Harvard vs. Williams (Tyng Scholarship) vs. Yale vs. Washington and Lee (Johnson Scholarship)

[Anonymous]

Don't pick a place based on where you kid may or may not end up getting into for grad school - counting on too many eggs. An elite school does typically help throughout your life IMHO. If you have the means - or can stretch your means, I'd go with whatever school of H, Y or W seems like the best fit for him (and his potential lifetime earning power will surpass the $20-40K pretty quickly). I went to an 'elite' school - and there were a lot of kids who switched majors or interests while at school - including me (I picked a school that had the best xx dept & then ended up doing something else!)

[Anonymous]

OP- you are doing great reaearch, but at the end of the day your son will get a great education there or at WL. So your son should choose between H,Y and W based on the overall culture where he will be happiest -- and that depends on his personal style and interests. I have a "child" at Yale, and recall freshman year hearing when students meet the first thing they ask each other in small talk is not "what's your major" but "what do you do?" - referring to extra-curricula things. We have heard that Harvard College is trying to make things more intimate than in the past, but it is just a much larger place in the city -- that comes with advantages and disadvantages. Our sense -- right or wrong - was that more Yale kids go to Yale because they want to, not just for the name. Both Harvard and Columbia are more attractive nearby big cities - Stanford is gorgeous, Princeton is lovely, MIT also has Boston. New Haven takes a short time to get used to. The area around campus has nice shops and restaurants.For kids inclined to be involved in city life -- local government or social services - Yale kids can do just about anything and the city's small scale is manageable.

The only reason I would consider WL is that the other schools are very liberal (at least the two ivies) and if that would make your son uncomfortable, than WL may be better. That said, unless that is a deal breaker I don't think WL affords the same opportunities. As for programs, I agree it is the rare student so fixed and so advanced in his major that the grad school offerings matter. My DC also got 5's on micro and macro Econ APs and we assumed he would skip to intermediate. But once he got to campus and talked to other students, he decided better to repeat these and he was glad he did. They go deeper than in AP, and intermediate micro is a very challenging course for most freshmen to tackle. The one exception I would note is that if one college had a specific undergrad program your DS wants, that can tilt things. Still, the key otherwise is to go where he will be happy socailly for four years. Congrats to your son.

[Anonymous]

Last year my son had a very similar set of choices, only in his case it was Amherst, Dartmouth and Yale. In the end he choice Dartmouth and has been very happy there. He visited all three again after he was accepted. he felt Amherst was just too small and the administration seemed to a bit intrusive, for example, they said they didn't allow the football team to eat lunch together becuase they wanted them to mix with other students. Plus there is only one dining hall which he thought would drive him nuts. Yale was his dream school and really a no-brainer, except that when he visited Dartmouth he fell in love with the nature, the campus, and all the attention. Dartmouth has some graduate programs, but it is really a large liberal arts college. He has been doted upon my his professors and has gotten every imaginable type of opportunity including working on an overseas research project this summer after his freshman year. So I suggest you let your son go with his gut.

[Anonymous]

+ 1 on the "go with his gut" comment. Can't go wrong with these choices, and if the money isn't a big issue it's his life to make great memories (and hopefully not any regrets about his choice) You don't want that burden as a parent.

[Anonymous]

My son attended Williams and is at the Kennedy school at Harvard now for grad work, but if we had the choice of Harvard or Yale for undergrad I would have encouraged him to choose one of them.

However, I also think that choice possibly would have impacted where he'd land for graduate school and could possibly have worked against him.

[Anonymous]

My goodness you are so full of yourself you will fit right in at Harvard and nothing less will do !

[Anonymous]

As someone who weighted in on this thread with advice, I'd love to hear what the OP's son decided!

[Anonymous]

I'm a Harvard grad who would say choose Harvard. Had great relationships with faculty when I was an undergrad. Was encouraged to get a PhD rather than go to law school. Had my choice of PhD programs (except Harvard, LOL!). Got a great education, loved Cambridge (good food, obscure movies, late night bookstores, lots of trees and a river, college town with immediate access to a major city), married a classmate. Sidenote for your DC: Access to MIT is a plus for Econ.

In fairness to Yale, its Econ department shares top ranking. In fairness to Harvard, I don't understand why people think residential colleges are a unique advantage of Yale. Harvard has them too.

[Anonymous]

what does he want to do with his PHD? Think tank or academia? If academia, I would take Williams, the path is more nurturing towards that. If policy/corporate, then H or Y - my personal bias is H b/c of the better access to cross-grad paraprof work, but if you hadn't said Econ I would pick Y, I think it has a better overall undergrad environ. Both are obviously world-class in terms of peer size and future networking caliber.

Congrats and GL with your decision

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Choose Yale.

-Harvard grad

+1 better undergrad experience. Harvard for grad school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:harvard. this is not complicated.

+1

[Anonymous]

Congrats on having excellent options, OP! DC can't go wrong. Assuming you can afford all of the above, leave it in DC's hands. He's plainly very capable of researching and making good decisions.

Me, I'd probably go Williams and resist the allure of the Ivies for undergrad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My opinion, FWIW:

I see some misinformation in these pros and cons. Williams has a top-notch student body and faculty and doesn't suffer from lack of resources. For a student who plans to go to grad school, "not well known to the general public" is immaterial. Williams is extremely well-known by grad programs nationwide. And the notion that Yale doesn't have as strong a name brand as Harvard is, well, crazy.

I think the Harvard experience is materially different from that of Williams and W&L, and not in a good way. Personally, I know several people who went to Harvard undergrad and none of them loved it; few of them even liked it all that much. (By contrast, I also know several people who went to Harvard for grad school, and all speak well of the experience.) I wouldn't encourage one of my kids to go there for undergrad. Given a choice between Yale and Harvard for undergrad, I think Yale wins every day and twice on Sunday.

Just reading the words written above and taking them at face value, it sounds like the student wants to go to Williams or Yale and that Harvard is still on the list because it's Harvard and W&L is still on the list because it's a free ride. I've said what I think about Harvard. Regarding W&L, I don't think free ride is enough to overcome the fact that it isn't a good cultural fit at all. I'd take it off the table.

So I'd narrow it down to Yale and Williams and then I'd make the decision based on whether student prefers rural SLAC or larger, urban environment. The rest are distinctions without differences.

Thanks for the detailed explanation. You hit the nail on the head, basically. His top choices are W and Y. He perceives H to have a bigger name brand to the general public, but he knows Y is right up there. He's keeping the Johnson scholarship under consideration because it is an unbeatable package, and he's still not sure if paying 40K more against one of the best LACs in the country is worth the economic cost. What he means by the comment about Williams is that the brightest students in the country are generally not going to the LACs but rather the Ivies. He knows that the average W student is as intelligent as the average H/Y student, but the top universities attract the future Nobel prize winners/politicians/etc, have Nobel laureate faculty, etc. He feels that there will be a difference in the connections he makes, and if he wants to switch from graduate school, Williams could hurt him.

He wonders if the concerns about Harvard U not being great are over-exaggerated by people who don't attend the school, because according to cross-admit battles, Harvard wins against Yale 62% to 38%. Do you think there's a reason for this? Is there something H has that Y does not?

He wasn't turned off by William's rural nature and loved the community there more than any other school he visited, but he'd prefer access to a city if possible. Not a big deal breaker, but he thinks it'd be nice to get out of campus too.

So ... my friend's daughter chose Harvard over Yale because of the reasons you cite in your second paragraph (and because she thought she might want to take some classes at MIT where she also was admitted) ... and the kid regrets it. She wishes she had chosen Yale. Besides the reasons you give, she didn't find New Haven very attractive because she visited in the middle of winter (when New Haven, admittedly, is particularly yucky!) and she was turned off.

Our oldest kid chose Yale and loves it. Loves the residential college, the compactness of the campus but still easy access to off-campus (basically just walk across the street), a low-key vibe, and early-to-bed early-to-rise (literally the town rolls ups the streets by 8) atmosphere. Our kid also loves, loves, loves the major / minor department, which, interestingly, are subjects that are a complete surprise to us but strong departments for the school.

But it sounds like your kid is really taken by Williams. And that, therefore, is where I would encourage him to go. There isn't enough $ difference for any of the schools for that to be the determining factor. And the kid will be working hard so he needs to be at a place where he will be happy.

Sounds like you have a great kid and best wishes to him!

[Anonymous]

Thanks to everyone- he's going to Yale! Go Bulldogs!

[Anonymous]

Yay - congrats!