I think the burden sort of rests on undergraduates to figure out what to talk to their professors about. The professor’s job is to be courteous, friendly, and caring for the students.</p>
<p>mathboy, I’ve heard generally very good things about the math department at Harvard. The number of math concentrators isn’t terribly large, and they tend to be among the most talented math students anywhere, so there’s good esprit de corps between students and faculty for the most part. Those math profs take good care of their charges, and that’s something you’ll see at quite a few of the top schools. The kind of proof-intensive math they are busy with is very time-consuming–but I expect you knew that, given your screen name. ; )</p>
<p>The reports are different for the popular concentrations, such as economics, government, human bio, social sciences, etc. That’s where many complaints about faculty access, ginormous class sizes, indifferent TFs in recitations and the like come up. Harvard may feel that it is cultivating independence and initiative and such, but some students believe that the faculty could do much more to meet them halfway, so to speak. I do believe that since Ms. Faust took over, more attention is being devoted to improving in these areas but, as previously observed, this kind of institutional cultural shift takes a while.</p>
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<p>What a stupid claim!!</p>
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<p>Any evidence to show that?</p>
<p>Take my major: statistics as an example. Stanford simply kills Harvard in terms of faculty reputation. Currently, Stanford has 8 faculty members selected into the national academy of science (NAS) at its statistics department alone, while Harvard statistics department has only one NAS member and he is retired already. Actually, the whole Harvard university only has one NAS member in statistics even though Harvard has a gigantic biostatistics department. </p>
<p>It seems to me that Harvard statisticians only have one focus: Bayesian statistics, while Stanford is simply the leader in statistics methodology.</p>
<p>Zenkoan, I’m sure you know better about all those majors, that’s unfortunate if the faculty are hard to get a hold of in those areas…at least in my discipline, I heard of former Harvard students really fondly speak of their professors. I guess you’d also be correct in pointing out that my discipline is an anomaly, as even in my enormous university, the class sizes and faculty attention are really wonderful.</p>
<p>Also datalook, I think you’re considering the restricted case of a particular discipline, and that’s not a point worth discussing I think. For instance, restrict to computer science and Stanford would kill Harvard. But restrict to certain parts of maths, and Harvard kills Stanford. I imagine whatever harvardfan meant was more of an overall thing, and whether or not it’s true, I don’t know. My knowledge is quite limited to certain fields.</p>
<p>^yes. Statistics is just one area. But it does prove that Harvardfan’s claim is baseless.</p>
<p>Let’s look at more areas.</p>
<p>NAS membership in other areas:
<a href=“http://www.nasonline.org/site/Dir?sid=1011&view=basic&pg=srch[/url]”>http://www.nasonline.org/site/Dir?sid=1011&view=basic&pg=srch</a></p>
<p>physics: Stanford (12 members, with 5 in SLAC included), Harvard (10)
chemstry: Stanford (14), Harvard (13)
applied math: Stanford (8), Harvard (1)
math: Stanford (5), Harvard (9)
geology: Stanford (4), Harvard (5)
geophysics: Stanford (1), Harvard (5)
economics: Stanford (5), Harvard (4)
psycology: Stanford (8), Harvard (2)
social and political science: Stanford (6), Harvard (11)
environmental science: Stanford (9), Harvard (8)
engineering: Stanford (9), Harvard (4)
biochemistry: Stanford (5), Harvard (9)
genetics: Stanford (10), Haravrd (3)
computer science Stanford (4), Harvard (2)</p>
<p>It looks to me that Harvard and Stanford are head to head in lots of areas. Harvard’s advantage is in bio-medical related areas. Of course, Harvard has most NAS members in USA, with 163 members, while Stanford has 129 NAS members in total. But don’t forget Harvard has 10000+ faculty members, while Stanford has only about 2000 faculty members.</p>
<p>National academies include NAS (national academy of science), NAE (national academy of engineering), and IOM (Institute of medicine). </p>
<p>Stanford has 129 NAS members, 92 NAE members, 59 IOM members, with 281 in total.
Harvard has 163 NAS members, 18 NAE members, 108 IOM members, with a 289 in total. So Stanford and Harvard are quite comparable. Obviously, Stanford beats Harvard in % of academy membership among faculties. It proves again that Harvardfan does not know what he (she) is talking about.</p>
<p>I’m wondering why people are worried about most of the stuff mentioned in this post. Especially as undergraduate students.</p>
<p>Datalook: Here is the website for publication and impact rating of world university ([Performance</a> Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities](<a href=“http://ranking.heeact.edu.tw/en-us/2009/page/methodology]Performance”>http://ranking.heeact.edu.tw/en-us/2009/page/methodology)). It appears that Harvard beats Stanford in every category except engineering. The gap of scholar production between these two institutes is big. Here is the website of NIH funding for individual organization ([Award</a> Data for Individual Organizations - NIH Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool (RePORT)](<a href=“http://report.nih.gov/award/trends/FindOrg.cfm]Award”>http://report.nih.gov/award/trends/FindOrg.cfm)). If you combine all the schools and hospitals of Harvard, including MGH, BWH, Beth Israel Deaconess hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School and Harvard University, it will be well over 1 billion dollars. Stanford, while respectable, stands a fraction of that amount. In fact, the combined Stanford NIH funding is less than MGH’s. You may argue that Harvard has more faculty members. However, such argument will put Caltech and MIT as the best institutes in the country. Based on the productivity, I think that the combined UCB and UCSF (the medical school of UCB) academics is stronger than Stanford’s. The counting of NAS, IOM and NAE membership is a little silly, because there is no retirement system for those institutes. Many of those guys are no longer active or producing anything. It is only good for PR, but does not reflect the current strength of the institutes, even though Harvard has the advantage in that regard.</p>
<p>BigMike: If there is no scholar production, you had better go to LAC. What distingusih National Universities from LACs is reputation of the faculties in National Universites. The faculty reputation is generated by scholar production. LAC has the advantage that you will capture all the attention of your professors. Teaching is the main thing a professor does in LAC. In the National Universities, you not only take in knowledge, you also have a chance to generate new knowledge for humankind.</p>
<p>my point is just that most of this stuff that people are referencing in this thread only really seem relevant for PhD students that are trying to find an advisor or something. The vast vast vast majority of all that won’t really be relevant to undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>@harvardfan: Harvard has four times more faculty members than Stanford has, so Stanford lost in “publication impact” battle. Harvard has more NIH money than Stanford has, so Stanford lost that one too.</p>
<p>On that website, MIT is behind Michigan, can we say that Michigan is better? why did you go to MIT, not Michigan, if you truly believe “Scientific Papers” representing the quality of a school?</p>
<p>Wisconsin was top in the power electronic research back in 1990s. There were 5 faculty members back then, but Zhejiang University had 70 faculty members doing the same thing. Can we compare these two schools by finding out who had more “Scientific papers”?</p>
<p>Everybody got all sciencey, mathy, wonky…
Funny that no one has mentioned the very different approaches that the schools represent on social issues. Stanford=Hoover Institute/Condi Rice…Harvard=Kennedy School/Cornell West.
Now, before you say that’s too easy an analysis…be honest…these people and institutions give a clue as to what is going on on the campus and how it “feels” for both undergrads and grads. Laid back or otherwise Stanford and Palo Alto are historically way more conservative than Harvard and Cambridge. It is just another piece of a complex comparison, another part of the whole.</p>
<p>Michigan, like other big state universities, is aided by its medical school and its affiliated hospitals. MIT is the best in terms of impact per paper (just behind Rockefeller). MIT biology has only 60 biology faculty members but has the funding surpassing Harvard Medical School, and ranks 8 in life science in productivity. Many of its biology faculties are the leaders in their fields (if shamelessly counting those awards: 4 Nobels, 32 NAS in just biology department), regularly publishing papers in top journals scuh Science, Nature, Cell. It is hard to beat. MIT is the dream school for me, period.</p>
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<p>I don’t know much about this stuff, so I can’t say, but I do know basic logic says Harvardfan’s claim isn’t proved baseless by what you said, because the standard for measure being applied is clearly different from what you’re using. Harvardfan claimed something along the lines of faculty productivity, which may be false when restricted to specific departments, but may be true under some other definition that refers more broadly to the entirety of the faculty. I think it’s too obvious that certain faculty of Stanford’s are more productive to even debate, since a strong culture coming from certain disciplines simply is better found at Stanford than most other places, including Harvard.</p>
<p>My point in posting this is that I think arguing on the basis of not understanding the definition another is using will lead to a whole lot of junk.</p>
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Now you use double standards. I thought you don’t care how many NAS members they have. Tell me how many are still “active” – I mean that they can still walk two miles, not drive two miles. 
We are back to original arguments.</p>
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<p>Perhaps relevant to some undergraduates, though certainly not to most. I think what most would gain out of a non-LAC is the greater breadth of offerings (and in some cases depth too) at a bigger department. </p>
<p>I don’t think that overall faculty productivity is how one would choose a PhD program either, actually. One would restrict not only to a specific department, but to several related subfields within this department and check on the strength of faculty there. I.e. in some fields, UCLA’s maths faculty tangibly lags behind the advancements Berkeley’s faculty make, but one wouldn’t necessarily let that deter one from going to LA to study harmonic analysis and PDEs with the master.</p>
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<p>In terms of “measurable criteria such as funding, publication and impact,” Stanford=Harvard > MIT. HTH.</p>
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<p>Yeah, that explains your username. At least Harvard’s campus isn’t too far away from you. Maybe you can pull an “Azia Kim” or something.</p>
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<p>No. (10 char)</p>
<p>About half of the NAS members are retired. Half of them are still active. So the NAS membership is still a very good indicator for academic reputation. To me, it is the best indicator of faculty reputation in research. </p>
<p>The link provides the total publications and such. Of course Harvard will win th etotal number game given its gigantic size. Do you have other things to say about the quality instead of the quantity of the publications? The website ranking does not prove that an average Stanford professor is less productive than an avaerage Harvard professor.</p>