Who is Harvard's biggest competitor?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
61

<p>I counted the number of fellow rickoids (RSI people) from last year going to each university:</p>

<p>Harvard 24
MIT 22
Caltech 13
Princeton 6
Stanford 4
Yale 3
Duke 1
Penn 1
Dartmouth 1</p>

<p>Stanford attracted fewer than Princeton and only 1 more than Yale. This obviously isn't a comprehensive sample of top science students, and since the RSI 04 programs were at MIT and Caltech, students may have been more inclined to attend those universities. Still, Stanford doesn't look particularly competitive as far as attracting top science applicants is concerned.</p>

<p>Notably, at RSI this year, almost everyone expressed a desire to go to Harvard or MIT, with only a few sprinklings of Stanford, Princeton, and Caltech thrown in. Of course, the program was at MIT, and MIT partially funds it (the rest is from public and private donors) because it helps to attract students. Still, the fact that MIT has such a system in place indicates that it may indeed be Harvard's top competitor for science.</p>

62

<p>And then There's the Harvard Dental School.</p>

63

<p>To crimsonbulldog,</p>

<p>Stanford's medical school is relatively weaker than its other professional schools. But it is still in top 10. I admit Stanford Medical school is not as strong as Harvard's due to its small size. But when considering its other professional schools, Stanford compete with Harvard head to head.</p>

<p>When compared with Yale's medical school, Stanford is much smaller. But amazingly, Stanford has 49 faculty members selected into the Institute of medicine, only after Harvard and UCSF, more than Yale's number: 31. Besides, Yale's medical school was not ranked within top 10 by US NEWS. Am I right?</p>

<p>(see <a href="http://www.iom.edu/directory.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.iom.edu/directory.asp&lt;/a> for IOM membership information)</p>

<p>In terms of humanities and social sciences, according to US NEWS, Yale is better than Stanford in English and history, while Stanford is better in psycology, politics, sociology, and economics. So overall,, Stanford is better than Yale. I agree with Sakky that Berkeley has a slitely better rank than Stanford overall. And the top 3 should be Berkeley, Stanford, and Harvard. Sorry for not mentioning Berkeley in these fields. </p>

<p>In science, Yale is NOT at the level of MIT, Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, and Caltech. None of Yale's science department is in top 5.
When counting which school has won most prestigious awards in science, such as Nobel prize, national medal of science, Wolf prize, Turing awards, Fields medal, national medal of technology, and etc., the top 5 universities, in order, will be Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, and MIT. Yale trails far behind and can not even make the top 10 list. Overall, I admit Yale is still strong in science, but not super strong.</p>

64

<p>USnews is the least relevant in terms of medical schools, any medical school student will tell you that and a look at cross admit data between medical schools affirms that these rankings should be grouped in orders of around 15 (unlike undergraduate, the top medical school, especially JHU yield pretty low and things like location and financial aid dominate readily over perceived rankings). Medical School cannot be analyzed in such a USNEWS quantitation method when the true parameters like clerkship responsibilities/experience and preceptorship quality, which constitute the true medical school learning core, are qualitative and hard to compare between institutions. </p>

<p>Secondly, Stanford's problem is its location as Palo Alto and Stanford Hospitals do not present the range of diseases and population that a major city hospital will - and that if anyone in that area really has a exotic disease, they will end up on Parnassus Ave at UCSF. The Stanford hospital experience is not the MGH experience. The hospital is what makes a good doctor, not the basic science research - you want your doctor to have seen your disease before, treated your disease, not attended a seminar on the chemistry of it. </p>

<p>Third, in terms of yale's science, they do not compete well in most areas, save Biology and medical science (a look at the HHMI will confirm this) against HSMB, but I think they are on the up and up with that billion dollar investment and 10 new buildings. Time will tell if inroads can be made in chemistry, physics, and math - as engineering is a losing battle.</p>

65

<p>Top universities winning most national medal of science:
Harvard (33 winners)
Stanford (30 winners)
Berkley (24)
Caltech (22)
MIT (20)
Princeton (15 winners)</p>

<p>Top universities with most national academy members (NAS+NAE+IOM):
Harvard (271 members)
Stanford (260)
MIT (236)
Berkeley (208)
UC-San Diego (104)
Caltech (100)
Yale (100)
Princeton (97 members)
see<br>
<a href="http://www.iom.edu/directory.asp%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.iom.edu/directory.asp&lt;/a> for IOM information,
<a href="http://www.nasonline.org/site/Dir?sid=1011&view=basic&pg=srch%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nasonline.org/site/Dir?sid=1011&view=basic&pg=srch&lt;/a> for NAS information,
and <a href="http://www.nae.edu/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nae.edu/&lt;/a> for NAE information.</p>

66

<p>Well on the undergraduate level I don't think Berkeley can compete with the other schools mentioned. On the graduate level, Berkeley doesnt even have a medical school or a top 5 business or law school.</p>

67

<p>Getting back to the original topic, Harvard's biggest competitiors in various fields seem to be:</p>

<p>Undergraduates: Stanford in terms of number of cross-admits (occassionally Yale), MIT in terms of percentage of cross-admits stolen</p>

<p>Professional schools: JHU for med, Yale for law, Wharton/Stanford for business, Stanford for education</p>

<p>Graduate programs: Yale/Stanford for humanities, MIT/Berkeley/Caltech/Stanford for sciences & engineering</p>

68

<p>The RSI data is greatly flawed. Considering that its held at MIT and Caltech, and there is extensive recruiting by the respective admissions staff, and considering the admissions process of RSI itself yields students very likely to attend Harvard or MIT. </p>

<p>As for Stanford's "lacking" public affairs department, I consider that largely irrelevant. Few schools have cohesive public affairs graduate programs, namely Harvard's KSG, Georgetown, Tufts, and Syracuse. So what? I'm not attacking Harvard's lack of a Management Science & Engineering program, now am I? Stanford's political science is excellent as its economics, and really, that's all that matters. Taking potshots at a non-existent program is largely a meaningless, weak tactic. </p>

<p>It cannot be debated that Stanford's biological sciences are the best in the country. </p>

<p>ForeverZero, you forgot Stanford for law school as well. </p>

<p>Fact of the matter is, if you are looking for across-the-board excellence, only Stanford, and to a much lesser extent, Chicago and Berkeley, can compete with Harvard. Taking potshots at specific programs is the exception that proves the rule in this case, as Stanford's only lacking program is medical school.</p>

69

<p>Howard Hughes Medical Investigators (which is a better indicator of current bio/medical, non-clinical basic research than the academies as the NAS/NAE/IOM are awarded to a lifetime of achievement. HHMI is awarded to younger current stars) for HSMB&Y</p>

<p>Harvard: 12 primary affiliation with harvard, 20 with secondary affiliation (i.e. work at one of four major harvard hospitals BID/BWH/MGH/CHOB but the primary appointment is at the hospital. As such, Harvard's expanded faculty with all adjuncts is approximately 4 times the size of most other medical schools).<br>
Stanford: 13
MIT: 12
Berkeley: 11
Yale: 15</p>

70

<p>The number of HHMI members isn't a terribly good indicator of ongoing research at any particular institution. Reason is that each university only gets to nominate a limited number of faculty (usually 4) each "cycle" to apply for HHMI. Of course the top universities are likely to have a higher percentage of those nominated faculty receive HHMI appointments, but this simply isn't a good metric for comparison. Overall, the number of HHMI faculty is a good reflection that specific people at a university are doing superb research.</p>

<p>The number of NAS/NAE/IOM/etc members is a far better measure for comparing institutions based on the quantity <em>and</em> quality of scientific research.</p>

71

<p>I would have to say Princeton. A few years ago it overtook Harvard as the #1 ranked university.</p>

72

<p>I have to disagree. THe National Academies is a lifetime membership aggregate. A quarter of the members aren't doing the same great research that gets Science and Nature papers because they have fizzled out. But they remain in the academy. On the other hand, Howard Hughes is a fluid membership with the slack being kicked out every year and young stars replacing them. HHMI doesn't accumulate the dead weight that muddles the National Academies. Thus its a much better represantion of the current research strength of an institution. You could have a ton of Academy members that aren't publishing or doing great research, but the same isn't true for HHMI as they would lose their membership. I think its a much cleaner, less confounded measurement. Four nominations is alot considering how difficult it is to receive HH - its quite rare for an institution to receive all four. And if a place like Stanford or Berkeley was incredibly strong to merit an additional 20 howard hughes members, then it would take 5 years to reflect. Frankly, the Howard Hughes Investigators are the current superstars of the faculty while academy members generally were the superstars.</p>

73

<p>Modified version of foreverzero's post:
Harvard's biggest competitiors in various fields seem to be:</p>

<p>Undergraduates:
Stanford in terms of number of cross-admits (occassionally Yale),
MIT in terms of percentage of cross-admits stolen</p>

<p>Professional schools:
JHU/UCSF for med,
Yale/Stanford for law,
Wharton/Stanford for business,
Stanford/Columbia for education</p>

<p>Graduate programs:
Berkeley/Stanford for humanities and social sciences, Yale/Chicago/Princeton/Michigan to lesser extent.</p>

<p>MIT/Berkeley/Caltech/Stanford for sciences. Princeton in math/physics.
MIT/Berkeley/Caltech/Stanford for engineering (Harvard is weak in engineering)</p>

<p>Faculty reputation:
membership in national academies-- Stanford/MIT/Berkeley
winning prestigious awards--Stanford/Berkeley/Caltech/MIT</p>

74

<p>I think that's pretty accurate. </p>

<p>What about Chicago's law school or GSB?</p>

75

<p>Harvard vs. MIT:</p>

<p>MIT is better than Harvard in Business and Linguistics, and probably Economics. It would be weaker in the rest of the humanities. It is far above Harvard in science and engineering. These rankings are a bit silly, though, since almost all Harvard classes are easier than the MIT classes, largely due to grade inflation - and the fact that Harvard admits a lot of students for reasons other than academic prowess. Princeton seems to adjust their admissions policies to doctor their statistics - they will often intentionally take 2nd-tier applicants over 1st-tier applicant who are less likely to accept the admissions offer. Most of the people I know at Princeton are pretty mediocre. And I will say that having been to Harvard classes and done events with the Harvard entrepreneurs club (I go to MIT, and we hold close relations and cross-enrollment with Harvard), Harvard students by and large seem to be far more lazy and incompetent than MIT students. Obviously I would say this because I go to MIT, but I don't believe that my opinion is skewed. If it wasn't for the prestige of the Harvard name, I don't see why anybody looking to major in something other than history would choose Harvard over MIT. Especially since many students say they aren't happy there.</p>

<p>Myself, I plan to take a few classes at Harvard - namely history/anthropology courses. Harvard is MIT's humanities department. </p>

<p>In conclusion, I would say that the elite schools are MIT for math/science/engineering, and without justification I'll say Yale for the humanities. Harvard is just a name.</p>

<p><em>ducks</em></p>

76

<p>Everyone seems to be forgetting that in terms of numbers of faculty members in the National Academies and in other relevant comparisons, Princeton is a far smaller school than its "comparable" peers, and that it actually trumps many of them if per capita comparisons were to be taken into consideration. </p>

<p>While many of her peer's have an incredibly large student population (Harvard a whopping 19,000+, Yale 11,000+ and Stanford 14,000+), Princeton is a much more undergraduate based school of about only 6,000+ students in total. </p>

<p>Thus, per capita comparisons are needed.</p>

77

<p>Not many law school or business school or school of education or extention school faculty in the National Academy of Science or the Engineering Academy, I don't expect!</p>

<p>Seems to me you'd want to look at the percentage of FAS, Engineering and fulltime Medical faculty.</p>

78

<p>Byerly: If you're so knowledgeable, then why haven't you responded to the thread addressed to you (See Kant...)? At least admit publicly that you are not omniscient like you pretend to be. I don't mean to criticize you since you are obviously bright do to your affiliation with Harvard (whatever that may be...), but I do feel that it is quite pretentious of you to repeatedly bash other top schools while exhibiting the ignorant belief that Harvard is well...better than every other school in every other respect. Just admit that other schools can be (<em>gasp</em>) excellent too...</p>

79

<p>ah sorry had to edit original message</p>

80

<p>Its OK to edit... I have to do it all the time; hard to type when you're listening to the Patriots on the radio and watching the Red Sox on TV concurrently.</p>

<p>By the way, I have never ... EVER ... "bashed" ANY school (with the exception of Reed.) Princeton is an excellent school, and, I freely admit, it even has a slightly stronger women's golf team than Harvard does.</p>

<p>There now: do you feel better?</p>