<p>“The biggest difference IMO between top privates and state universities will be in the selectivity of the student bodies. Pubic schools have a mission to provide reasonable access for the taxpayers of their states, while privates can craft entering classes that best suit them.”</p>
<p>Gadad, that’s a generalization. There are some publics that are very selective. I can think of fewer than 10 private universities that are significantly more selectrive than elite publics such as Cal, Michigan, UCLA, UNC, UVa or William & Mary. Given their size, they do not have to “craft” their entering classes. There is always going to be a multitude of students who excel in all sorts of pursuits at those larger universities. I attended Michigan from 1992-1996. During that time alone, the following students attended Michigan; Tom Brady, Harold Ford Jr., Sanjay Gupta, Adam Herz, Lucy Liu, Larry Page. With top Engineering and Business programs, as well as top Art, architecture, Music and professional programs (Law, Medicine etc…) and top athletics, many large public universities will attract the best at everything. </p>
<p>“And my kids at Harvard have much more access to faculty, lavish undergrad programs, and personal attention as undergraduate students than I ever had at Wake!”</p>
<p>Several of my friends have attended Harvard. Most of them majored in Biology, Economics and Political Science. They loved their experience and felt their undergraduate experience was rewarding. Clearly, Harvard is one of the top 4 or 5 universities on Earth. However, attention from faculty was not something they felt Harvard did well. They often complained that Harvard, like most other major research universities, was first and foremost a research powerhouse that caterred more to its graduate students and research than to its undergrads. That can be said of all major research universities, including Cal, Columbia, Cornell, Michigan, MIT, Penn, Stanford etc… It is not possible to have it all. A school is either a research powerhouse, or it is a LAC. Some schools (like Brown, Dartmouth, Georgetown and Vanderbilt to name a few) are in between, but Harvard is not such a school.</p>