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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Clubs/orgs (not just finance ones) are very competitive; many spend a lot of time comping their first year and you have to be ready for a lot of rejections. Summer research/internships also competitive. Profs are top in their field, and it’s pretty neat to be in class with famous profs, but they don’t have much time or interest in mentoring undergrads, though this depends a lot on the size of the department— many humanities departments are small and you can get to know professors. Optional first year seminars are small and pass/fail, one way to get a smaller class experience with a prof. They do have an extensive orientation program (you can choose a theme— arts, community engagement, etc) that helps you meet first years with similar interests. Grading curve policy might be coming fall 2027, it’s still being debated— that might change the current focus on ECs over classes, at least that’s the theory. If enacted it would make it harder to get top GPA for law/med schools. You should read the crimson articles to see the current proposal. Trump funding cuts have greatly reduced entering PhD students, which will eventually reduce number of TAs— it’s unclear how they are going to address this. Currently TAs teach some courses themselves, and there is an army of them leading discussion sections for big classes like EC10; I have no idea what that is going to look like with fewer grad students on campus. Many of these features (other than grading policy) apply to some extent at most elite research universities. Harvard students are probably a bit less focused on classes (profs have taken to taking attendance and including that in the grade) and a bit more focused on resume building than some others, and [b]some T10s have fewer grad students and seem a little more undergrad focused (Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton),[/b] but these are all matters of degree. I think Harvard is a good fit for someone who is confident, outgoing and polished, a go-getter, and happy to be in a less intellectual and more pre-professional environment. [/quote]

Dartmouth, Brown, and Princeton are a lot more undergraduate-focused than Harvard. [/quote]

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