@ricka8 I’m surprised you say that because I’ve heard many others say that the undergrad teaching at Harvard (and Brown, etc.) is excellent, as good as it is at top LAC schools like Amherst. Do you know this firsthand?
Well, Harvard itself certainly doesn’t believe that. Read this article from the New York Times a few years back.
"Harvard Task Force Calls for New Focus on Teaching and Not Just Research
“It’s well known that there are many other colleges where students are much more satisfied with their academic experience,” said Paul Buttenwieser, a psychiatrist and author who is a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers, and who favors the report. “Amherst is always pointed to. Harvard should be as great at teaching as Amherst.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/education/10harvard.html?_r=0
And for what it is worth, Amherst is also the most racially and economically diverse of all the elite private universities and LACs.