<p>I’ve just found this thread, and wanted to comment on one side argument – that undergrads at Harvard (“Yard kids”) compete with graduate students for resources or time from professors, but only with Faculty of Arts & Sciences, and not the other grad schools, because they “Don’t count.” </p>
<p>That seriously made me laugh, for several reasons. I <em>am</em> a grad student at one of Harvard’s graduate schools other than FAS. Like graduate students in several other Harvard grad schools, we’re encouraged to take courses “in the Yard” or in other grad schools in the university. Probably 1/3 of our courses are cross-listed, and are therefore open to Yard kids. As a result, while I am not an FAS grad student, I have Yard kids in 2 out of 4 of my classes each semester. So, yes, non-FAS grad students “count” in the sense that we compete for seats in classes, time with TF’s, etc. </p>
<p>On the other hand, it most often feels the other way around – that professors are more concerned with providing a good experience for Yard kids than for us. For example, in my Apocalypse class, which is probably 2/3 Yard kids, the professor is much more concerned with feedback from Yard kids that they want the class to have a different focus, have section run differently, etc. As far as time and relationships, I have never had a class with Yard kids in it that I felt was dominated by grad students, or that the professor ignored the Yard kids. They tend to talk all the time, after all. :-)</p>