<p>tcwest2012, I’m not sure that ‘most’ undergrad courses at Harvard at taught by TA’s, but there is certainly a difference between H and Y in their focus on undergraduate education. </p>
<p>All Yale professors - no matter how tenured, how hallowed, or how prized (including Nobel) - are not only required to teach undergraduate courses but are also happy to do so. This is certainly not the case at Harvard, where the luminaries sometimes barely endure their graduate students and, in many cases (not all), wouldn’t be caught dead teaching an undergraduate class. The two institutions have different cultures and, to my eye, seem to attract somewhat different people.</p>
<p>That’s a bit hyperbolic. My child is a student at Yale. He (and we) think Yale is a splendid institution. Splendid. But not every prof is wonderful. He had one this year who was lousy and who clearly did not want to be teaching the class. And there are also – shock and surpirse – grad students teaching classes. Indeed, one of my kid’s favorite classes this year was taught by a talented grad student. Great grad programs at great institutions attract some great teachers. My son is hoping to take another course from this instructor next year.</p>
<p>We love Yale madly. But no institution is perfect.</p>
<p>WJB, I never said: (1) that Yale is perfect, (2) that graduate students don’t teach at Yale, or (3) that graduate students can’t be wonderful. I said that all Yale professors are required to teach undergraduates, and this is true. And, because teaching undergraduates is required of all Yale professors, it usually works out that renowned faculty don’t go to Yale unless they’re willing to teach undergrads. Of course there are exceptions, but they are rare. And of course not every prof is a great teacher… but, then again, I never made such a claim.</p>
<p>What I did say - or meant to suggest - is that there are meaningful differences in the way that Yale and Harvard organize themselves as institutions, and that these differences find reflection both in the culture of each place and in the experience of undergraduates.</p>
<p>Beatitudo and WJB - what kind of courses have you seen taught by TA’s? I’m just curious. Between two S’s at Yale, there has been only one class, a Music theory class, where one has had a grad student as a teacher. (S loved him.) I thought it was most likely in intro language courses, but it didn’t happen in three of those.</p>
<p>Beatitudo: I realize that you did not say Yale is perfect, and I apologize if I was too flippant in my response. As someone with first-hand experience at both Y and H, you have valuable insights to share here. I do think, though, that the best observations are concrete. Sweeping generalizations – either positive or negative – about either H or Y tend to be discounted. I strongly agree that Yale is undergrad-centric, and that the majority of Yale professors enjoy teaching and mentoring undergrads. But to say all are happy to teach (and that is what you said) is not accurate.</p>
<p>Yalemom: Bingo. Music theory. Wonder if it’s the same teacher? :)</p>
<p>Correct. Also not accurate to say that the famous professors are automatically great teachers. For example the Nobel laureate in Chemistry at Yale is necessarily the best Chemistry teacher.</p>
<p>I have a D at Yale and a D at Harvard. Both are extremely happy with their undergrad experiences.</p>
<p>From our experience, the claims of “nasty competition,” classes taught by grad students/TAs (save for one foreign lang. class), lack of advising (“sink or swim”) at Harvard undergrad are simply not true, and appear to be sour grapes rumors that have been perpetuated since long before I joined CC.</p>
<p>That said, the atmosphere at each school is noticeably different. At Yale, the students are like one big happy family. At Harvard, the students are amazingly accomplished, independent achievers.</p>
<p>According to your posting history, you’re a current Yale student. Not sure why you’re asking this broad question. Do an advanced search on the Yale and Harvard boards, and you’ll find plenty of discussion about the differences in living/learning experiences at the two schools.</p>
<p>I agree that actual experiences are more meaningful than vague generalizations. Out of interactions with about 9 faculty members at Yale this past year, my daughter had</p>
<p>-3 GREAT Music Theory and musicianship TA’s (who did all the teaching in those courses)
-a famous Yale professor teaching a famous class who is not such a great teacher/communicator
-a Yale History professor teaching a freshman seminar which turned out to be pretty boring
-a GREAT Literature class with a Yale professor
-an L5 language class taught by a Yale professor that was nothing to write home about
-some great coaching/private lesson teaching</p>
<p>I don’t know how you could possibly sum all that up into a generalization. I think she did pretty well. I’m sure there are plenty of freshman at Harvard who had equally (or more) stellar teachers. So much depends on chance, student interests, future major, skill at judging during shopping period, quality of advice you get from froco’s and other upperclass students…</p>
<p>I think both Yale and Harvard offer great and plentiful opportunities - figuring out which ones you can and should be taking advantage of, packing as many meaningful ones into your four years there – these issues most likely have different answers for different students.</p>
<p>WJB: I did say that all profs at Yale are happy to teach, and I agree that it was an overstatement. All sentences containing the word “all” (including this one) must be overly broad by definition! In the end, though, I stand by the basic proposition that a large majority of Yale professors are happy to teach undergraduates, and that the same is not true at Harvard. </p>
<p>Vicariousparent: Read my posts. I never said that famous professors are automatically great teachers. </p>
<p>Bay: Were you referring to me when you made the comment about sour grapes? Not sure, but it sounded like it, given that I was the one who was speaking negatively about Harvard. I don’t mean to sound immodest, but I’ve gotten into Harvard every time that I’ve applied… so your hypothesis doesn’t hold much water, at least not in this case. You may want to discount my criticism of the institution, but it is simply my honest opinion based on my (and others’) observations. I’m glad that each of your children is having a good college experience; in the end, a good match is often the best predictor of success. Still, if someone asked me in the abstract, I’d stick with my original recommendation to go to Yale for the undergraduate experience and to consider Harvard for graduate school.</p>
<p>So harvard for grad^ ok got it, will be tattooing that on my body somewhere so that I remember LOL. But in all seriousness, thank you for your insights, I have always liked to apply to harvard, but lacked the credentials, fortunately I fell in love with carleton collegel. However, I will definitely be applying to harvard for grad school, well depending on my major of course.</p>
<p>I was referring to you only in the sense that you made the same stereotypical criticisms of Harvard undergrad that I have heard time and time again from … people who have not attended Harvard undergrad. That is, that Harvard is hyper-competitive, advising is not good, and that classes are taught by TAs or profs who don’t want to teach undergrad. I have never heard these criticisms from Harvard students (my D tells me H is not competitive - no one cares about others’ grades; if anything, advising is excessive; and her profs have been generally excellent and very accessible), or from alums, at least not on CC; I’ve only heard these repeated by non-Harvard people.</p>
<p>I am not trying to sell either one over the other - I think applicants need to visit both and figure out where they are most comfortable. Obviously, there will be people who dislike either or both of them. I think they are both fabulous.</p>
<p>Unless one has recently spent a couple of years as an undergraduate at Harvard or Yale, and then transferred to the other, one cannot answer this question. Even that mythical transferee could not truly answer the question, as the first two years of college are quite different, developmentally, from the second two, and bifurcating the college experience is quite different from spending all four years at one place.</p>
Well, not when you compare them to most other colleges. When compared to most other places, Yale and Harvard are remarkably similar. I agree with those who think they have a somewhat different overall “character,” but many of the students, faculty, and everything else are pretty interchangeable.</p>
<p>Here’s what I think: the two schools are not different enough for most students to decide to apply to one and not the other–this is not like Dartmouth vs. Columbia. They are different enought to take a hard look if you get accepted to both of them–in that case, you will probably find one to be a (slightly) better fit for your personality.</p>
<p>Right. Yale and Harvard may be “profoundly different institutions”. But they are less profoundly different from one another than perhaps any two other institutions of even vaguely comparable prestige, and they resemble each other more than either resembles any other university. </p>
<p>Freud’s concept of the “narcissism of small differences” aptly describes a lot of Harvard-Yale debates. There ARE differences, and they MAY matter a bit to some students. But at this point – it hasn’t always been true – the undergraduate populations are probably indistinguishable from one another, and if you switched them in the night neither the faculties nor the students would be able to notice any important academic difference.</p>
<p>The most important difference is certainly Cambridge vs. New Haven – not a choice on which many reasonable people disagree. But it is partially offset by the fact that Yale’s residential college system has always worked a little better, and that there is somewhat more of a culture of respect for undergraduates at Yale (and the professional schools are smaller), so that on balance it’s not clear that one place offers a better experience than the other.</p>