If the economy hadn’t tanked in 2008 Harvard’s engineering would probably be a lot further along that it is now. They recruited my CS son back then. He had a much better time at accepted students weekend than he expected. (Yes Harvard had a critical mass of board game playing science nerds.) In the end though he liked the even nerdier atmosphere of Carnegie Mellon better.
And yes the River House dorms are fabulous.
Traditionally New England wealth is very low key. You drive old cars, your “shack” at the Cape really is a shack, no designer clothing or handbags. Even now Stanford feels like an upscale country club while Harvard has a lot of charm of dark old rooms with comfy worn furniture.
The dissing of science at H (and Y, which is where my family’s experience is) is really over the top. No matter what you major in there, you will get an excellent education. Different from someplace like MIT, Stanford, or CMU. But still excellent.
We had a tour guide, also a young woman, who was nearly incoherent. The tour contrasted sharply with the one we had across the town.
Harvard certainly is competitive in nearly everything, with a few exceptions. It’s putting some financial muscles behind its engineering school and CS department, but its heart will never be in it. It doesn’t want to be known as the other “institute of technology” in town.
In a candid response to the Proust Questionnaire, a prominent political figure stated that his attendance at Harvard over another college persists as his “greatest regret”:
I would guess that as you move higher and higher on the scale of prestige, saying that you regret attending a school becomes increasingly psychologically difficult. If you experience feelings of regret for attending Harvard, the richest, most prestigious, most broadly-excellent US university, which so many kids view as their ultimate college target, and which you probably turned down less-prestigious schools for, it may be hard to avoid feeling like there’s something wrong with you rather than Harvard. And if you believe that there’s something wrong with Harvard rather than you, then your focus on getting in there was misguided from the outset. So, even if you weren’t happy at Harvard, it might be hard to admit you regret attending - or you might conclude that it would only have been worse for you somewhere else, and so for that reason you don’t regret going to Harvard.
Well, if reliably sourced material is used, the available basis markedly diminishes, of course, compared to what would be the case if hearsay were introduced.
“One regretful alum over the past 40 years is perhaps not the worst track record.”
D1 absolutely loved her time at Harvard. She considers going to college there one of the best experiences of her life. Same for nearly all her friends and blockmates too. With one exception they all thought it was great. The one exception was one guy who was unhappy at Harvard, but then he seemed to pretty unhappy about life in general – argued with his mother on the phone a lot.
As for H being populated with arrogant rich kids, that wasn’t her experience either. Again, all her friends and blockmates were nice, decent, “good kid” – type kids. Fun to be around. Without exception they were very smart and very well-spoken. Nearly all were very witty too. Listening to their clever banter and friendly arguments among themselves was very entertaining.
She said she would occasionally hear about this or that kid that someone knew, or some other kid that lived over in some other House, who were said to be from very wealthy families. So there was wealth on campus, but it didn’t seem to be all that common and certainly not pervasive. I’d say that most of the kids there were the children of middle to upper-middle class educated professionals – doctors, lawyers, CPAs, business managers, etc. There was also a fair-sized minority of kids who came from decidedly modest backgrounds – children of single moms raising kids alone, blue collar parents, URMs, etc. Three of the eight girls in her blocking group fit into that category. The rest, including D1 herself, fell into the middle/upper-middle class category.
Actually, D2 encountered a lot more big wealth at Dartmouth than D1 did at Harvard. D2 loved her school too, but a fair number of her acquaintances at college grew up exclusive zip codes and had gone to HS at fancy boarding schools or country day schools. Our girls went to our local large public HS of middling academic reputation here in suburban San Diego. Their HS was not an academic high flyer, but it tried hard. It offered lots of APs, a full IB program, and a wide range of ECs. And it got 1 to 3 kids into one of the HYPSM schools pretty much every year. But D2 said she never realized what a “ghetto high school” she had gone to until she got to Dartmouth. To the best of my knowledge D1 never got that sense at Harvard.
No one bashes elites. It’s the fixation on prestige over good old common sense that occasionally gets most debates going.
CC is the epicenter of the elite college universe.
For me, when someone has a free ride to an honors college at a top public flagship for science and wants to go to med school - vs taking on debt or emptying the 529 for a brand name school that is foolish.
Those types of scenarios may seem to be “bashing” only if the perspective is the well known and wealthy private school is above reproach.
Also, if a family can afford to fund a private school without missing a beat financially vs the same public option or merit at a school a little less selective. I say go for it!
It’s only some of the terrible long range financial decisions being made under the guise of “its so worth it”- when no one here is stroking those checks for the poster or parent, over time, is there a legitimate need for discussion.
This is a more recent article from The NY Times. Very interesting perspective. HBS being the holy grail of sorts for many of us. And other than Wharton, the only school I would have taken out a mortgage to attend.
From poets and quants. Sounds like the guaranteed outcomes we all hope for are as elusive as a unicorn.
“A relatively recent survey of Harvard MBAs during their 25th reunion showed that 38% believed their personal lives were harder than expected, while 30% thought their professional careers have been harder. Some 47% of the Class of 1986 said they had been involuntarily dismissed from a job, while 13% said they have been fired twice and 4% reported having lost a job three times in their 25 years since graduation”
I know plenty of Harvard grads that didn’t love it. I don’t think any regret attending, however. I also know plenty of grads of other schools that did not love their undergrads.
Is it true about MIT, Berkeley, UChicago, Johns Hopkins, Rice, CMU, CalTech having higher academic rigor vs Ivies having higher prestige? Is it intentional to keep rigor low so holistic admits can survive?
Cornell engineering is really tough. Swathmore and Williams in anything is really serious. Premed at any top lac or ivy is crazy rigorous.
Engineering and computer science at any ivy, lac or top state flagship like Unic ut gtech UCB UCLA uw um unc uva umd are as rigorous as anywhere.
What you might be comparing is stem oriented private schools or tech schools versus non science majors at other prestigious schools. Yes you can escape science and math. But some scientists might struggle with a 30 page paper versus seriously talented writers in that field. Or comparative analysis and theology etc. or classroom debates in certisn topic areas of social sciences.
The generally most rigorous colleges would likely be defined by the rigor of their general education or core curriculum requirements (that students in all majors cannot avoid). For example, Harvey Mudd and Caltech would probably be the most rigorous by this definition, followed by MIT (they have rigorous math and science requirements of course, but also substantial humanities and social studies requirements, including advanced level courses in these subjects). Chicago and Columbia have substantial core curricula, although heavily biased toward rigor in humanities and social studies, since science requirements allow easier non-majors’ courses. The military service academies are rigorous in their own way, though not purely in an academic sense.
At the opposite end of the rigor spectrum, open curriculum schools like Evergreen State, Brown, and Amherst allow the student to avoid any subject which s/he may have difficulty with (though Brown and Amherst do require the student to find a subject that they can handle well enough to complete a major in it).
Of course, the rigor level for a specific subject may vary from one college to another. For example, economics at MIT, Chicago, Stanford, and UCSC is significantly more math-intensive than at Penn State or Florida State, so that many pre-professional economics majors who are not that strong in math may consider the former to be more rigorous (though the smaller number of math-loving economics majors may find the math-intensive versions easier to understand and preferable).
Older brother is an HBS (and MBB) alum. We’ve had this conversation more than once. I used to ask him if the education and training was incredible, unique, etc (back then HBS was famous for its Case Method, discussion based classes - now others do that too). His answer has always been the same - yes the education was great, people really smart, blah blah blah…but the one thing he claims has been quite impactful over his long and distinguished career (regarded as a thought leader in some pretty heady circles) is the network. He travels the globe and says what’s really cool is he can reach out to an HBS alum on essentially any topic and get a response from a significant source within 24 - 48 hours. That’s helped him in business immeasurably.
When I asked him if HBS taught him how to think, solve problems, etc his response was along the lines of “we all were pretty good at that already”. You take very smart people, put them in similar environment, and good things happen. A lot of it is self selection which keeps the cycle spinning (accept only smart people, provide them excellent resources, top firms are attracted to the smart people, smart people go to top firms for top pay / advancement, they then donate to the endowment and come back to recruit more smart people). It’s an ecosystem.
My kid chose Harvard for the curriculum in the area she wanted to study. It took her a month to decide and indeed, finances were a big part of the decision. Fifty percent of her classmates were on financial aid. For the most part the peers were mutually supportive and interesting people. The professors were fantastic.
There is an element of resume building and competition with future goals in investment banking, consulting and so on, and many have long been used to competing to be #1 and don’t stop at Harvard. But you can find your people.
I think applicants should think about whether they like lectures with TF’s doing sections, or want the class taught entirely by a professor. LAC’s tend to have the latter, and larger universities use TA’s or TF’s. That said, once a student declares a concentration, things tend to improve, especially in the smaller departments.
It can be a big plus, obviously, to say you went to Harvard, whether on a resume or interview. However, it has a negative side and many grads hide where they went to school. On the job, expectations can be too high, or resentment from others. It is absolutely true that grads will say they “went to school in Boston.”
It’s prestige hype. Harvard does offer very good need-based aid, making it an excellent value for the money if parents make less. That still doesn’t make Harvard a great choice or fit for everyone. Kids need to evaluate their interests and make sure the university can accommodate them. Flagship universities tend to offer a wider choice of majors. Also, kids need to make sure the culture is a good fit. At a place like Harvard, the kids are going to be super rich and/or hyper-competitive. That’s fine for some, but a miserable fit for others. In the end the student needs to find a school that fits them the best.