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<p>While I can’t speak for the other universities, the above sentiment is diametrically wrong for Harvard, which is arguably the most incestuous school in the world, perhaps unrivaled only by a certain nearby technical institute. Among the students of practically every PhD program that Harvard has to offer, the most highly represented undergraduate program is likely to be…Harvard College. In fact, in certain years, the number of former Harvard undergraduates from taken in by a particular Harvard PhD program equals/exceeds that of all other undergraduate programs combined. {For example, in one recent year, the Harvard Organizational Behavior PhD program took in 6 students, 3 of whom were former Harvard undergraduates.} </p>
<p>Furthermore, it is also true that many of the best Harvard Phd graduates place right back at Harvard. As a case in point, just last year both Sam Hanson and Adi Sunderam who finished their PhD’s in business economics at Harvard placed right back at Harvard. Indeed, there are plenty of Harvard faculty who came to Harvard as undergrads and basically never left, having earned their bachelor’s, then PhD’s, then placed back at Harvard, then won tenure. As an example, except for a Marshall Scholarship at Cambridge and a brief stint at Morgan Stanley, Ben Friedman has basically never left Harvard since he was a teenager.</p>