Yale vs Princeton vs Harvard

<p>Interesting. I'm a total newcomer to this website, so your titling an above post "sigh" seemed a bit impish until I deigned to suffer through twenty minutes of reading some of your previous posts which were themselves extraordinarily repetitive. In sum: "CROSS ADMITS WAHOO." Forgive me if I'm missing an exclamation point or something. Anyway- very disappointing. Are you a college student looking to justify your decision-making process? Are you in HS and unable to relate to the decision-making process itself? Apologies in advance for getting personal, but it nevertheless helps to know where one is coming from, in order to have some, you know, <em>perspective</em> on these things.</p>

<p>Here's where I'm coming from. I applied to seven schools, was accepted at six of them and was seriously considering ALL SIX. (I found out my acceptance at each of these six in early April.) Among the six, incidentally, are the three schools in question in this very thread. I had no idea how to arrive at a decision in a month, so I tried to think back to how I'd felt when visiting the universities. In large part I couldn't remember because I had always visited with friends and we spent most of our time crippling the authenticity of the experience by running around and being cynical.</p>

<p>As a side note, those friends by and large got into multiple top-tier schools, and by and large attend Harvard. One at MIT. I was unusual in making my choice, especially since the school I chose was reputed to be worse in the field I, at that time, was projected to study. I was a "math kid." For instance, I was a very high USAMO scorer, though not top 12; for instance, most of the other high scorers I know chose Harvard, many over Yale. If you want to join forces with the IMO crowd, Harvard and possibly MIT are your best bets.</p>

<p>Lest I diverge anymore: I ultimately had the great fortune to spend a night at four of the universities, and none of them with friends, and none of them during admit days, and all in quick succession (thank you April vacation - you were great and college students miss you.) This was tiring but unbelievably enlightening... walking in with essentially no preference enabled me to BREATHE and it was those very breaths that answered my question. I breathed easiest at Yale and chose that school, to the chagrin of many, not the least of which: my guidance counselor, my parents and many Harvard math majors. Why do I care what cross admits did?</p>

<p>
[quote]
"On the other hand, it would be foolish not to consider the informed choices made by other "consumers" - similarly situated."

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Please make this clear to me before I refute it, because I don't want to argue against something I might be misinterpreting. (Hey, maybe it won't merit refutation! Say something correct!) However, you substantiated the comment with an analogy to buying a car, and these situations are not analogous.</p>

<p>It is <em>so</em> much easier to ensure similar vantage points when buying a car. Categorically: price range, necessary number of passenger seats, desire to be fuel-efficient, etc, where the "etc" is defined to be less than the "etc" in the hypothetical college choosing criteria sentence. Dammit that was somewhat mathematical I THOUGHT I WAS OVERCOMING THIS. Moving on, I've decided to look at what consumers bought within my price range that had no need to carry more than five pasengers and were environmentally-conscious. Also- side airbags? Oh cool, they chose the Prius. Easy, let me test-drive it. Wow, that was smooth, I'll take it! I'm not going to be living in this, dining in this, pursuing my social destiny in this, doing chemistry labs in this, interacting with notable actors in this and sleeping in this for the next four years, after all! (Maybe subtract sleeping, but it was late, I was lost and the seats recline really far.)</p>

<p>Yeah. I'll check the consumer preferences for automobiles, sure, because it's not too difficult to itemize the characteristics I'm looking for and see what other people with the same criteria chose. But there are near-infinitely more characteristics in the college-choosing process and, what's more, the colleges aren't customizable, or else the dorms on Old Campus would have black interiors, air-conditioning and leather. </p>

<p>The most tragic line in your post, btw, was this:

[quote]
Consumer reports ranks cars, and the differences can be great; this may persuade some people to buy Toyotas, but it doesn't dissuade a minority from buying *****-cans, regardless. Chances are, they didn't read the rankings!

[/quote]
</p>

<p>We're talking about students admitted to H. Y. P. If one of them made the decision BLIND he or she couldn't end up with "*****-cans." (By the way, I'm running through my extremely long list of internalized obscenities spanning three languages and I cannot for the life of me find the five letter word that fits. Four'd be a cinch, but five?) HYP are all excellent institutions. Nobody’s going to end up somewhere horrible by the general numerical criteria, although someone could end up at a place where he or she is unhappy, regardless of numbers. Regarding reading the rankings: consistent rankings where one car is leaps and bounds better than another might be partially illuminating, but we’re talking about the top three U.S. News ranked schools. Nothing is analogous here! </p>

<p>So, refine your argument please. Once again: my perspective is that the decisions of prior cross-admits do not matter and should not be deemed important and that the best way to arrive at a decision when choosing between excellent schools is to visit each (not on the admit days) and see what feels best. Other considerations are viable but on a per-student basis (for instance, a friend of mine who is in a wheelchair looked for the most wheelchair-friendly campuses). Nothing is universal, I assure you: nothing.</p>

<p>Incidentally, I took all your assertions in the directly above post to be true, regardless of their lack of justifying links, because in my experience they have proven correct. Still- who are you that you have access to confidential information? Why are you credible? And why can’t the information be revealed – why is this stuff being kept a secret, especially if reasonable individuals like yourself would consider it invaluable knowledge when arriving at a decision?</p>

<p>(Post-wide apologies for being, at times, snide- it's not usually my M.O., I promise, but certain circumstances (sigh) require it.)</p>

<p>EDIT: I had NO idea how long this was after typing frantically for a while, so apologies. Also frantic writing makes for typos. Eek.</p>

<p>why the hell would anyone go to harvard over yale?</p>

<p>Byerly, I can't remember if you posted the links before, though I will take your word for it. Because of their value to prospective students though, would you mind posting them again?</p>

<p>I don't shop much for cars. Do the "consumer reports" merely summarize the choices of past car buyers, or do they apply some uniform standards by which to judge the cars themselves? If it's the latter, then I fail to see that there's any analogy to the choices of cross admits, who simply aren't in a position to know what attending the school will be like. (Despite research, guidance counselors, a visit or two, etc.) Closer to "consumer reports" might be the US News rankings, which don't give much basis for a clear preference for Harvard, Yale, or Princeton (the latter beat Yale and tied Harvard this year, Byerly's "pecking order" notwithstanding). Even closer might be the mountains of research by educational agencies about specific academic programs, or guides written by current students who actually know what life is like at the university. I'm just not feelin the cross-admit thing...</p>

<p>(Incidentally, this is getting pretty obnoxious, and I think I share a large part of the blame, but really, it is all just in fun at this point since May 1 has long passed. I hope you're all having fun and apologize if I'm upsetting anybody.)</p>

<p>It is in Cambridge / Boston, it's NOT in New Haven, you have access to the resources and professors of the world's top university (for those motivated enough to go after them), and, of course, it's Harvard. In the words of ske:</p>

<p>"When I ask [Harvard med students who were Harvard College students] why they stayed at one place, they usually tell me that it's not because they love Boston so much or because of their loyalty to Harvard, but simply that at each step along the way, they went for the #1, and the #1 was Harvard."</p>

<p>Not that all people choose for these reasons. Some may like the Harvard student body better, others are bothered by Yale's perceived insecurity, and still others just feel more at home at Harvard. I'm sure there are a host of other intangibles that can swing some people for Harvard, and those intangibles are of course, very important.</p>

<p>That being said, I'm glad 2o<em>o7, that YOU would choose Yale. Given that your name is "2o</em>o7," I'm guessing you're going to be a high school senior come the fall. I hope you DO get to make that choice.</p>

<p>Best,
DMW</p>

<p>HAHA I like how you always put "best" dmw123, very nice.
I think pplz get to choose his or her own college. there is no "better" college, it all depends on the person.</p>

<p>If the truth be known, the reason most "persons" who have the opportunity to do so pick Harvard over either Yale or Princeton is, very likely, the setting in Cambridge/Boston.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.epodunk.com/top10/colleges/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.epodunk.com/top10/colleges/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>To the poster above, Byerly-</p>

<p>I still eagerly await a response to my post, #101 in this thread, if you are so inclined.</p>

<p>I agree, Byerly. Even though for personal reasons I liked Yale more than Harvard, I always preferred Cambridge to New Haven (this is on a strictly first impression level). Of course now I don't think New Haven is all that bad... I just like Cambridge more. I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case for many people.
Plus Connecticut never struck me as a remarkable state.</p>

<p>Byerly--I don't know why you think that most students who choose Harvard over Yale or Princeton do so on the basis of location. None of the studies that you cite over and over again about revealed preference actually go to the "why" of the matter. I would think that it is just as likely that students choosing Harvard do so because they believe it is more prestigious, more well-known internationally or because their parents think it is.</p>

<p>A link to a fairly extensive study <em>was</em> posted a while back, mom, but I guess you missed it. Location and setting are one of the major factors most top students take into account in choosing a college, along with perceived strength in the student's main area of interest.</p>

<p>The study primarily confirmed the common wisdom, however. Obviously, the perceived superiority of the Cambridge/Boston setting is not the <em>only</em> explanation for Harvard's huge cross-admit advantage vs Yale, Princeton and Stanford, but it is clearly a significant factor.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.epodunk.com/top10/colleges/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.epodunk.com/top10/colleges/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>SimiGenu, I've PM'ed Byerly as to how he is associated with Harvard and he still has not replied. Byerly, what year are you? Do you work for Harvard, or what? Same for you PosterX when it comes to Yale. I think we'd all appreciate it.</p>

<p>Well, Byerly, the link you posted, <a href="http://www.epodunk.com/top10/colleges/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.epodunk.com/top10/colleges/index.html&lt;/a>, had no relevance to the point you made about why students prefer Harvard, since it was based on the authors' ranking of college towns using certain objective criteria, not the students' rating.</p>

<p>I don't think that you actually know why students prefer Harvard--I think that it would be an interesting question and my suspicion is that location, prestige and parents all play a role (as well as numerous other factors). However, I simply don't see that cross-admit preference is particularly relevant to the decisions of other students and I believe that your car analogy lacks merit. If you could somehow objectively show that the undergraduate experience at Harvard is categorically better than at other schools, that might be useful, but I don't think that it would be possible to make that case. Barring that, all of the schools in this thread are top-notch and there are no right or wrong decisions and, as I have said before, I believe that your "winner take all" mentality is inappropriate when making decisions about higher education.</p>

<p>unfortunately, byerly seems to have given up on ever again arguing the merits of harvard versus its peers and resorted permanently to cross-admit arguments. he first used the strategy in harvard vs. yale discussions. as for the college town link, it doesn't necessarily substantiate his location argument for cross-admit numbers and yield disparities, since both princeton (#2) and new haven (#9) are top ten college towns in their categories.</p>

<p>An important point here, is that some of us have not even seen the data with the "overwhelming" win of the cross-admits. </p>

<p>I hope Byerly can be kind enough to tell us where the information is from.</p>

<p>Byerly's statement "If the truth be known, the reason most "persons" who have the opportunity to do so pick Harvard over either Yale or Princeton is, very likely, the setting in Cambridge/Boston" is quite generous to his alma mater's main rivals. One could certainly come up with more chauvinistic explanations. </p>

<p>The common admit data, in the event it could be verified, would be highly relevant. For example, if there were two or three very similar restaurants on the same street, and one of them routinely gets 80% of the diners, doesn't that suggest the food is better? If Harvard routinely gets 80% of the common admits, what's the explanation? It seems pretty obvious to me. No, it's not the food. </p>

<p>However, Harvard probably wins closer to 65% of the common admits with Yale and somewhat more with Princeton and Stanford. While significant, 65% is not "overwhelming" in my opinion. Much of the margin probably is accounted for by the Cambridge/Boston location.</p>

<p>are you saying 65% because of the revealed preference study?</p>

<p>There is a lot of silly, ill-informed speculation going on here. </p>

<p>3/4 of the common admits choose Harvard over its chief "rivals" - Stanford, MIT, Yale and Princeton. </p>

<p>This is true now, and has been true for some time. </p>

<p>If anything, the fraction choosing Harvard has crept up a bit in the last few years.</p>

<p>The Revealed Preference study, while useful overall, and generally accurate even today, should not be taken as a precise measure of common admit stats involving any two schools, since it was based on a survey that included but a fraction of elite admits in a single year - 1999-2000.</p>

<p>Weren't you saying 84.6% before, though?</p>