Harvard Versus Stanford - Who Wins?

By John Chang

After having a very hard academic work and getting brilliant colours in grade the best places to get admission is Stanford or Harvard. These are the two big places that come to any student mind after having a significant accomplishment that can't be won without a great admissions strategy.

This article describes about the key academic and cultural differences between the two schools, pros and cons of both the schools for the students knowledge.

The comparison is only between Stanford and harvard and not between them and top Ivies like Princeton or Yale for example. The difference amongst top Ivies is insignificant.

The academic difference between Stanford and Harvard is illustrated in following points

1. Stanford happens to have an engineering course, whereas it is not so with Harvard (not actually, in any case)

This should have a significant impact in case you are keen on taking up courses in, for example, mechanical engineering or electrical engineering. They happen to be serious options, and you would be hard pressed for time to concentrate on any other item of interest.

Over the last few years, Harvard has turned their engineering ""division"" into a formal school. Even if its grown in the last 2 years, there is still a world of difference (with respect to quality of faculty, research funding, total educational resources, and breadth of student body) between Harvard and Stanford engineering.

2. Harvard happens to have a more powerful coaching in a number of humanities and social science disciplines

I am making a general statement here based on my four years of study at Stanford and my observations of Harvard. Their undergrad teaching is driven by best professors and thus is of highest quality. This also attracts the ""best of cream"" of students who in turn provide the bulk of teaching.

Learn how to transfer into Harvard and Stanford

3. When seen for academic competitiveness Harvard is more academically competitive with respect to GPA, class standings, etc

Generally the outcome of a scholastically powerful undergraduate unit. Once you achieve a ""tipping point"" of the number of serious, industrious students, it promotes an overall student unit that is generally more industrious, more scholastically focused, etc.

4. Speaking in terms of explorations, Stanford encourages more academic exploration than Harvard.

At Stanford its relatively easy to switch majors and one can shop classes for longer, and its easier to craft your own study program. In addition, Stanford has plenty of student-initiated courses on all sorts of interesting topics as well as many interdisciplinary programs. The con seen at Stanford when compared to Harvard is that one may not develop sufficient depth in any one area as there is a choice to explore more academic programmes.

There are advantages of above but then you do not get to develop in-depth experience and knowledge like at Harvard.

About the Author:

0 comments:

Guides Complete