<p>Dear Byerly,
I just found College Confidential a couple days ago, and, as an accepted member to Yale 2010, have been passively looking at the Yale message board. I formed this userid because I was so shocked by the smugness of your posts, with your reply to TopNotch being particularly particularly egregious, and I felt that I couldn't help but respond.</p>
<pre><code>I congratulate you as a member of Harvard. Harvard College is an undeniably great school, and, in my opinion, the University itself is the world's greatest. But your condescension towards Yale and towards Yalies only lends credence to the oft-stereotyped Harvard pretension, a stereotype which so many Harvard grads try to undo. I assure you, not all Yalies are Harvard rejects. I didn't feel Harvard was right for me, and so I didn't apply, despite having a fine application, the recommendation of a senior Clinton strategist (more than just the perfunctory "I recommend the son of my friend's friend"), and having had a Harvard alumnus and interviewer tell Byerly Hall to look out for me while I was still a sophomore.
I disagree with your claim that Yale is no Harvard. In terms of international prestige, perhaps not. You could walk into a store in Bangladesh and tell the shopkeeper you went to Harvard, and that shopkeeper would think you an exceptionally smart fellow. Perhaps, going to Yale, I could not expect the same response. I don't think too many in America smirk at the name Yale, even when juxtaposed against Harvard, but that's irrelevant. My larger point is this - impressing others is not the sole reason to attend any institution, nor are the number of books, the size of the endowment, nor even the number of Nobel laureates, and I brook serious quarrel with your implications across the Yale boards that they are.
Perhaps what I found most offensive in your post to TopNotch was that TopNotch can and should can hold their head up high because they got into a school with "name and prestige" (even though it doesn't have quite the name and prestige of Harvard). I don't know Topnotch -though I hope I get the chance to next year - but if they have a right to hold their head up high, it's because they've made the most of the opportunities they've been afforded, because they've worked hard, and because they've found a code of ethics to live by. If the reason you are proud of yourself is because you got into Harvard, I'd think you haven't lived much of a life. Surely the best thing someone can say about you isn't "Harvard student."
At best, getting into Harvard (or even Yale) is a recognition. It isn't an achievement - it's a recognition of what you have already achieved. So too is a rejection. It doesn't take anything away from who you are or what you have accomplished. It is a decision made by an admissions panel.
I'm sorry Byerly, I did not mean to turn this into a diatribe, but frankly, this view that "prestige" means everything, and that there is a hierarchy in which "Harvard students > Yale, Princeton students > Ivy students > everybody else" truly frustrates me. Perhaps, if the gap in prestige is as large as you make it seem, when people hear that you are a "Harvard grad," standing next to me, a mere "Yale grad," they will indeed perceive you to be smarter than I. But as soon as we're asked to open our mouthes, you're going to have to prove that you ARE smarter. And the name of Harvard cannot help you there.
Respectfully Yours,
DMW
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