Think Tank Ranks Schools

allie
Tue, 11 Jan 2005 20:32:42 +0000

Byerly says “So let me see if I understand this now: when you’re a fan of the school, its reputation is based on “substance”, and when you’re NOT a fan of the school, its reputation is based on “hype”!”

Response: Again Byerly you play with words. Never addressing anything in a forthright manner. The problem people have on this board is not with Harvard, its with you. The hype is not Harvard’s, but yours. All you do here is SPIN.
As I stated earlier, Harvard does have the brand name. It is a great school. But what obviously troubles you is that in the ranking of undergraduate programs Princeton comes up #1 more often than Harvard or anybody else. You just refuse to accept it.
You refuse to address key issues (some stated by fiddlefrog) ie, the lack of an undergraduate focus, and intead try to beat people over the head with your twisted logic. I submit that you are hurting your cause, not helping it.
Students applying to these schools can see through YOUR hype/spin.

Example: Recently the Boston Globe reported that Harvard President Larry Summers suggested to 2 undergraduate students, who were concerned about not having much contact with their professors, that they should have looked at Williams and Swarthmore (or some comparable schools). Your response was to attack the messenger, the author of the article. You never dealt with the article’s premise and the concern of most students here - the lack of an undergraduate focus at Harvard. This point comes up often, particulary in the Princeton threads, because that is one of Princeton’s main attractions. You continually skirt key issues and obfuscate with your hype and spin. Most of the Princeton thread members has tuned you out and being fairly new here I am pretty near that point myself.