Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Penn grad, I hate to say it, but Princeton is the easy choice here.

Too bad Penn is not a realistic option here. I think it has the best of all worlds!

Anonymous wrote:As a Penn grad, I hate to say it, but Princeton is the easy choice here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

I would pick Harvard over Princeton because:
1) location
2) you get to say you went to Harvard. Actual education is overrated. I don’t remember most of what I learned content wise in classes but it doesn’t really matter, does it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

There is location preference. But although Princeton has largely been at the top of USNWR rankings for the past decade, most just aren't going to turn down Harvard (or Stanford and probably Yale) for Princeton.

Rankings only mean so much. Better to go to #5 or even #10 ranked school over #1 ranked school if it is a better fit and you will be happier. There are some very smart people at literally every school

I generally agree. In the extreme I certainly do not (e.g. if my kid was accepted to Harvard and wanted to attend University of Party Hardy to coast for 6 years I'd pull my hair out). Ratings have been a disaster for U.S. higher education in many ways. But that Harvard name persists despite not being at the top of USNWR ranking. Same with Stanford. It is like there is a class of people who still have their own unpublished ranking. The perception persists that if you attended Princeton, you probably weren't admitted to Harvard. If you attended Dartmouth, you probably weren't admitted to Princeton. Only at Harvard and Stanford and perhaps MIT does that perception stop.

MIT is a different animal. There is more self-selection at work, and MIT gets considerably fewer applications than any Ivy except Dartmouth. Few would draw an inference that a student attending an Ivy probably wasn't admitted to MIT.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

I would pick Harvard over Princeton because:
1) location
2) you get to say you went to Harvard. Actual education is overrated. I don’t remember most of what I learned content wise in classes but it doesn’t really matter, does it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

There is location preference. But although Princeton has largely been at the top of USNWR rankings for the past decade, most just aren't going to turn down Harvard (or Stanford and probably Yale) for Princeton.

Rankings only mean so much. Better to go to #5 or even #10 ranked school over #1 ranked school if it is a better fit and you will be happier. There are some very smart people at literally every school

I generally agree. In the extreme I certainly do not (e.g. if my kid was accepted to Harvard and wanted to attend University of Party Hardy to coast for 6 years I'd pull my hair out). Ratings have been a disaster for U.S. higher education in many ways. But that Harvard name persists despite not being at the top of USNWR ranking. Same with Stanford. It is like there is a class of people who still have their own unpublished ranking. The perception persists that if you attended Princeton, you probably weren't admitted to Harvard. If you attended Dartmouth, you probably weren't admitted to Princeton. Only at Harvard and Stanford and perhaps MIT does that perception stop.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is certainly true among graduate students and professors where MIT/Harvard/Boston University/Tufts are on more equal footing and can collaborate in research. To a lesser extent, it's true in the Research Triangle with Duke, UNC, and NC State.
For undergraduates, its definitely true between Harvard and MIT considering they are right next to each other and take classes at each other's institutions.

And its very obviously true for undergraduates among the Claremont Colleges

How about Princeton/Rutgers? Cornell/Ithaca College? Columbia/NYU?

Rutgers is not close to Princeton.
Columbia and NYU definitely for both undergrads, grads and professors.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

There is location preference. But although Princeton has largely been at the top of USNWR rankings for the past decade, most just aren't going to turn down Harvard (or Stanford and probably Yale) for Princeton.

Rankings only mean so much. Better to go to #5 or even #10 ranked school over #1 ranked school if it is a better fit and you will be happier. There are some very smart people at literally every school

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

There is location preference. But although Princeton has largely been at the top of USNWR rankings for the past decade, most just aren't going to turn down Harvard (or Stanford and probably Yale) for Princeton.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I'm suggesting that students that may get into both Princeton and Harvard may, despite Princeton having a better undergraduate education, choose Harvard in part due to having proximity to MIT and the wider Boston area.

The idea of location preference is not a crazy one.

Let's help you out again; per the OP "Did not apply to Harvard, Yale, Brown or Dartmouth. Waitlisted at UPenn."

Let's help you out again: The argument is regarding isolated suburban colleges and non-isolated urban colleges. Do I need to connect the dots for you or are you a big enough girl to get it now?

Such a shame you can't articulate your argument either clearly or consistently. You aren't helping yourself, much less the OP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is certainly true among graduate students and professors where MIT/Harvard/Boston University/Tufts are on more equal footing and can collaborate in research. To a lesser extent, it's true in the Research Triangle with Duke, UNC, and NC State.
For undergraduates, its definitely true between Harvard and MIT considering they are right next to each other and take classes at each other's institutions.

And its very obviously true for undergraduates among the Claremont Colleges

How about Princeton/Rutgers? Cornell/Ithaca College? Columbia/NYU?