<p>Having been a student at both H and Y, I think one of the main things to come to terms with is that H is #1 to so many people (it appears at the top of nearly every list of best institutions). Someone on this list accurately said that in terms of international prestige of US institutions there is Harvard and then there's everything else. Also, I have to take issue with who say you can go to Y undergrad and H grad and have both. A graduate of a H grad school is not a real H graduate in the same sense as a graduate of the undergrad school. For these reasons, I think it's no surprise most choose H over Y at the undergrad level. And I think it would take a strong conviction in one's judgement to do otherwise.</p>
<p>That being said, I would argue for Y undergrad as a better choice in general, with the following main exceptions
--those who really like Boston and/or really don't like New Haven (a large number of people)
--those who have a strong, clear interest in a field that is much stronger at H (a smaller number of people)</p>
<p>*But while the school may have merited obsessive coverage in the past, it no longer does: Harvard is diminishing in importance as a factory for ideas and a breeding ground for future leaders. In all sorts of ways it is not nearly as pivotal to the life of the nation as it once was. You just wouldn't know that by reading the papers or browsing the bookstands. . . .</p>
<p>So why does Harvard continue to get so much more press than Chicago or any other American university? One possible explanation: Harvard graduates are disproportionately represented in the upper echelons of American journalism. Harvard far surpasses any other university when it comes to cultivating journalistic talent, and all those Harvard-trained reporters and editors do an excellent job of keeping their alma mater in the news.*</p>
<p>(An interesting theory, although I'm not sure I buy it since Yale also graduates way more than its fair share of journalists.)</p>
<p>chicken - well, Harvard is still the most well-endowed university in the world (nearly 23 billion to Yale's 12 billion. Yale being at second place) and still has the biggest university library system in the world. Of course people will continously bash it, Harvard has a reputation that it could never fulfill. But i don't see it as "diminishing" in anyway. Until other schools start producing more Rhodes Scholars, become better endowed or is even to come close to its departments (Yale can compete in humanties, but science/math... Harvard smashes Yale), I don't think Harvard has been "diminishing".</p>
<p>"And lest I, a journalist not educated at Harvard, be accused of sour grapes, rest assured: I developed my Harvard complex long before I took my vow of poverty and succumbed to the charms of journalism. I spent several years after college working on Wall Street, during which time I was interviewed for a job with a major hedge fund. The interview did not go especially well, and the tone was set pretty much from the start. As the gentleman meeting with me scanned my r</p>
<p>Anyone who's been both an undergrad and grad student at Harvard, as I have, would tell you in a heartbeat that the college comes first at Harvard. For the most part there is no competition for resources, because each school is independently endowed and has its own faculty and campus, but where there is, the college ALWAYS wins out, whether the issue is Cambridge real estate, libraries, dorms, food, endowment, presidential attention, you name it. The grad students get the sloppy seconds at Harvard (they're damn fine sloppy seconds, of course, but the rule holds).</p>
<p>Re: Larry Tribe: he was recently named a University professor, which means he can teach in any school at the university. Morton Horwitz, Frank Michelman, and many other Law School luminaries have taught popular undergrad classes. But whether they teach undergrad classes really doesn't matter, because undergrads are allowed to take grad classes if they want to. I took a Kennedy School seminar with the late Judge Higginbotham (a KSG/Law joint professor) that was one of the highlights of my academic life.</p>
<p>That being said, the vast majority of undergrads at both H & Y take the vast majority of their classes in the Arts & Sciences. Arts & Sciences faculty at both schools are shared only with Arts & Sciences grad students. Yale has 2590 GSAS grad students compared to 5242 undergrads (<a href="http://www.yale.edu/oir/factsheet.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/oir/factsheet.html</a>) while Harvard has ~3150 GSAS students (generously including part-timers) compared to ~6500 undergrads. You don't need a calculator to see that the ratio is virtually the same.</p>
<p>This thread has turned into a general assessment of Harvard versus Yale. The original question has been forgotten. It is fairly obvious to anyone who has been at both places that Yale has a stronger undergrad focus. It's a matter of the institutional interests and culture of the two places. </p>
<p>With regard to institutional interests, Harvard seeks to outshine all the other mega research universities, to be academically tops in all fields and virtually all prof schools. Yale can't do that and it has chosen to limit is focus to being a great college with a limited number of top departments and prof schools.</p>
<p>Culturally Harvard is part of Boston and knows that people will come there for that fact. Yale exists in New Haven and has to work hard to create a place for its students and faculty. This generally helps the undergrads feel more special (though it is less helpful for the grad students).</p>
<p>"If undergrad matters, the choice is clear" </p>
<p>What a loaded statement! So you chose Dartmouth over some more pretigious schools.. whoopty-doo-for-you. Don't pretend like your choice was the only correct one though.</p>
<p>EDIT : Funny, I thought that this thread was about Yale (and Harvard, to some degree). The fact that you feel the need to rub Dartmouth in everyone's faces is, to me, illustrating of how insecure you are about your decision!</p>
<p>Ivy league schools like Harvard and Yale should require their students take at least a semester of Latin so everyone knows the difference between "alumnus", "alumni", "alumna", and "alumnae".</p>
<p>Im sorry; did I pretend my choice was the only correct one?</p>
<p>I thought I said that undergrad focus (within the Ivies) would involve two primary choices: Dartmouth and Princeton (not simply dartmouth).</p>
<p>Very sensitive arent you, Raven?</p>
<p>When did I say I chose a less prestigious school? I didn't really think about prestige as a factor.</p>
<p>Im sorry my choice is not the same as yours does that make mine a bad choice? I thought these were personal choices, not exactly good or bad choices, just choices.</p>
<p>I'm happy...are you?</p>
<p>for the record, I'd say Yale is somewhat more undergrad focused than Harvard.</p>
<p>Did you really not use prestige as a criterion at all in choosing your schools? If not, I think that's a very stupid thing to do. Certainly, it shouldn't be the end-all, nor the first criterion, but it should be always taken into consideration.</p>
<p>Here's a couple of notes on prestige:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>It is usually earned. Schools with higher prestige tend to be usually better or whatever it is they do academically, and if there is an exception, there is generally a intriguing reason for the opposite (for example, U. Chicago's weaker prestige would be based on its atmopshere and yield).</p></li>
<li><p>It is advantageous to go to a school with higher prestige. I think the level to which is advantageous is debatable, but I think people need to be realistic. For the large majority of people, for which demagoguery and popular culture is king, they'll instantly classify you by your diploma. How often is it that you see the television stressing that someone has a proclivity for engineering by mentioning their degree is from MIT? (I saw that on Judging Amy just this afternoon.) How often is the name Harvard dropped for denoting superior academics? Even Dartmouth, the so-called pariah of the Ivy-Leagues, I'm sure is not averse to having its name appear right after the popular show Desperate Housewives in Grey's Anatomy. Whatever you call it, however you view it, prestige is what makes the great majority choose their schools, gives those incredible statistics to some schools and belies the academics of others. It's the same reason adverstisers use the most inane and off-topic commericals nowadays; it isn't the product you're selling, but the way you sell it. And since, in the future, a large majority of your life will be about selling yourself, why not at least think about the advantages of having a great degree?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Although it occurs to me that mocking prestige with some one who--when pontificating in the virtual-world--fancies himself a King (KingErdosII), I will nonetheless take issue with anyone, even when of royal-blue-internet-blood, who conflates noble greatness with venial prestige.</p>
<p>prestige is what makes the great majority choose their schools [ ] a large majority of your life will be about selling yourself, why not at least think about the advantages of having a great degree?</p>
<p>Big Pimpin' at Yale and Harvard?</p>
<p>The linkage here between greatness and prestige seems overly abrupt, even if intuitively appealing to the hoi-polloi. Certainly greatness exists and survives without an obligatory nod to prestige; for instance, I anachronistically prefer the attitude of Jesus (God to some) to that of Donald Trump (a publicity-hound to most) even though only one of the two has the celebrity or prestige to drive a top rated television show to iconic status, youre fired. </p>
<p>Much like those academic name-droppers in Judging Amy or Grays Anatomy Ive heard Trump refer his clamoring biatch-wannabes to the advantages of a Wharton degree I, for one, though awed to act on his word regained my composure and followed my heart and mind to Dartmouth even though, as you have so eloquently stated, </p>
<p>Schools with higher prestige tend to be usually better or whatever it is they do academically </p>
<p>Princeton has around 4800 undergrads, and less than 2000 grad students- I think that this ratio is a key reason to why Princeton has more of an undergrad focus than Yale and Harvard (which I think are about the same), although at H and Y you are probably able to take more advanced and specific courses through the grad schools because of their size and academic opportunities.</p>
<p>And I think that Princeton trumps Dartmouth because it has one of the most elite faculties in the nation.</p>
<p>I don't think that college choices or decisions should be made purely on "undergrad focus" just as you shouldn't decide purely on "prestige"</p>
<p>Prestige and the University of Chicago, excerpted from the Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2005:</p>
<p>Even though the University of Chicago and the GSB get less press attention than Harvard the University of Chicago, for one, has wielded much more influence in recent decades, according to a commentary in the April 29 edition. It is no exaggeration to say that Chicago laid the intellectual foundation ... and nurtured the ideas that now drive the debate over economic policy, legal theory and foreign affairs, the commentary said. Of the 55 economists awarded the Nobel Prize since 1969, when economics was added to the roster, 10 have taught at Chicago and an additional 13 either trained at Chicago or had previously taught there. Harvard, by contrast, has had four faculty winners.</p>
<p>Princeton has around 4800 undergrads, and less than 2000 grad students- I think that this ratio is a key reason to why Princeton has more of an undergrad focus</p>
<br>
<p>As discussed above, HYP all have roughly the same ratio of arts & sciences grad students to undergrads, and they are the only grad students who matter because they are the only ones who share undergraduate professors. If you can explain how the existence of Harvard Med School, with its separate campus and its own faculty several miles away from the college campus, negatively impacts undergraduate life in any way, I'd like to hear it.</p>
<p>In fact, the presence of a medical school, with its own faculty and campus only serves to provide more opportunities to undergraduates searching for either research or clinical exposure in medical fields. This comes at NO expense to "undergraduate focus".</p>