<p>When I first saw Haverford's name, I thought they clearly ripped off Harvard's name. LOL. So do you think the name similarities help Haverford get more applicants?</p>
<p>Yes. People who go to Haverford go there because they want people to think they go to Harvard. All you have to do is mumble the name and everyone will know you’re a genius!</p>
<p>Schools with “Washington” in the name. 20
Schools with “George” in the name 10
There is a Cornell University, and a Cornell College (only one is Ivy League)</p>
<p>The township of Haverford, from which the college took its name 150 years later, was first designated as Haverford in the late 1600s.</p>
<p>When I told my mom I was thinking about applying at Haverford, she laughed because she thought I said Harvard and thought I was out of my mind. When I repeated HAVERFORD, she laughed harder and said that my mumbling was finally going to get me places. 
It’s still a good LAC and it’s not trying to be Harvard no matter how much the cynics giggle.</p>
<p>Yeah. As you said it’s a good LAC which is why I’m applying.</p>
<p>ravenclaw,</p>
<p>Harvard is definitely in the highest handful of schools in the world, but take a look at any category – high school grades, boards, personal accomplishments, etc – and the difference between Haverford and Harvard students doesn’t become much more than the mumbled name. At least definitely not something to laugh uncontrollably at.</p>
<p>Not that I’m telling you anything you don’t know. :)</p>
<p>sidenote: I mean numbers and merit-wise. Now if you’re talking about the actual character make-up and the school’s goals, I’m sure there’s quite a big difference.</p>
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<p>Haverford College is (and always has been) named after the town in which it is located, Haverford, PA. Like a number of other towns in Philadelphia’s Main Line suburbs—an area once known as “the Welsh Tract” because it was settled by Welsh Quakers in the 1680s—Haverford was named after a place in Wales, the town of Haverfordwest. That name predates Harvard College by several centuries. The etymology of the original Haverford in Wales is disputed; some say it translates to “goat crossing” in Welsh, others that it’s a variant of the English “heifer ford” (or “heifer crossing”), Old English = “haefer,” as in young female cow; others that it’s a corruption of an English name, “Hereford in the West” or “Hertford in the West,” to distinguish it from the towns of Hereford and Hertford in England. In any event, Haverford College is named after the town where it’s located in Pennsylvania, and the town in Pennsylvania is named after a much older town in Wales. No one though to name the Welsh town, nor the Pennsylvania Welsh Quaker-settled town, nor the (originally) Quaker college located in the Pennsylvania town, after Harvard University, Harvard College, or John Harvard, the obscure Puritan minister who bequeathed his collection of books and a small sum of money to the struggling little Puritan New College of Massachusetts, which came to be renamed in the Rev. Harvard’s honor. Harvard College was not even a particularly prominent place when Haverford, PA was founded. It was also a distinctly sectarian institution, training aspiring Puritan ministers in Puritan theology—something the Pennsylvania Quakers who founded the town of Haverford would have had no desire to emulate.</p>
<p>i almost DIDN’T apply because of the name similarity</p>
<p>While on the topic of college names, I must say the funniest name I have run into was Ursinus (which appeared to be called Your Sinus College). I’m sure that’s not the correct pronunciation, but I thought it would be funny to tell someone that you are going to school named that.</p>
<p>Dan go to Haverford! You know you want to!</p>
<p>If you want an LAC, it’s best to go to Haverford cuz of the name similarity.</p>
<p>With Amherst, people either think it’s a prep school or UMass. If you go to Williams, people will think you go to William and Mary (not too shabby but still).</p>
<p>NP call me DMOC please.</p>