<p>hahahaah. Where we live any school in HYPSMC is also a trophy. What I mean to say that a student just need one seat in a good school with a financial award they can live. There is more to life then trying to gain admission in all of HYPMSC. After all college provides the platform but it is up to the students to use those opportunities and excel.</p>
<p>Hear, hear! Those last two sentences say it all.</p>
<p>Another Harvard versus Princeton debate. Why not stay in SoCal and study at Stanford? Stanford EA will give you a legit. shot, plus Stanford's undergraduate political science department is unmatched.</p>
<p>i disagree. princeton and yale trump stanford poly sci.</p>
<p>(woody woooooooooo)</p>
<p>also i believe harvard's kennedy school is for graduates only. am i mistaken?
(and USNWR only ranks politics departments with respect to graduate programs, not undergraduate, so they would not apply here.)</p>
<p>Umm, Stanford's not in Southern California....</p>
<p>redstar, I have followed your posts. Your son sounds like an amazing candidate. Will you be able to make campus visits? They can be really helpful. At Princeton your son would really be able to feel if it is the right place for him by sitting in some classes, eating with the students, talking to kids in his sport, and especially spending the night.</p>
<p>Alumother:</p>
<p>Thanks. Yes he intends to visit the school in late summer as currently summer paid internships keeps him busy in weekdays. He is completing his Eagle Scout project on weekends and doing some volunteer work, learning to dance and watching all new movies and some other fun stuff.</p>
<p>redstar - Wonderful. If he likes dance, makes sure he sees one of the Princeton dance groups perform if he can. They are incredible. BodyHype and DiSiac are the jazz/hip hop groups, there are many others. These groups were one of the reasons my D chose Princeton. Don't know if she will joint one but they are really fun to have around, diverse, energetic, and seem to have fans like sports teams might.</p>
<p>Oop, my bad. I meant to type "California" not "SoCal."</p>
<p>I should know, I'll be in Palo Alto next year. hahaha</p>
<p>Anonymous,
As for Stanford political science versus Harvard and Princeton, I concede that Harvard GRADUATE political science is the best. Stanford ranks #2 (with no ties) behind Harvard according to USNEWS, which is BS rankings, so that doesn't matter, and that is also for the graduate level. Princeton's Woodrow Wilson school is good but at the undergraduate level, according to my research at least, Stanford is as good if not better. </p>
<p>Here are some citations, if they matter:
jajnsn.com/vanguarduniversities/politicalsci.html
politicalstudies.org/pdf/psr/hix.pdf</p>
<p>Stanford has a reputation for excellent political science TEACHING which is what matters at the undergraduate level anyway. Yale department is good, again, but the undergraduate opportunities for political science students at Stanford are superior in my mind.</p>
<p>What do you think those Vanguard rankings are? Grad departmental rankings from 16 years ago!</p>
<p>And the politicalstudies.org rankings that you cite approvingly are ALSO departmental rankings (just like the outdated Vanguard rankings and the up-to-date USNews rankings) - and, moreover, they rate Harvard higher than both Stanford AND Princeton!</p>
<p>Does using Grad rankings for undergraduate schools really make any sense at all? Poly Sci at Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Stanford will all surely take you to the same place.</p>
<p>Well the rankings are <em>departmental</em> rankings, so of course they are relevant. It is not as if these schools have separate faculties for undergrads and for PhD candidates.</p>
<p>The ratio of undergrads to PhD candidates at Harvard, Yale and Princeton is not substantially different.</p>
<p>lol quite frankly the jobs that a poly sci major would get you are so hazy, that i doubt the employer would worry about the poly sci specialty, def not more than the overall education. and if ur trying to be a politician, it really doesnt matter the least bit.</p>
<p>Byerly, look what I said: "I concede that Harvard GRADUATE political science is the best."</p>
<p>Why do you think the Stanford poly sci undergrad experience is superior compared to Harvard or Yale? You gave no supporting evidence.</p>
<p>"Harvard is no doubt the best school in the country but do not underestimate the power of Princeton or Yale, MIT or Stanford." I love how the ignorant masses become so presumptious on a website. Buddy, there is absolutely no evidence for your preposterous claim.</p>
<p>harvard attracts the best applicants (by # of apps and yield rate), but its debateable as to whether they mold them better than YPS would.</p>
<p>Wonderful Logic. Using the method of judging a school of application numbers, Caltech is at best a mediocre school. The harvard name attracts many more nominal candidates than people realize and is the driving force behind such a low acceptance rate.</p>
<p>"The harvard name attracts many more nominal candidates than people realize and is the driving force behind such a low acceptance rate."</p>
<p>harvard consciously appeals to such candidates. as detailed by jay matthews in a washington post report, june 5, 2004, harvard sends form "love letters" to some 70,000 high schoolers every year, congratulating them on their academic achievements (which they can't know) and urging them to apply.</p>
<p>"Nowhere does the Harvard letter tell them that the school is only going to admit about 2,000 applicants, even though it has sent its letter to 35 times as many. Nor does it say that the school's energetic marketing of itself, common among selective colleges, has brought it record numbers of applicants -- usually about 20,000 a year -- and led it to reject 90 percent of them, year after year, including most of those who responded to its kind invitation to apply."</p>
<p>You quote quite selectively and unfairly from the article, and fail to acknowledge that Yale and Princeton do exactly the same thing, albeit not quite as effectively.</p>
<p>I note, also, that you provide no link, even though, as you know, I gave you the complete text of this column at "the other place."</p>