<p>Just to present an example, I turned down MIT for Yale, even though I was planning on majoring in economics. Why? Because I wanted a more balanced education and I felt I would like the undergrad experience a lot more at Yale than I would at MIT. If you choose Harvard over Yale, choose it because you think you would enjoy it more and because it has slightly smarter / more accomplished students, not because of the economics dept. Choose Chicago over Yale because of the Core, or Stanford over Yale because of the weather and quality of the opposite sex. At this level other factors should come into play…</p>