Why Harvard over MIT?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
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<p>I'm interested to hear reasons why one might choose to attend Harvard over MIT, given a choice between the two. I'm pretty familiar with MIT already and have heard a plethora of reasons why one might choose MIT over Harvard, but I'm not as familiar with Harvard and have not heard many reasons why one might choose Harvard over MIT.</p>

<p>If it's relevant, I'd probably major in Biological Engineering if I went to MIT, and Molecular/Cell Biology or something of the sort if I went to Harvard. I'm going to attend both Visitas and CPW to get a feel for the campuses, but I'm hoping to hear some opinions in advance so I know what to be looking for when I visit campus. Thanks in advance! :)</p>

2

<p>Go to MIT! Period!</p>

<p>I suppose that if you want more connections with people going into business (where you make money), then Harvard would be a better bet. </p>

<p>But gosh just get an MBA later instead of going to a crappier bioengineering school. >.></p>

<p>No offense to Harvard which is awesome in every way, of course, but some credit where it is due seems appropriate in this case.</p>

3

<p>MIT has stronger engineering programs for your field.</p>

<p>Harvard would give a better liberal arts education to supplement your college experience.</p>

<p>But you still win with either choice, why?</p>

<p>You can cross enroll, YAY! Best of both worlds!</p>

<p>But pick MIT because it’s awesome =]</p>

<p>Best of luck in your decisions!</p>

4

<p>I wouldn’t pick Harvard over MIT, especially not for a science. Not applying to MIT is the biggest regret I have from the entire college application process. It’s a wonderful, wonderful school, no matter how much it might make you hate your life. </p>

<p>Now, to play devil’s advocate… I asked my dad a few months ago why he chose Yale for grad school (he’d been accepted at Yale, Princeton, and MIT). He told me that when he interviewed at MIT, the air was just heavy, everyone was way too intense, and the Infinite Corridor was too freaking long (…which is true, but whatever). In contrast, the Yalies “were gentlemen.” The same is true of Harvard. Granted, this was 1980, but the old stereotypes existed then for a reason, and they still hold now. </p>

<p>FYI, I have a friend who’s a freshman at Harvard this year, and she’s told me that a lot of people are just there for the name and are miserable. On the other hand, a lot of people absolutely adore it and are thriving. It just depends on who you are and how you respond to competition. I’m sure this is also true at MIT.</p>

<p>So, all that said: you really have to go to Visitas and CPW and see what you think. There are some incredible people at Harvard, and because the student body is a much wider cross-section of people than MIT’s, there’ll certainly be more variety. Then again, maybe the intensity of MIT is what you want. We can’t help you make that choice!</p>

5

<p>I would take exception to stupiddorkyidiot’s stance of not choosing H over MIT especially for a science. My D will be graduating from H in two months with a concentration in physics and a secondary in math and she could not be happier with it. Both schools are among the best of the best in the sciences and it really is a matter of fit. For her, being around kids with a greater variety of academic interests and the much greater strength of the extracurricular program for her area of interest made H the obvious choice. I do agree with stupiddorkyidiot’s advice to attend both school’s admitted students’ programs and then go with your gut. Either can prepare you for whatever you want to do afterwards.</p>

6

<p>I’m obviously coming from the other side of the debate because I’m here at Harvard and chose it over MIT a few years ago. Better financial aid was one reason, more emphasis on the biology field is another. Whereas I got the sense at MIT that engineering was the focus of the school, at Harvard biology is a huge discipline broken up into several smaller departments each with its own concentration. </p>

<p>I liked the smaller upper-level classes, the variety of course choices, and the ease of finding a lab as early as freshmen year. There will be several differences based on whether you study biology/engineering at Harvard or MIT: there, everyone has to take all the core science subjects as a part of their GIRS, whereas at Harvard, although as a molecular and cell biology concentrator you still have to do the same, based on which biology sub-category you later choose, you will have more choices. At MIT, the vast majority of your fellow students will be scientists and engineers; at Harvard, it will be science mixed in with humanities. At Harvard, humanity classes tend to be a little more time consuming, whereas I got the sense at MIT that HASS wasn’t something people took too seriously. </p>

<p>There’s a difference in the look of the school. Besides the typical modern technology building look near the Northwest lab area, Harvard also has sections that look very historical. At Harvard all your meals are provided in the dining halls, whereas at MIT, I believe you find your own food on the weekends. The Harvard dorm system is based on the Oxford/Cambridge residential college system, while the MIT one is very different (you can go find out on CPW). MIT has much more of a Greek life; Harvard has some but it doesn’t dominate and pretty much everyone lives on campus. </p>

<p>Have to run, but congrats on surviving college admissions and good luck with everything!!</p>

7

<p>I think the most important thing to consider is campus culture. MIT and Harvard are far different culturally than are any of the ivies, from what I’ve heard. Another important difference might be the meal plans; as I understand it, MIT doesn’t have dining halls, so students have to cook for themselves. </p>

<p>I think it’s essential to go to CPW and Visitas to judge the cultures on campus. I have many, many friends who thought they were entirely sold on MIT, went to CPW, hated it, and enrolled at Harvard. And I’m sure there are many examples of people who adored MIT culture and chose to enroll there. </p>

<p>Both schools have truly fantastic biology programs, so I think you should focus on other aspects of your undergrad experience in deciding.</p>

8

<p>Elanorci brings up a good point about the meal situation. MIT students complain a lot on their blogs about the lack of dining options (I confess to reading their blogs). </p>

<p>Harvard requires/urges residential house life which centers on the lovely dining halls, decent-enough food, and the important socializing that takes place during meal times. If you would rather be in your room all night eating pizza or microwave food and working on problem sets, maybe MIT is the place. If you cherish study breaks chatting with people in all sorts of fields before you stay up to do problem sets, maybe Harvard is a better fit.</p>

<p>You will have a great four years in either place!</p>

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<p>I’m really biased here being an MIT Alum from the cold war days. </p>

<p>All I can say is “Better dead than Crimson”. </p>

<p>Nice choice to have. Congrats.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the insights everyone; I appreciate it. I’m aware of the vast differences in culture between the two schools and I hope to get a better idea during CPW and Visitas. I guess some of the main questions I have relate to the extracurricular science opportunities at Harvard. For example, MIT’s UROP program and the ease of obtaining laboratory positions there is enticing, but is it prohibitively difficult for Harvard undergrads to obtain laboratory positions under a professor at Harvard? To what extent is the generalization that “Harvard professors don’t care about undergraduates” true, and even if it is true, does it actually matter whether they “care” as long as they teach well? Is there anything else that people particularly love or hate about Harvard? I’ve spent quite a bit of time on MIT’s campus and in a laboratory there last summer, but not at Harvard, so I’m very interested to hear some of the nuances about Harvard that may not be apparent by reading the websites. :)</p>

11

<p>MIT seems obsessed about being better than Harvard. Harvard doesn’t much care. That says a good deal to me.</p>

<p>Remember that you can cross register for classes at both universities–and they are a couple of stops on the Red Line from each other.</p>

<p>Speaking of the Red Line there is an old joke about a college student who tries to use the 10 items or less line of a Central Square (which is equidistant from Harvard and MIT on Mass Ave) supermarket. The cashier notices that he has 12 items. He asks the kid: “Are you from Harvard and can’t count or from MIT and can’t read?”</p>

12

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<p>In a word, no. Others can speak better for your intended major, but I can relay my D’s experience in physics. She came to H with zero resume as a scientist. She did no research in HS and did not compete in any of the normal contests for science or math. She did well in her classes during her first semester at H and during winter break she read through the research web pages of the physics professors to look for an opportunity. She e-mailed one (and only one) prof who invited her to interview with him when she returned to campus. She did so and was working in his lab that week. It was just that easy.</p>

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<p>I’m a Molecular and Cellular Biology concentrator, and I have had absolutely no trouble finding a great lab to work in. Neither have any of my friends. You shouldn’t let the fact that MIT has a codified program for undergraduate research sway your opinion; many, many Harvard undergrads can and do participate extensively in research. </p>

<p>Biology in particular is pretty easy to find a lab position in. And if you’re willing to trek out to Longwood (med school area), they’re even more desperate for undergraduates there!</p>

14

<p>Obviously the academics are stellar at both schools. My son choose Harvard over MIT. One reason was the greater diversity among his housemates and other friends on campus. Harvard does an amazing job matching freshman suite-mates; my son lived with the same four people all four years. He had no problem getting to know faculty well enough freshman year that they could write meaningful recs for summer internships. Living in his house was a great experience; I loved that there were children about and even a dog making the rounds in the dining room. (My husband and I were back at MIT for a reunion and his old dorm is as much a dive as it was 30 years ago.) While cross registration is possible I don’t think it’s all that common. (I have heard that the class with the most cross registration is Harvard’s Math 55.) My son did spend many long nights at Harvard working on problem sets but, contrary to some stereotypes, it was often with his study group; he did not find the students to be especially cut throat.</p>

<p>He was happy to get what might be considered more of a liberal arts undergraduate education. He is now a grad student at MIT.</p>

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<p>PLUS, scientists can get one of these fabulous grants to go abroad.</p>

<p>[OCS:</a> Summer International Experience](<a href=“http://www.ocs.fas.harvard.edu/students/summer_international_experience_funding_drieg.htm]OCS:”>http://www.ocs.fas.harvard.edu/students/summer_international_experience_funding_drieg.htm)</p>

<p>My son did, and he spent 10 weeks at CERN.</p>

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<p>^Yes! And you can get grants to do almost any research. The analogue to UROP for Harvard is probably HCRP, along with PRISE and other more extensive summer programs. </p>

<p>More info to explore:
[Undergraduate</a> Research at Harvard Undergraduate Research at Harvard](<a href=“http://undergrad-research.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do]Undergraduate”>http://undergrad-research.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do)</p>

<p>To what extent is the generalization that “Harvard professors don’t care about undergraduates” true, and even if it is true, does it actually matter whether they “care” as long as they teach well?</p>

<p>Surely lots of Harvard professors can care less about undergraduate. But then again, they don’t teach College students.</p>

17

<p>Harvard and MIT offer very different academic experiences. MIT’s program is much more structured, with pretty well-defined requirements for the first year (which is pass/fail). If you don’t know what GIR’s and HAAS stand for, you should. Harvard’s program is much more loose; you should also look up GenEd. Different people have different preferences.</p>

<p>By the way, Harvard is top-notch in the sciences – check the NRC rankings in physics or math, for example.</p>

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<p>To xrCalico…, I beg to differ, Harvard professors do indeed teach Harvard College undergrads. A few sections (the break out sessions) of large lectures are led by TFs, but students always have access to profs via office hours or after class conversations. And as the students get older, small classes become the norm, with lots of individual professor-student contact. My DD became close with many profs, and still meets up with them when she is back in Cambridge. </p>

<p>Students need to be pro-active, and put in the effort to build a relationship.</p>

19

<p>I went to Harvard instead of MIT. I should have gone to MIT instead of Harvard.</p>

<p>I’m a senior bio/physics concentrator. Unfortunately, I didn’t get into the MIT graduate program in biology, so I am staying here for six more years in the PhD biophysics program.</p>

<p>I like Harvard. Most of the students are pretty smart, although few have the combination of smart and “chill” that I feel a lot of MIT students have.</p>

<p>However, I feel like, from the perspective of a scientist, Harvard isn’t as exciting of a place to be. Harvard hires relatively few young assistant professors; instead, it poaches the best professors from other schools, including MIT, after they have already established themselves as the best in their field.</p>

<p>The problem with that is that most of the Professors Harvard hires have done their best work in the past. Harvard gives them lots of nice lab space, and they usually have well-funded, large research groups. However, because they are already established, they are less willing to try new things or deviate from the path of success that they have been on.</p>

<p>There are fewer mind-bendingly amazing collaborations between 29-year-old professors at the absolute top of their game. Because Harvard engineering is relatively separate, both physically and departmentally, from Harvard science, there is less of a “let’s build this” atmosphere in Harvard science labs than there is in MIT science departments. Harvard produces substantially fewer “methods” papers than MIT does, and in the long run methods work is the type of work that changes the world.</p>

<p>At Harvard, I’ve had the chance to work with a couple of brilliant scientists. I currently work in George Church’s lab. If you haven’t heard of him, you should look him up–he has been at the absolute center of every discovery in molecular biology in the last 30 years. However, the best work he ever did was in the 1980s, when invented the first direct DNA sequencing technology. His technologies, like molecular multiplexing and DNA tagging, are still at the center of every DNA sequencing machine, and it’s obvious what a revolutionary DNA sequencing technology has been.</p>

<p>However, Church invented sequencing while he was a Professor at MIT. A couple of years later, he was hired by Harvard, and has not since made as significant of a discovery.</p>

<p>Right now, MIT has methods-developers like Ed Boyden, Ron Weiss, Chris Voigt, and Aviv Regev. Boyden, especially, is on fire–he invented optogenetics, a way of controlling the action potential generation of individual neurons with light. I have a friend at MIT who works in the Boyden lab. He can direct a mouse through a maze with a joystick. Boyden is definitely going to win the Nobel Prize. Harvard might one day give him an offer he can’t refuse, but it will always be true that he did his best work at MIT.</p>

<p>I think that there is something about being in an environment where people are doing these amazing things that brings out greatness in other people. At Harvard, people are doing very cool, interesting, guaranteed-to-be-successful things. But at MIT, people are trying things that will completely revolutionize science. They might fail, but that’s ok because it’s ok to fail at MIT, and there good ideas are not in short supply.</p>

<p>Also, I should probably say: I took one class, nonlinear optics, at MIT, and it was one of the best classes I’ve taken in college. In the MIT physics department, there are no TAs. Instead, a second professor teaches the recitation sections. I found that completely mindboggling.</p>

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<p>Thank you to everyone for the responses. After visiting both and agonizing for the past couple weeks, I ended up choosing MIT.</p>