<p>It seems that Harvard students have no problem with coming up with creative ways of having “fun”. Look at housing day for example. While it makes Harvard less fun centric to not have the administration rigorously assist in that aspect, it does make room for some interesting traditions facilitate by the student body. </p>
<p>@Hunt: I think you’re right, but often at those schools, departmental rigor is also associated with quality. Surely people are familiar with physics, math, and maybe chemistry at Harvard, Chicago, and Princeton (I’m excluding technological schools) and it is unsurprising they draw extremely intense (not only brilliant, but very intense) students in those areas (seems like a significant amount of Math, Physics, etc. Olympiad winners end up at Harvard for example, taking math 55, physics 16) who end up taking extremely intense courses early on (I mean some of these courses even have a reputation not only among current students, but incoming ones). However, maybe they have no knowledge of these things and indeed Harvard could just be attracting at least slightly more quirky types (a couple of visits could likely make a person aware if they are a “fit” there).</p>