<p>I am from the Uk i have been considering going to a highly selective american university, i am mostly interested in harvard. In america there seems to be a stereotype of ‘geeks’ in highschool, kids who get good grades seem to be like bullied and socially excluded. I was wondering if this is actually the way it is in universities?? if i go to harvard are there still parties and is it fun with a good atmosphere or is it just full of people like studying constantly and never going out???</p>
<p>students at selective colleges still party</p>
<p>No one just applies to Harvard, you know?
If you apply to Harvard, you’d also apply to a few schools with admission rates under 20%, a few schools with admission rates between 20 and 35% and a few schools with admission rates between 35 and 60% (all of these would be considered selective).</p>
<p>In order to succeed at any of the top 100 schools (40 national universities and 60 national liberal arts) you need to study AT LEAST 2 hours for each clas period. However, students there are very good at managing their time, therefore their schedule is filled with many things: class, preparation for class, but also a job, clubs, sports, arts/visits, and of course parties and recreational pursuits!</p>
<p>nah all we do is study and sob about only getting 95s</p>
<p>One of the differences between a very selective and demanding college and a non-selective college may be whether students party on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights, instead of limiting most of their socializing to the weekends.</p>
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<p>Isn’t that the case with any college ?</p>
<p>You put a large amount of 18-22 year olds with new found freedom in a small area together and they’re going to have fun no matter how high their SAT score was</p>
<p>I’ve always heard that once you got into Harvard, the work there is really easy(as compared to MIT for example), because you’ve already worked so hard.</p>
<p>Sometimes Harvard was a lot of fun. Sometimes it was very hard. Sometimes it really sucked. Like most colleges and universities.</p>
<p>Many top schools also party a lot, they’re just like any other school.</p>
<p>Harvard students are all different, just like any other school.</p>
<p>The only difference I’ve seen is that the practical jokes at the selective colleges are more elaborate.</p>
<p>No. Every student, before enrolling in a highly selective school (<25% admit rate) must sign a self flagellation agreement which states that if they ever so much as crack a smile they must whip themselves 15 times. Also, just like at Oxford and Cambrige, no student at a highly selective school does anything other than study in absolute silence. Partying, clubs, and just general socializing are all banned.</p>
<p>I have a friend at Northeastern who says the kids at Harvard and MIT party the hardest. I have friends at Columbia, Cornell, and Stanford who have some of the best stories. I went to William and Mary my freshman year, and I can tell you we had a lot of hard core drinking!</p>
<p>Those fancy coastal schools have a lot of rich kids and legacies, who go to college to party hardy and re-enact 80s frat movies.</p>
<p>I don’t go to an Ivy, but I do go to a pretty selective school, and I can tell you that students at my school have plenty of “social gatherings” (that’s what the university calls parties at my school). As you walk across campus on a Friday or Saturday night, you can hear the music when you get within 80 feet of the dorms.</p>
<p>Beyond just partying, students at my school are also very involved in other recreational activities. It is amazing how many students do some combination of club sports, intramural sports, and working out on their own. There are also a lot of students that participate in or attend various fine arts performances.</p>
<p>And then there’s the very informal social stuff. I spent countless hours last year in my friends’ rooms chatting, watching movies, eating pizza, playing video games, and doing all sorts of other stuff like that. I think I have a much more active social life at my selective university than I ever did in high school.</p>
<p>Basically, people at my university are smart, but we’re still normal people. The main differences between my university and a less selective university are that pretty much nobody parties on weeknights, and there are occasional weekends (maybe 2 or 3 per semester) where a student just needs to realize that they have an incredibly busy week ahead of them and that they need to stay back and study instead of partying that weekend.</p>
<p>It probably CAN be just as fun, but the range of fun isn’t as extreme. Of course, that also depends on the school in question. For instance, Duke, Dartmouth, and Penn are probably more “fun” than MIT, Chicago, and Brown, but even those schools probably aren’t as “fun” as places like Arizona State or Penn State. Depends on how you define fun, and of course there is always a tradeoff between having fun and doing other things like studying, extracurriculars, and internships, which less-selective schools may not emphasize as much.</p>
<p>Its really about what you want to make of it. You can find people to party with at CalTech and you can sit in your dorm alone at Arizona State or UT Austin. If you want to have fun, and you’re willing to look for it, you will find it in college (except maybe some uber religious schools)
@TheBanker from what I hear MIT actually parties pretty hard</p>
<p>I went to Williams and had a ton of fun. I also enjoy reading, but sometimes sloppy keg parties had to take priority. One must do one’s duty, after all.</p>
<p>Opposite question here: Can someone name colleges where everyone is studying and there are few, if any, parties?</p>