<p>There is a very tangible wealth of student resources placed at the disposal of Harvard students that is unique to Harvard. For example, a year ago my D went to China for three weeks to teach in a summer symposium program for high-achieving Chinese HS students from across that country. The instructors and students were all accommodated together at a boarding school in Shanghai, and the student instructors’ expenses, other than airfare, were all covered. No one from the faculty or staff of Harvard conceived of this, initiated it, or supervises it - it’s an entirely student-managed extracurricular enterprise funded primarily by the university. And it’s not at all unusual - there are international model congress programs, touring performing arts programs, a local homeless shelter - all student-initiated and student-run efforts made possible with university financial support and advisement. From the outside looking in, I’m floored that students do all these things and carry out these huge visions on their own. But talk to the students involved, and they’ve long ago stopped engaging in self-doubt about what is possible. Coming up with a way to positively impact some corner of the world, getting a group of peers to buy in, and getting Harvard to fund their grand schemes is just standard operating procedure to them.</p>
<p>To me, that’s the defining quality of the Harvard experience and I’m unaware that it exists to that extent anywhere else in higher education.</p>