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<p>Exactly. So who here would rather wear Walmart house brand than Nike when given the choice? Status is important, unless of course you don’t care how society treats you.</p>
<p>^But most of us who are debating aren’t choosing between Harvard and the community college down the street (which I guess would be the equivalent of the Walmart storebrand). We’re deciding between Harvard and Yale, Nike and Adidas. Harvard’s primacy is hardly so complete as to turn YPMS into metaphorical cheap sneakers from a big box store, though it may win cross admits by significant margins.</p>
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I applied to Cambridge. I’m pretty sure I know about the admissions process.</p>
<p>Those qualifications are not the same thing as a “cutoff score” in the least. Not anymore than a score below 2100 or so is a “cutoff” at Harvard.</p>
<p>at least for me they were since i am from germany and cambridge asked me for a 1.3 in the abitur which i am not able to get. however at harvard they don’t care much about the abitur. additionally i got merely 2030/2040 in the sat which was enough for harvard to wl me.</p>
<p>Yeah, either Vanderbilt, Duke, or Dartmouth.</p>
<p>Perhaps MIT, but excluding that I would maybe take Duke over Harvard. A full ride scholarship, the opportunity to study at Cambridge (England) for a couple months, and the fact that it is sooooooo much closer than Harvard is. Still I dunno, its a toss up.</p>
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<p>So you mean qualifications for matriculation, ie: meeting one’s offer, not for acceptance.</p>
<p>@millancad: we probably should start a separate thread 
but don’t you see that because the qualifications for matriculation are so tough at oxbridge people don’t even consider to apply there since they aren’t gonna meet them (like me).
consequently there are a lot less applicants to oxbridge which automatically increases the admissions rate. and of course you can only apply to either oxford or cambridge which has pretty much the same effect.</p>
<p>I think that, if the current me were to visit the college-decision-making me, I might have chosen Georgia Tech over Harvard. I could have gone there essentially for free, I would have been with most of my good friends from high school, I might even have more job security (as an engineer), I doubt it would have had that much impact on my career path, and I wouldn’t be stuck 1000 miles from my home in a city with crappy weather (it’s not the cold or the rain; it’s the ridiculous, soul-destroying wind). But it still would be a very difficult decision.</p>
<p>Yes, I would. And I’m about to tomorrow when I send my enrollment card to Vanderbilt accepting the Cornelius Vanderbilt scholarship. I visited Harvard last weekend and was sorely unimpressed with the undergraduate vibe. I really wanted to like it, but I just couldn’t see myself there. I’m determined to be successful wherever I go, so it doesn’t really bother me that Harvard “opens more doors.”</p>