<p>I’ve read from numerous sources that Harvard students seem to be unhappy and disillusioned with their school, especially when compared to similar schools like Stanford, Yale, and Princeton. Is there any truth to this matter, and if there is, what’s the reason?</p>
<p>I’ve heard it has to do with undergrad teaching. More attention goes to grad students than undergrads.
**************.com tend to have written comments by some students. You should take them with a grain of salt, but they should give an indication of the negatives of the schools if you see a re-occuring comment, like “classes are to impersonal” or “too many ta’s teach the class”, things like that.</p>
<p>But what I don’t understand is this - don’t TAs teach undergrad classes at most schools? I know there’s a few smaller schools where professors teach all of their undergraduate classes but I was under the impression that professors and classes were generally impersonal for most of these elite schools.</p>
<p>many harvard students are insanely smart. insanely smart people are more likely to be depressed. and as for why they may be disappointed with their school, it’s probably because when you enroll at Harvard, you show up with the highest possible expectations. it’s the “best” school in the world so you expect the best.</p>
<p>They are unhappy because they don’t get hot breakfast anymore and no more free coffee.</p>
<p>My brother is a sophomore. He is bumming out about the breakfast issue but definitely not unhappy overall. I’d say he is having more fun now than in high school, learning tons… He loves the place!!</p>
<p>And commonly interacts with PROFESSORS–. Met the Dalai Lama, was at ceremony honoring Ted Kennedy last year, saw Tom Cruise in Harvard Square a week or so ago. Sounds good to me.</p>
<p>My daughter is a Harvard freshman and is exceedingly happy. She’s taking 4 classes, the largest class has around 80 students, the smallest 12. She loves her roommates, was cast in play, performs with a dance troupe, and has found plenty of time to party. She’s having a blast! Of course that’s because Freshman are still get hot breakfast and free coffee!</p>
<p>Regarding what choklitrain said, I would argue that Harvard students are no more “insanely smart” than Stanford, Yale, or Princeton students, and yet none of those schools are known for disillusionment in their undergraduates - in fact, all of those schools are typically on top lists of happiest undergrads. I guess what I’m trying to understand is, why the huge satisfaction gap specifically in Harvard?</p>
<p>^ you do have to admit the unrealistic expectations factor. consider this: in terms of recruiting/selectivity/reputation/academics, wharton is the best undergrad biz program by about a million miles, and yet it’s ranked 3rd by business week. why? because they asked students at each program to rank their own school in different categories, and the wharton kids had sky-high expectations that caused them to underrate their school.</p>
<p>But I, being a high school junior and planning to apply to HYPS, have sky-high expectations for ALL of those schools. Why is Harvard the one singled out for not living up to those expectations?</p>
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<p>Mostly they aren’t. If you read the Harvard threads on CC you’ll see that the vast majority of real Harvard students and their parents love the place. It’s usually partisans of rival schools claiming great unhappiness at Harvard plus a few people unconnected with the place saying “it’s what they’ve heard” or “it’s what everybody knows.” </p>
<p>One thing to bear in mind is that Harvard is a <em>college</em> and not a country club or a place in heaven. And college kids everywhere sometimes get exasperated with some of the actions of the school administration, but that’s not the same as being unhappy with the school or wishing you had gone elsewhere. </p>
<p>In my daughter’s 4 years there the number of students unhappy with Harvard she knew could probably be counted on one hand. Those who were unhappy often felt it hadn’t lived up to some expectation. And a huge problem is that Harvard is so famous that no place could possibly live up to the challenge and fame of being called the No.1 College In The Universe. And when there is someone who ends up not liking his/her Harvard experience, Harvard kids being the articulate and motivated bunch that they are, often write books or magazine articles about it - which often get published. No one would publish an article about someone who didn’t like Big State U. But when someone goes to Harvard and doesn’t like it, that’s newsworthy.</p>
<p>One adjustment that Harvard kids often have to make in their first few months is getting used to a shift in their own academic and social standing. Nearly all of them were top scholars and leaders in high school. When you are accustomed to being the absolute king or queen of your high school, realizing that in college you are merely one of the pack, and there are kids on every corner who are true geniuses and prodigies, can be a be a painful adjustment. But most make it just fine.</p>
<p>So Harvard is not perfect, but it does many, many things very well. To suggest that Harvard students are, in general, unhappy is simply incorrect.</p>
<p>Every place has its issues and problems, and Harvard is no different. But Harvard is uniquely held in unrealistic esteem and put on a pedestal by many students and some parents on CC…as if it’s the end-all-be-all of higher education. So ordinary, expected problems and complaints (as you’d find anywhere) are noteworthy and remembered because they run in contrast to the fantasy.</p>
<p>Well, coureur, the self-reported dissatisfaction on COFHE is higher than peers and Harvard has reported about that publicly.</p>
<p>My personal opinion about this is Harvard has the most people applying and going there just because it’s Harvard. There are definitely students there, especially from outside of the Northeast and especially who are first-generation college students, who apply to Harvard and attend Harvard because of mystique and not because of any character which is unique to Harvard. The result is they find out later that they probably would have been better off somewhere else. It’s not that they’re unhappy there, it’s that once they have increased exposure and have a better understanding of what they were looking for, other places may end up being better suited for them.</p>
<p>Just as there are students across the country that wish they were at Harvard, I’ve met several Harvard grads who said in hindsight, knowing what they know now, they would have been better off at place X. Few of them were unhappy with Harvard, but later realized that it was not the magic place, sure bet that they assumed it was.</p>
<p>But, in my case (not to act as if I’m the only thing that matters, ha), I’ve been to Harvard, as well as many other schools, and I genuinely like what I see there - I liked the classes, I liked the professors I met… how anyone be sure that ANY school is right for them? I would hazard a guess that hardly anyone at 16 or 17 really knows who they are and therefore what type of school would be best for them.</p>
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<p>Right, that survey was taken in 2002, and fans of Harvard’s rival schools beat that statistic death and are still flogging the corpse. What they don’t point out so much is that the COFHE showed that the level of satisfaction was quite high at Harvard, just not quite as high as many of the other 30 schools in the survey - Harvard scored a 3.95 compared to an average of 4.16 for the 30 schools taking the survey. Not a huge gap. And to their credit Harvard has spent a lot of time and energy in the intervening seven years addressing it. It will be interesting to see the results if and when another survey is taken.</p>
<p>COFHE is taken every year, it’s just not publicly available. From what I’ve heard from people who have access to the data, the numbers, at least in an ordinal sense, haven’t changed much recently.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a serious knock to Harvard nor do I think self-satisfaction is necessarily a reflection of the school or its quality of life. In fact, the rest of my post is an explanation as to why at Harvard COFHE stats may be deflated below the actual experience of most students at Harvard.</p>
<p>HMBeast-- I’m not addressing your case, I’m addressing your original question.</p>