I think its because of the movie Legally Blond.
The financial aid OMG.
^^ I absolutely agree with @dancelance. I would think that’s a huge reason for many applicants, I know it was for us. For our family, the cost of sending our daughter to Harvard was LESS than sending her to our flagship state school. It was a no-brainer!
IMO, financial aid is a big factor, as is the fact that it is consistently ranked tied for #1 or #2 for undergraduate education. But there must be more to it than that since, despite the fact that Princeton is consistently ranked #1, and offers similarly generous FA, Harvard receives many more applications year after year. I speculatively attribute this to my theory that Harvard’s greater visibility in popular culture causes it to attract more “what the heck” applicants than Princeton.
Disclaimer: I’m not arguing that Princeton is better than Harvard; I believe they’re both great. I’m also not claiming that Harvard and Princeton’s FA are equivalent; both are outstanding, but it will vary case by case.
For me, success isn’t defined by how well I’m doing compared to others, but rather, to myself. So even if I’m “middle of the pack” at Harvard I’ll consider myself successful if I’m still getting decent grades and trying my best. I think the question is more of why SHOULDN’T I try for the best school I know of if I think I can handle it?
Why might people want to go to Harvard:
- For middle class folks, lots of financial aid.
- Top faculty who are accessible, even to lowly undergrads. My sons haven't had any problem approaching their professors and getting assistance from them. And even the Teaching Fellows are great.
- Most classes are small. Many are seminar-like.
- Did I mention top faculty? In most fields, Harvard has some of the top people in the field. These are often my sons' professors.
- The classroom as a place to explore the material, rather than as a place for spoon-feeding. Classes often move swiftly through the material. For students who were bored out of their skulls waiting for the teacher to get the concept across to the slowest kid in the class, this is a welcome relief. It also means you gotta stay on the ball.
- Lots of opportunity. Of all kinds. My older son has been to Rome, Greece, an internship in DC, and will be overseas this summer. All in his field. All at Harvard's expense.
- Top faculty. My younger son will spend the summer doing a private reading with a top math professor. He's a freshman.
- Lots of snow. I mean - LOTS AND LOTS of snow. If you like snow.
- Top students. It's tough not to learn something, even accidentally, from your friends and acquaintances. It seems Harvard has a thing for taking lots of really smart kids. They wind up teaching each other.
- Freedom. It's a two-edged sword. You gotta use it well. But my sons are fairly free, academically. They are making out their own road to pursue what they want to pursue. And I watch them as they grow and learn, and make decisions, sometimes not that great, sometimes very good, indeed.
Someone’s got to go to Harvard. They need to fill 1660 beds every year. Why shouldn’t one of them be filled by you?
This old joke comes to mind:
Q: If you call the person who graduates at the very top of the class at Harvard the valedictorian, what do you call the person who graduates at the very bottom of the class at Harvard?
A: A Harvard graduate.
What makes you think people can’t feel good about themselves without comparing themselves to others…
@PassionatePoet, in the workplace and business, grades don’t matter much at all once you’re a few years out of school. When people ask about my education, all that counts is my Harvard degree. The fact that I was far, far from the top of the class there doesn’t matter one bit.
The only benefit I can see to going to a school with fewer super-sharp people is that being a standout at a less-prominent school can help with grad school admissions if they count grades a lot. Otherwise, Harvard is definitely better to go to.
Harvard actually ended up being the cheapest school for me.
The name, and some other stuff. Let me list the problems with all of the other top-20 or so schools. Only some of these are serious.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology is too generic. Same with Caltech. There are lots of Institutes of Technologies out there.
University of California Berkeley? Hey, there are like 10 other University of California’s.
Princeton? Doesn’t roll off the tongue well enough. Same with Carnegie Mellon.
Stanford’s too new to be elite.
Columbia sounds too much like a country.
University of Chicago sends out too much junk mail.
Yale’s in New Haven, and Johns Hopkins is in Baltimore.
Duke is too sports-focused.
Brown’s named after a color. No go. (I know it’s not actually named after the color)
Notre Dame is catholic.
Vanderbilt is preppy.
Northwestern is too cold.
Rice’s departments don’t hold up in USNews.
Cornell is in the middle of nowhere.
And there you go. By these metrics, Harvard is absolutely perfect 
Is it really difficult to comprehend students’ wishes to get the best and the most reputed education from the school of rich history???
Also, do you realize that Harvard is one of the schools that give the most need based aids to the students in the United States?
Which part of it is incomprehensible?
“Why do so many try for Harvard?”
It should be noted that Harvard is neither the most commonly-named Dream College of Parents nor the most commonly-named Dream College of Students:
And for the record, UCLA is the most applied-to four-year university in the United States:
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/ucla-receives-record-number-of-applications-for-2015
“So my q- why do people make it their life goal to go to the best of the best, when they may not even do that well once they start college?”
I can’t speak to a Harvard education (since I go to Stanford), but as far as Stanford in concerned, it’s not as hard as you might think to do well here as long as you apply yourself. (For what it’s worth, I’m a Computer Science major.) Yes, it’s extremely difficult to be the undisputed top student in all (or any) of your classes, but it’s equally difficult to do poorly after having put a lot of time into a class. Most of my friends who aren’t doing well simply aren’t working diligently, are more concerned with socializing, or are overcommitted. I’ve heard that the same is true of Harvard. In general, for most elite schools, it’s often said that the hardest part is getting in. There’s some truth to that, though–to be clear–getting through an elite college is certainly not a cake-walk for most people.
Perhaps grade deflation is responsible for what I discuss in the preceding paragraph. Have you, OP, seen the following article about grade inflation at Harvard?
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/3/grade-inflation-mode-a/
@aleaiactaest Grade inflation is virtually the same at Stanford as it is at Harvard. The average grade at Stanford is around 3.7
Correction: I meant to type grade INFLATION in my post above. The last section should read as follows:
Perhaps grade inflation is responsible for what I discuss in the preceding paragraph. Have you, OP, seen the following article about grade inflation at Harvard?
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/3/grade-inflation-mode-a/
To be clear, both Harvard and Stanford are reputed to have an abundance of grade inflation.
@hungryteeanager: Just for the fun of it, let me enumerate some of the things you possibly skipped over, or missed about Cambridge and Harvard:
Cambridge . . . where non-residents cannot park their car on any street that doesn’t have metered parking, or must park in an expensive parking lot. Fair Cambridge . . . where a metered parking spot is only good for two hours, after which you cannot feed the meter, but must move your car to another metered parking spot or get a ticket.
Cambridge . . . where you can easily find a pair of sneakers for $295, but can’t find an off campus bar that serves a draft beer for under $5.
Harvard . . . where the bureaucracy rivals that of the federal government. To wit: in a student’s first semester of their sophomore year, they must declare a major and list every class they are going to take for the next two and a half years to obtain their degree. Oh, Harvard, how non-student centric can you be!
Harvard . . . where professors assume they are teaching the gifted and talented, so work is piled on, and on, and on! At another college a year long course may be taught in a year, but at Harvard it’s taught in a semester (see http://www.registrar.fas.harvard.edu/courses-exams/course-catalog/life-sciences-2-evolutionary-human-physiology-and-anatomy).
Harvard . . . where the administration had to institute a “kindness pledge” because incoming students lacked the DNA to be kind: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/9/1/pledge-freshmen-students-harvard/
I should also add that one of the extremely worthwhile perks of attending an elite college (and a perk of which I had not been aware prior to attending one) is being able to see (and, in many cases, meet) some very influential people.
At the conclusion of this academic year, I will have seen (in this academic year alone) Mitt Romney, President Obama, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Oprah Winfrey, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Senator Dianne Feinstein, Justice Stephen Breyer, and Peter Singer.
@aleaiactaest: Did any of those people offer you a job? Did they return your phone call? Did they offer to help with your homework or give advice on writing your thesis? Of course they didn’t! So, I guess your experience is akin to all the folks hanging out after a Broadway show for an autograph. It’s nice to have it, but in the end, what the heck does it matter!
Haha great point @gibby . I should note that it’s very hard to get personal, off-the-record time with these people even when they visit your university, so all most students get to see is a public spectacle of the type that they could easily watch on TV.
Because old Asian granny and grandpa recognize the name. Simple.