School So-and-So is Just as Good as Harvard

Colleges & Universities Harvard University
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<p>Are any other Harvard alumni or current students who:

  • have attended both Harvard and another college or university, and
  • who thus can compare Harvard with other colleges and universities through personal experience, and
  • are sick of hearing that such-and-such a school is equivalent to Harvard in such-and-such a way?</p>

<p>For example, in the Business Insider college ranking, my undergrad school is described in a comment as providing “an education that is just as good as Harvard, but at a lower cost”.</p>

<p>Baloney. I went to both Harvard (for law school) and my undergraduate college and there is a big difference in the educational quality. Sure, the teaching was generally fine to excellent at my college, but Harvard’s resources simply cannot be matched, and the students are Harvard are smarter. The professors at Harvard had fancier pedigrees, for what that’s worth.</p>

<p>Further: there are “public Ivys” and “the Harvard of the [South, Midwest, Northwest, France, etc.]”.</p>

<p>Baloney. If those other schools were equal to Harvard, they’d match Harvard in the rankings.</p>

<p>Another comment I often see: “I went to No-Name School A, B or C, and I had opportunities there that I wouldn’t have had at Harvard.”</p>

<p>Baloney. Perhaps a specific opportunity was available there at Harvard, but the opportunities at Harvard, in the aggregate, are unmatched.</p>

<p>Are others as tired as I am of hearing such nonsense?</p>

<p>EDITED FOR CLARIFICATION (after reading post #2): Sure, Princeton, Yale and Stanford are equal to Harvard, along with a very small circle of other schools. Yet people who make comparisons of “My school is just as good as Harvard” are seemingly often from schools that are unfortunately a long way from the top 10.</p>

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<p>My daughter is at Harvard; my son is at Yale. Putting aside the rivalry, and the obvious differences between New Haven and Cambridge, from what I’ve seen the educational quality is the same, the students seem just as bright, the resources are the same, the housing is better at Y (but that will change with house renewal at H), and for our family, the financial aid has actually been better at Y than H.</p>

<p>EDIT: Thank you CityEntrepreneur for editing your post for clarification after seeing mine.</p>

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<p>Wow…</p>

<p>This can not be for real. Right? Please tell me your a Yale Freshmen.</p>

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<p>No, I didn’t go to Yale.</p>

<p>As a Harvard graduate (and when I was a student there), there was a strong self-enforced rule against comparing Harvard to other schools, as doing so would come across as arrogant, and nobody wants to deal with that. However, other schools shouldn’t make false comparisons of themselves to Harvard, either, and I am tired of seeing all sorts of such junk.</p>

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<p>Doesn’t Harvard also allocate a much larger portion of its resources to its law school when compared to the undergraduate scene? I don’t think Harvard Law school vs (insert undergrad here) is a very fair comparison.</p>

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<p>Aye carumba.</p>

<p>This whole thread is just ■■■■■ bait.</p>

<p>But it’s comforting to know, I guess, that even Harvard Law students are so insecure as to make pointless threads on CC to make him/herself feel better.</p>

<p>For the record, I went to Harvard undergrad… the overall quality of the student body is close to unmatched, and yes the resources are amazing… but the quality of the teaching was really mediocre at the undergrad level. There were a few exceptions, of course, but most of the time, effort, energy and resources were directed at the graduate students. The quality of classroom teaching would most likely be better at any of the top 50 LACs, and all but a tiny fraction of truly exceptional undergrads would exhaust the available resources.</p>

<p>As for Harvard PhD programs, they are outstanding, but there are even public universities that are indeed just as good… I turned down Harvard PhD to go to Berkeley. In my field, Berkeley PhD is equal to Harvard PhD, and overall, Berkeley has more top 10 PhD programs than any other university in the world. Out here in California, there is a general feeling that Stanford is on the ascendancy over Harvard in the 21st century.</p>

<p>Yes, Harvard is indeed awesome. But there are a handful of universities that are equally as good. And for undergrad 99% of the resources are irrelevant to their education anyway.</p>

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<p>Berkeley is one of the world’s premier universities. Sure, it’s comparable to Harvard in a lot of respects.</p>

<p>That’s not what I’m talking about, though. I did a quick Internet search and the following schools are alleged to be just as good as Harvard:</p>

<ol>
<li>Hofstra University</li>
<li>University of Kentucky</li>
<li>University of North Carolina </li>
<li>University of Texas </li>
<li>Davidson College</li>
<li>A university in Somalia</li>
<li>The Sorbonne </li>
<li>Furman University</li>
</ol>

<p>Many of these are very fine schools–but they’re not Harvard/Yale/Princeton level.</p>

<p>To answer another post: yes, Harvard Law School and a top-10 LAC are not the same thing. I cross-registered for an undergrad class at Harvard while I was there, though, and also found it to be better than the LAC that I had attended, based on student motivation, student quality and resources.</p>

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<p>Ahhh yes… this truly is a menacing problem. I know, you must feel the weight of 375+ years of alumni pain on this outrage. By all means, continue your thread…</p>

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<p>When you make this much effort defending the quality of Harvard versus a list of other schools, those schools gain credibility.</p>

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<p>“When you make this much effort defending the quality of Harvard versus a list of other schools, those schools gain credibility.”</p>

<p>Excellent point, and great comeback. </p>

<p>I’ll consider this thread done.</p>

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<p>Thank you for being reasonable about ending this somewhat unpleasant thread, CityE, as I have always – perhaps naively – considered the Harvard Forum, and the majority of its regulars, above this kind of petty “one-ups-man-ship.” It isn’t cool, on the one hand. Nor necessary, on the other hand, as I do not believe Harvard feels it has either an image or a prestige problem. Cheers.</p>

<p>As an aside. I attended Harvard and “another university.” Harvard’s culture is unique to Harvard. That is both an advantage and a disadvantage. One can receive an equivalent education at other schools. In some cases a better education. Really, one can! Sorry to burst your bubble. But Harvard’s culture and the historical weight of that culture are indeed unique to it, therefore the personal and educative adaptions to that culture create a uniquely Harvardian experience. It can be liberating for many. Also intimidating for many. I taught Harvard undergrads who, for that reason, might have been better off elsewhere.</p>

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<p>You should have followed the self-enforced rule. It’s almost always unseemly to to denigrate those beneath you when you are on top. Grace and magnanimity are what’s called for. The only thing that is worse than a sore loser is a sore winner.</p>

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<p>…sorry OP…I hate to say this…but your alma mater will always be traditionally defined as your “college background” not your professional school/PhD school…and your future kids will NOT have Harvard “legacy” for college…</p>

<p>…when people ask about your alma mater in the future…as you get older…and have children…at the soccer games/field trips/cocktail parties…they are asking about your college…not your law school/medical school/business school/PhD program…</p>

<p>…and if I am not mistaken…Mr. Hart from the fictional movie ‘Paper Chase’ (one of the top law students at HLS) was from University of Minnesota (he didn’t seem to mind)…</p>

<p>…just because you got into HLS…one should not be bashing one’s own alma mater (that’s the impression one gets from this distasteful thread)…because your college background still defines much of you…no matter how much you want to distance yourself from it…</p>

<p>…what’s interesting…is…I don’t see many Yale or Stanford Law grads bad-mouthing their alma maters…where ever they went to college…rather…they seem to embrace their background…</p>

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<p>Is a mustang as good as a corvette?</p>

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<p>Depends on the year and model ;).</p>

<p>In other words, what you get from the experience. Albeit, chances are, you will get an infinite amount more out of a Harvard education/experience than a “mustang” school.</p>

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<p>At all of the above events, small talk may bring up where I work, but not my college from all those years ago. At no cocktail party am I ever asked where I went to college. And if I somehow were, what would it matter if the answer were Kenyon rather than Yale?</p>

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<p>As mentioned, I consider this thread done, as I was clearly out of bounds by starting it. Sorry for causing offense.</p>

<p>Separately, to one other point I saw: when lawyers ask other lawyers where they went to school, what they mean is law school. College can be mentioned, though. Does anyone care where the Supreme Court justices went to undergrad? Don’t Obama and Mitt Romney get credit for their Harvard degrees? I don’t hear of Obama being called an Occidental grad or Mitt Romney being called a BYU grad, even though they are as well.</p>

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<p>Obama graduated from Columbia, not Occidental. He transferred after his first year. Romney transferred, too: He started out at Stanford, then returned to BYU after his mission because his girlfriend (then fiancee) had gone to college there.</p>

<p>It’s funny – as a matter of fact, people do talk about where Supreme Court Justices went to college. I am a medium-level Supreme Court fan, and I can tell you off the top of my head where the current Court went to college: Roberts - Harvard. Scalia - Georgetown. Thomas - Holy Cross. Alito, Sotomayor, Kagan - Princeton. Kennedy, Breyer - Stanford. Ginsburg - Cornell. For the most part, though, people don’t care much where lawyers went to college. For example, I know a lot about the people who graduated from Harvard Law School the year I graduated from a different law school, and I would say the five clear superstars in the class had come from Cornell, Albion College, Rice, and Northwestern (2) – all fine colleges, but they had a whole bunch of classmates from HYPS whom they outshone.</p>

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<p>Correction: Obama spent two years at Occidental.</p>