A US student might not. For an international, what counts is whether their prospective employer has heard of their university, not whether they are conversant with the intricacy of the US higher education system.
For an outstanding international student, who will have to think about returning to work in their home country or wherever they can get a work visa, international name recognition isn’t a luxury or “prestigiosity”, it’s important. It’s Cambridge who sets the benchmark here.
Most importantly, they’re trying to explain that the rest of the world has drunk Harvard’s Kool aid.
Whether or not it’s the best fit for this student, fit is a luxury she cannot afford. She has to apply where she has a higher likelihood to get in and receive enough financial aid to attend. That’s essential. I agree that the name recognition might be of lesser importance in this case, but since she can choose only one out of a very limited pool of colleges with sufficiently deep pockets for internationals who need full rides, it should probably be the second consideration after her chances of admission with aid. It’s not like anyone is advocating for MIT for this poly sci student.
MIT has an outstanding poli sci department btw… but since there is no waiving the core requirements (the same Chem, Physics, Bio, Math that the engineers take) yes, nobody is suggesting MIT.
Fit IS a luxury for sure. But since the OP has implied that Cambridge is her safety school- and despite loans which of course they don’t want to take, it appears to be affordable for the three years she’d be there, I’m not sure that aiming for optimal fit in the US isn’t the right strategy.
Please move on from Harvard’s name recognition and back to helping with the OP’s question. Thank you!
I’m surprised a few other schools haven’t been mentioned like a Stanford, Columbia or Chicago.
Yes, I get that Harvard is probably the most famous and most generous but a few more schools seem appropriate given the odds.
I’m not
Putting name recognition aside, Columbia and Chicago have a very rigid core, which looks to be something she’s not seeking.
The schools I mentioned weren’t specific recommendations. My point was that putting all the eggs in the Harvard basket seems risky.
She basically needs a full ride plus. A few more well regarded schools with large endowments might be advisable. I’m curious what other schools her counselors have on the list?
I think I’ve asked this twice. Perhaps the OP doesn’t want to share or doesn’t know.
You missed Stanford, which is getting up there with Harvard nowadays in terms of name recognition (didn’t used to be the case at all), especially given the PM is so enthusiastic about his time there.
My experience (now living very close to Stanford) was that the arrogance that came through so strongly in the admissions presentation and tour we attended at Harvard, is more diluted at Stanford. That arrogance wasn’t the sort of intellectual arrogance you can encounter quite often at Oxbridge (“we’re smarter than you”) but a social arrogance (“we’re richer and better than you”) that both myself and my S found very offputting (FWIW I’m British and went to Cambridge).
Anyway, to OPs question, I wouldn’t do anything that requires you to drop the Cambridge application before finding out the result (ie ED at Brown). There could always be something happen that creates second thoughts about moving to a different country so you want to keep your options open. Pick Harvard/Stanford/Yale for SCEA.
Unless I’m misunderstanding, this organization provides an all expenses paid summer trip to U.S. colleges to visit campus, etc. Instead of trying to figure out in April where to REA/ED, why not wait until she has visited some of these schools? This organization sounds like a wonderful opportunity for your daughter. Good luck to her on finding her school!
Again, move away from Harvard name recognition. Some posts deleted.
OP:
You’ll have to excuse all of us Americans because a lot of us don’t realize that outside of the US, even some of the highest ranked US colleges & universities are not very well known.
I could make a good case for ED’ing to either Harvard or Brown. I also think that you should encourage your kid to write out a list of the pro’s and con’s of each school.
If your child was planning on remaining in the US after undergrad, then the answer to your question would be a clear “ED to Brown!” However, since your child is moving back to the UK after college, then the ‘name brand recognition’ factor comes into play as well.
Admission to either Harvard or Brown is very difficult to achieve.
You’d be surprised, but there are an awful lot of high school students who get a letter of rec written by some big name federal government official/senator/congressman/etc. and submit them with their applications to elite institutions like Harvard.
BUT…
if your child’s current internship w/a UK gov’t leader/elected representative/etc. is such that he or she will be able to write a GOOD letter of rec (i.e., knows specific stuff about your kid, can talk to what kind of person your kid is, work experience w/your kid, etc.), then that letter of rec is totally cool to submit.
A lot of the time, when somebody in the US is, let’s say, applying to West Point (or another US military service academy), they have to have their US senator write a letter of rec and it’ll end up to be something along the lines of “I know Johnny’s dad and if he’s anything like his dad, I’m sure he’s a fine young man and will be an asset to your institution.”
I am a big believer in finding the right fit for a kid when it comes to college. So EVEN THOUGH the Harvard brand name is bigger in the UK than Brown, it sounds like Brown would be a much better fit for your child than Harvard.
Your student should also probably be prepared to write an essay in the application asking the question “Why Harvard?” or “Why Brown?” Your child’s answer to the “Why Brown?” question will probably come across as more genuine than the answer to the “Why Harvard?” question (and you don’t want to answer that with “because everybody has heard of Harvard here in the UK”).
Being able to graduate debt free from college is a really awesome thing, so EVEN though Harvard has a better brand name in the UK compared to Brown, if you compare that to the monthly loan payments after undergrad (of having to pay back the equivalent of $100-120k in student loan debt from attending Oxford or Cambridge), graduating debt free from Brown means that your child could pretty much pick ANY job they wanted to after college graduation and wouldn’t be tied down by the “OMG I need to earn $$ per year so I can afford to live and pay off my student loans, too” panic.
…therefore, my answer is to apply to Brown.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned upthread, international students cannot simply make this choice themselves. The student visa expires upon graduation and (aside from certain scenarios that will allow up to a year of work related to their major) will be expected to leave the country. The only way to remain in the US after graduation (aside from marrying a US citizen) is to find an employer who will sponsor a work visa and a green card. This is pretty rare in the humanities field.
Elaborating on this here so that OP and his daughter are aware of how it works.
We are planning a lot ahead here.
She hasn’t got into Harvard or Brown yet and we’re talking about visas lol.
OP, it’s insanely difficult to get into Harvard or Brown. Harvard had an SCEA acceptance rate of 7% last year and that includes hooked applicants.
For unhooked applicants, your chances are probably a lot lower - RD acceptance rate was just above 2% last year.
The 3 UK people I know who got into Harvard all had student leadership positions and had won some mock trial/debate/academic competition) because they seem to like that a lot.
The visa rules are pertinent to someone coming to the U.S. as a student. Some countries allow graduates to stay on, others don’t. International students need to know what happens after graduation, so that they can make informed decisions. It’s not jumping ahead.
And this has nothing to do with being admitted to Harvard and Brown.
I often shy away from referencing our own experience but it seems particularly applicable to this OPs question.
Several years ago my kid was accepted to both Brown and Harvard (gap year). Given his interests, goals, desire not to take a gap year and strong likelihood that he would remain in the US I was largely indifferent as to which school he choose. He choose Brown and had a great experience and far from regretting the decision seems thrilled with it. Part of this calculus is his awareness of how the pandemic would have impacted his freshman year had he taken the gap year. As he says it it was meant to be.
Now full disclosure, I work closely with a large number of global financial institutions. Consequently I spend a great deal of time in Europe and UK and interact with a variety of local executives. If he had intended on a career in a variety of European based professions or a foreign corporate career, I would have strongly suggested Harvard. Clearly the Harvard name never elicits a blank stare while for some Brown remains a color. The exceptions would be banking or consulting where I think both names have a global familiarity and cache.
Wishing your student good luck.
Agree with DadofJerseyGirl.
There are tens of thousands of young people in the US right now who are SHOCKED to discover that their status is not what they thought it was. International students who came here for a degree; worked for a few years at a big company, laid off recently only to discover that they have a limited amount of time to find another job before they get deported. Or new graduates- who started college during the rah rah rah “anyone can get a job doing anything anywhere” days who are graduating and discovering that the response “of course we’ll sponsor you” is now a muted 'our hiring targets are shifting right now, we’ll get back to you".
I feel bad for someone whose employment status isn’t what they’d hoped, thought, expected it to be, but better to know upfront how the immigration system works than to get blindsided after the fact.
None of us can predict the future, but I would not suggest that an international student expect to be able to stay in the US five years from now.
There are many expert opinions in this thread on how to maximize your probabilities of admission to one or the other, or if that can even be done.
I’ll just say, probably more for me than for you, that I honestly doubt there has ever been a person who graduated from an Ivy League university who went on to spend the rest of their lives regretting that they didn’t do everything they could to get into Harvard. If I may be so forward, I think your job as a parent is to hold the line on over-the-top positions our kids sometimes take so that it doesn’t interfere in the process of them making the best decisions possible. Nobody cares that she really, really, really wants to get into Harvard. That place is full of kids who aren’t majoring in physics who absolutely nailed the subject at a high level in HS just the same. It’s a steep climb, especially w/o a hook.
IDK. Again, maybe I’m ranting for my own benefit. But the whole “people in my home town/country have never heard of ____________” has become, for me, an incredibly hackneyed bit of information and excuse to justify an obsession with one or another target school. And, really? Nobody from your “side of the pond” has heard of Brown? Because my business and personal contacts there certainly have. Stanford? UC Berkeley? Michigan? Vanderbilt? Georgetown? Duke? Cal Tech? No? Just Harvard, Yale, Princeton and MIT? That’s a little hard to believe.
And, based on recent experience, some employers will renege on their inducement offer to do even that.
We have an international who did his one year and, toward the end, the employer said, “No sponsorship for you.” They loved him, rave reviews, but the story went that the administration (then) was making it very difficult and they (a major research uni) had to save their political capital for the unicorn scientists/docs they recruit.
The strategy then was to go to grad school before the visa was up, and major in something STEM to get the three-year post graduate school extension. He’s about to click into year two of that 3-year period.
And from what I’ve learned, if one has long-term plans to live in the US, then you want your visa record pristine. So when that time is up, you gotta go. They won’t come looking for you, but of course they’ll know if you overstayed your visa. So when that time is up, it is all too real. Don’t care if you’ve started a relationship, if you’re doing well at your job. When it’s up it’s up, and if your employer doesn’t sponsor you for a green card, you have to leave.
They don’t come looking for you, but if you are in a managerial or professional job which requires international travel (conferences, etc.) they most CERTAINLY will find you with one swipe at border control.