Harvard Is Extremely Overrated - Page 2

drunner2007 · 06-20-2007, 06:46 PM

its human nature to be in awe of anything that is the "best." its like the prestige that a school has grows exponentially as its numerical ranking gets smaller (meaning the school gets better)

like think about the difference in prestige between the #50 ranked school and the #40 ranked school. its not nearly as great as the difference in prestige between the #11 ranked school and the #1 ranked school.

the truth is that most of the schools in the top 10 are very similar in terms of academics and opportunities. it is very silly to go off of rankings that arbitrarily assign weight to certain factors, especially when different people have different priorities and expect different things out of college.

hotpiece101 · 06-20-2007, 06:51 PM

as a harvard sophomore, i can honestly say that there is nothing overrated about it. it is just as amazing as everyone says

blitz · 06-26-2007, 01:03 PM

Harvard's known solely for it's grad schools. Go Brown, Princeton, Dartmouth for undergrad (you want quality right?) and Harvard for grad.

CleverAlias · 07-05-2007, 04:51 PM

I had to choose between yale 2011 and harvard 2011. I chose harvard for a number of reasons, but also in spite of some reasons as well. One of the things that was almost a deal-breaker for me was what kwiborjt was talking about - a huge number of kids at Harvard there solely to appease their parents. And people go on and on about how Harvard is overrated and how that "i didn't want to come here" mentality is really par for the course in terms of student attitudes. But in reality, that sort of thing occurs at any elite institution. Harvard is no more overrated than yale or princeton or oxford or cambridge or what have you. Virtually everyone I met on campus recommended harvard unconditionally, and I can't help but fall more in love with the school every day. Some of you might have grievances with the school or its admissions committee, and that's your business. But please do not denigrate a great great school just to make yourself feel better, because those of us who are actually attending don't appreciate it. And even if you don't have any personal beefs with harvard, I would recommend spending a few days on campus before passing judgment.

WindCloudUltra · 07-05-2007, 05:28 PM

When anything, any place or any person is constantly held to as the gold standard, it is inevitably not going to live up to that ideal.

Harvard has flaws like any other school (Yale included, Poster X) so when it's constantly viewed as the gold standard of schools, it's inevitably going to fall short. With that said, it is a fine school indeed along with other institutions such as Yale and Princeton and Duke etc. etc.

ClaySoul · 07-15-2007, 09:56 PM

The Gourman report is completely outdated. I know because back when I was obsessed with rankings, I tried to hunt a copy down, and the last one published was sometime in the 1980's or something like that.

Furthermore, the way the measures were taken took grad programs into account heavily when trying to evaluate the undergraduate programs. They are simply not a very good measure.

vincanity1 · 07-18-2007, 02:00 AM

As long as it is overrated by employers, I don't see why it should matter to a student.

blockbuster · 08-23-2007, 12:31 AM

In what sense? Are you aware that there are many employers that would rather hire a person who attended a school of less prestige?

Counting12001 · 08-23-2007, 07:14 AM

If you really believe it is overrated then don't apply!

cape731 · 08-27-2007, 06:25 PM

if you really belive that, you're an idiot

phuriku · 08-27-2007, 06:34 PM

Quote:

as a harvard sophomore, i can honestly say that there is nothing overrated about it. it is just as amazing as everyone says

And you're qualified to make that opinion...why? You haven't experienced other undergraduate schools. You wouldn't know whether it was overrated or not. After all, the word "overrated" depends on comparison with other schools.

The reason it is extremely overrated is that if you're not going to Harvard, you're automatically thought to be not as smart as someone who is attending Harvard. Harvard may be a great university, but it doesn't blow every other university on the face of the Earth out of the water like the general public believes.

Quote:

Harvard is not overrated. It is clearly one of the greatest universities in the world. The Times of London calls it one of "the two greatest universities in the world" along with Yale.

That's certainly great evidence to support the obvious fact that Harvard is not overrated. You are smart. (I'm not even going to waste my time showing you how fallacious your reasoning is.)

Quote:

Go Brown, Princeton, Dartmouth for undergrad (you want quality right?) and Harvard for grad.

The top 15-20 are about equal in terms of undergraduate academics. Harvard being the best for graduate is also not completely true. Harvard only has the 4th most for Nobel Prizes, below Chicago, Columbia, and Cambridge. And Harvard almost always loses to MIT in graduate rankings of specific areas. (See US News 2008 Graduate Rankings.)

MikeU · 08-29-2007, 02:07 PM

Harvard is the most prestigious college/university in the U.S., but to say it is the best is subject to debate. However, we all can agree Harvard is a superb institution.

ClaySoul · 08-29-2007, 02:33 PM

Harvard probably has the most name recognition, but I think to say that it's the most prestigious, especially amongst those who know anything about elite colleges, is up for debate. Places like Princeton, Yale, and Stanford have probably just as much prestige for anyone who knows anything.

Whether or not it's highly overrated simply depends on how highly you rate it. The sky is also blue.

MikeU · 08-29-2007, 03:58 PM

ClaySoul, I meant to say layman prestige. Now, amongst attentive people such as you and I, we know other schools can lay a claim to being the most prestigious, which deserves a whole new thread to debate this particular issue about what constitutes prestige, and which schools illustrates the most.

ClaySoul · 08-29-2007, 07:18 PM

But who cares about layman prestige? Your potential boss at that hedge fund whachamacolit (art major here, lol) certainly doesn't. So neither should you. Want to impress truck drivers (i have said this 10,000 times on this board), go to harvard. If you want to impress someone who is actually going to influence your future? Go to any of a dozen (if not more) other schools.

But beyond the measure of prestige is the measure of quality. Sure, HYPSM probably have the most "prestige" in the country, but that by no means makes them the best, ESPECIALLY for undergraduate education.

Arguing between Harvard and Yale or Harvad and Brown or Harvard and Duke or Harvard and Williams or Harvard and Swarthmore (I'll stop but I can clearly go on for paragraphs) is like arguing between that Sony 71" plasma HDTV and that Sony 72" plasma HDTV. IT DOESN'T MATTER! Within a certain range of schools you will get the same quality of education, so find a place that fits and screw the rest. This thread is stupid. And if I wasn't so bored I probably wouldn't bother. But as the case is....lol

Another thing, is prestige within a certain major. Harvard and MIT are great schools, but for example, an engineering degree from MIT will go farther in the land of prestige. That's not to say Harvard doesn't have a great engineering program -- it does. So unless you're such a prestige monger that you can think of nothing but how cool it will be to impress the mean teacher from high school who thought little of you, his dog, his dog's grandma, and his dog's gradma's chew toy, with his fancy degree, pick the school that fits you better. Period.