<p>And it's not just the tours. Last year my daughter was deciding between applying to Harvard or Yale EA. She went once with my husband, did the offical tours, etc. and then once on her own. When she came home from that second visit, her choice was clear, and it wasn't Harvard. The main reason (since both have excellent Classics programs and are in urban areas, her two biggest criteria) was the enthusiasm and friendliness of the students at Yale, and the relative lack thereof at Harvard. Not that the Harvard students were unpleasant or anything, but she didn't get the feeling that they really enjoyed being there in the way that the Yale students did. One of her best friends is at Harvard and loves it, and I'm sure my daughter would have too, if she had gone. But she got in early to Yale and that was it. It seems to be a wonderful place for her. </p>
<p>Personally, I find the grown men (women?) bickering over which school (HYP) is better to be the height of silliness. They're all excellent institutions: some are better in certain areas than others, and each has a distinct personality which may fit one sort of student better than another. So by all means give advice to students when they ask about a school you have some knowledge of, but why the need for the constant one-upsmanship?</p>
<p>Most of the people who have to be "sold" are probably better off elsewhere, IMHO. That said, There are few schools that put more time and effort into recruiting desirable applicants than Harvard.</p>
<p>It's interesting to see the impact that tour guides have on college selection. Given that most students - and their parents - only do one tour per school, much of one's experience with tour guides is luck of the draw. There are good and bad ones at most schools. Fwiw, when my son was looking at schools a couple of years ago, we had a great tour guide at Harvard.</p>
<p>Selecting schools based on the tour guide is obviously not the best idea (though Harvard and Yale are both great schools, so you really can't go wrong with either). When my son was looking at schools, after the tour he would wander around the campus on his own, talk to some students, and try to get a better feel for the place for himself. I would then meet up with him again a few hours later. We never tried to do more than one school in a day. If it's possible for the student to do an overnight visit, that's even better. There will always be a limit to how good a feel you can get for a school in a finite amount of time, but it's a little better than just relying on the tour.</p>
<p>I don't want to give the impression it was only the tour guide, it was also his sitting in on a class and talking to people on campus. But the tour guide is the first contact with the school for many people and they can have an impact. Interestingly, my son has more friends at Harvard than Yale, but the feeling he got from his day long visit was that -- since academically there is a small if any difference between the schools -- the atmosphere at Yale was better for him. I think the reason this thread continues is because it seems impossible to some people that you could choose Yale over Harvard. My kids go to the top prep school in LA and I have the same problem as Byerly, I can't for the life of me grasp why someone would choose another secondary school over ours. But the problem our school has is, to some extent, the problem Harvard has, we're X, so of course you want to come here. We don't have to sell ourselves. So Y and Z send personal notes and ratchet up the warm fuzzies and some people then choose those schools instead.</p>
<p>If your son came back from day-long visits at Harvard and Yale and was more enthusiastic about Yale than Harvard, then I think he made the right choice in applying early to Yale. As I said, he really can't go wrong with either, so why not make it his choice? (And that from a Harvard alum whose son is now at Harvard and loving it.)</p>
<p>Yes, I am. I thought with his intended major, it would make more sense for him to go to Harvard. But I thought that since I had a pro-Harvard bias, I could speak for the kids who choose Yale not because of some feeling of inferiority or fear, but because they actually believe that they will have a better four year experience at Yale. For some kids, it's about the overall experience, not just which school has the better name. For me, since I wouldn't have to spend the time there, Harvard seemed like the obvious number one choice.</p>
<p>Most common admits <em>DO</em> choose Harvard, so that the posters here are clearly not representative.</p>
<p>And, - despite the natural sour grapes from some of the pro-New Haven contingent - there are at least a few among the great majority opting for Harvard who are not "shallow prestige whores" as the Yalie cliche explanation would have it, but who actually find the Cambridge atmosphere, and the Cambridge setting, quite stimulating, and couldn't image settling for anyplace else. </p>
<p>A higher fraction of Harvard matriculants stay on to graduate than at any other school in the United States of America, so it can't be as bad as the Yalies like to tell themselves.</p>
<p>However, as you know, Yale is the more selective school, Byerly. For 2 of the past 3 years, anyways, it has had a lower acceptance rate than Harvard, and vastly more applications per spot in the entering class. </p>
<p>Also, as you know, Yale produced 3 Rhodes and 4 Marshall Scholars last year, despite being a fraction the size of Harvard - which only produced 1 Rhodes and 2 Marshalls.</p>
<p>And as far as the supposed "desirability" of Harvard goes, the vast majority of Yalies never even apply to Harvard in the first place. It's because Harvard just doesn't compare.</p>
<p>You guys are fascinating. Do people really distinguish that much between the top Ivies based on prestige? I live in a competitive, affluent suburb and don't know anyone who wouldn't be thrilled to have their child at HYPSM, it matters not which. (And Byerly, I'm another "not representative" - I turned down Harvard for Princeton back in the day. :))</p>
<p>A "fraction of the size" eh, "Poster X"?? Is this also the explanation for the record 5 straight losses in "The Game"??</p>
<p>... oh, and I wouldn't get all creamy about the uncharacteristic success with Rhodes winners this year (Harvard had 7 the year before) in light of the long-term numbers, which show Harvard with more winners than Yale and Princeton <em>combined</em> in the past 20 years!</p>
<p>Yale will be "more selective," X, when they have to admit fewer "per spot" to fill the available seats - even with fewer seats to fill!! Now maybe that is the strategy behing Yale's craven decision to hang onto the early action crutch which Harvard and Princeton have bravely and responsibly renounced ... ie, a hope that they can "steal a few" applicants away from the opposition by giving them their first kiss, so to speak, and hoping to stem the chronic cross-admit losses!</p>
<p>I would be thrilled to have my child at any of HYPS (M is a different story), as well as any of quite a number of other schools where he could get a great education. For me the important thing was that he be thrilled with his choice. While he chose Harvard, I have no problem understanding why someone else might choose Yale, Princeton, Stanford or elsewhere.</p>
<p>What I do have a problem with is the absurdity that starts this thread - the notion that one should choose Yale (or any other school for that matter) because Harvard stinks. Followed by a bunch of ignorant trash-talking. If one is going to choose Yale, or any other school, hopefully one can come up with better reasons than that.</p>
<p>BurnThis, I think you make an excellent point about why Yalies feel the need to defend their choice, while Harvardians do not. I think the default attitude is that you go to the "best" school you can get into, and Harvard is situated in the minds of most as the best school you can get into. So of course Harvardians don't feel the need to defend their choice relative to choosing, say, Yale, because no one is going to think they couldn't have gone anywhere they wanted; they got into the best school and so went there (of course a Cantab could've chosen Harvard for a variety of reasons, but he is automatically given this one). Of course, as several members of CC have shown, admission to Harvard doesn't guarantee admission to Yale or another top college (or see <a href="http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=350219)%5B/url%5D">http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=350219)</a>, but I think that's the perception anyhow.</p>
<p>Yale, however, is not considered the single best school in the eyes of the general public. Many, as BurnThis mentioned, cannot understand why Yalies would actively choose to go to the 2nd best (or 3rd or 4th best, whatever) school over the best. So some assume that Yalies didn't have that choice to make. This assumption naturally makes Yalies a little touchy. I think it's really this, the disconnect between what the general public perceives to be the best school and what we perceive to be the best school, that forces Yalies to justify their decisions relative to Harvard. Because some people figure that if we had the choice, we would've gone there. This is untrue for many, certainly untrue for me. I could not be so cocky as to claim that I would've been fortunate enough to be admitted to Harvard had I applied, but I do feel that if I had applied, or certainly if I had applied early, I would've had as good a chance as any. It just didn't seem to be the right school for me, while Yale did. I've met plenty of others who didn't apply to Harvard either, others who turned Harvard down, and others still who were rejected or waitlisted. I'm ok with that, and I suspect if you asked the question to Cantabs as well, you'd find a similar kind of mix (though the 35-65 discrepancy would obviously be reversed).</p>
<p>By the way, does 13 out of 20 cross-admits choosing Yale over Harvard like such an "great majority" to you? (The NYT cited a cross admit preference of 65% to 35%) Does anyone know what that translates to in real numbers? Because if roughly half of each class applied early, that means that most of them didn't apply elsewhere after that. And then there are those who didn't apply regular to both Harvard/Yale. And then there are all the people who were admitted to Yale or Harvard, but not both (remember: Harvard advocates would like to think Yale is a school full of Harvard rejects. This would make the raw number of cross-admits who choose Harvard - hence proving Harvard's superiority - much smaller). And then there are those who were admitted to both, and 65% of them chose Harvard. So again - raw numbers, anyone?</p>
<p>The 65% number you use is, I assume, based on the NY Times story, which was, in turn, based on the "Revealed Preference" study, which was, in turn, based on a survey of about 3,500 total applicants to elite schools in the year 2000. The Revealed Preference chart is not, and does not pretend to be, a record of the true "cross-admit" numbers between Harvard and Yale in that year, or in any other year. Generally the fraction of <em>actual</em> common admits preferring Harvard has been higher - sometimes over 80%. The ratio has persisted over many years, as a review of Karabel's book on Ivy admissions, "The Chosen", carefully documents.</p>
<p>The purpose of Yale's move to binding ED in 1996 was to reduce the size of the overlap pool with Harvard, and thus the common admit losses. To some extent, it worked, as Yale's yield rate immediately jumped by 5% over the year before. But there is still a substantial overlap pool (which Yale fears would grow if it dropped EA as Harvard and Princeton have done.) Indeed, there are enough common admits, these days, to fill upwards of 30% of the class if they all went to Yale. </p>
<p>If you add to this number those who were admitted to one school and not the other, not to mention those who applied to both and were admitted to neither, ... well, there are probably no two schools in America with a large cross-applicant group, on a proportional basis.</p>
<p>you've been quoted previously as saying the common admit pool was shrinking and is between 250-300, but I can't provide a link due to you know what.</p>
<p>Byerly, going back to a move you pulled earlier in this thread: considering how I attend Princeton, do you really think it bothers me what Harvard and Yale think?</p>
<p>By the way, precise Class of 2010 data from all the Ivies has been available for quite some time now. ;)</p>