Political Science Yale vs Harvard

Dr.Avrah
Fri, 21 Dec 2007 18:10:43 +0000

Thank you for your feedback. It seems to me that most of you either say that it doesn’t matter or that Yale is better in terms of politics. (Unfortunately) that is also the impression I got recently. I say unfortunately because I was pretty sure that if I get the choice between Harvard and Yale I’m going to Harvard and it seems that I have to reconsider this ‘decision’. One reason is that I like Cambridge very much and I have never been to New Haven and I don’t know if I will have a chance to go there before I have to make my decision (hopefully Harvard and Yale will be two of my options then.)

But I would like to throw in another question in the discussion: I actually heard that about 90% or so of the students that get accepted at both Harvard and Yale choose to go to Harvard in the end and that therefore the “best” students (assuming that the ones that get into both really ARE the best) end up at Harvard. Can someone tell me something about this claim? To what extent is it true?

And what I also would be interested in: can maybe someone tell me something about the other Ivys + Stanford in terms of political science and a career in politics? Maybe some kind of ranking or what special programs they have that speak in their favor?

@Mr. Pretzel: Yes, I heard some good things about Princeton and their program, I think I will have a closer look at them. Thanks for your info.

And just one more thing: As far as I know a lot of high ranking political advisers, also advisers of the president and former presidents, are Harvard professors; I have not heard yet of any Yale professor that was/is a ‘famous’ adviser. Maybe this is not the most important point in making a decision between Harvard and Yale, but at least it has some significance and it shows something about the political power of these two institutions. Can maybe someone say something about this point, or knows about famous advisers from Yale?

Again, thanks for all your feedback.