If Harvard University is...?

Apparently the best University in the world (American media attacks again promoting their uni's). Then how come you produced a President Bush? You know the guy who is more unpopular than Nixon yet according to your stats Oxford is not that great but houses Stephen Hawkings (Genius at physics!). Explain this one away big eds!

If Harvard University is...?
Harvard has a huge endowment, by far the largest of any university, with which they can buy facilities, faculty and students. If you are the best in the world at your subject and Harvard decides they need you, they can make an offer that very few people could afford to refuse. Many Harvard professors earn twice or more what they would earn at other schools, plus the prestige of being at Harvard gies them much more earning power as consultants and authors. One friend of mine tripled her income when she went to Harvard, besides which they gave her an interest free loan to buy her new house.





In addition, they have the opportunity to work in state of the art labs, have a huge support staff of technicans and junior researchers, etc. When Harvard wants a student to come there, they can simply afford to give them a completely free education with supplemental payments. One young woman I know got a 100% scholarship plus a grant of $15,000 to carry out her own research as a Freshman student.





When you can make offers like that, you get the best students in the world.





So, why are there other good schools - because Harvard is quite small. In the USA about 2 million students will enter college this fall but only about 1300 will enter Harvard. All the genius kids don't fit! And of course there are many other wonderful schools that have different priorities than Harvard.





Like Oxford and Cambridge, the elite American universities have a duty to try to impact the world. If you had a kid like George Bush whose father was very wealthy and a very important politician, then it is evident the kid is going to be an important person. Where would you rather have him educated - at your elite school where you have a chance to give him a real education? or at some no-name school where he will wind up ignorant when he graduates? Yale tried hard to educate George, but they failed. You can't win them all!





ps in the world rankings of universities (like the Shanghai University rankings) that are done outside the USA by non-Americans, the USA universities are overwhelmingly ranked high. It is not Americans who do those lists. Harvard and the seven other Ivy League schools, plus Duke, Stanford, the University of Chicago, MIT, Caltech - those schools are as respected as Oxford and Cambridge on the basis of the research and scholarship of their faculty and the achievements of their living graduates....
Reply:You're a jackass, he went to Yale.
Reply:Do U vote for Bush?
Reply:Oxford is not that great? Citation needed.





The simple answer is that George Bush Snr. PAID for Jnr. to go to college there (when he felt like it). Even YALE needs a new library every so often. Don't blame the college, blame the corrupt headmaster. It's not like he was taking attention away from the other kids, he probably just wasn't even there.
Reply:That's easy. Bush went to Yale.
Reply:As already said you can't judge a university by one alumni so your George Bush/Steven Hawking idea is nonsense, read through the prosepectuses of many universities and they all have a list of aliumni who have turned out well; you can't base a university solely on a small selection of the people it turns out.





As for the world lists, america is 5 times larger in terms of population than the UK, it has 54 universities in the top 100 (Shanghai Jiao Tong University list - one of the/the most respected) opposed to the UKs 11, which is about the relative numbers you would expect to see. Demonstrating that the influence of American media is not the main influence, its numbers in the top 100 are not higher than you would statistically predict, and such predictions would take no account of media influence.





As for why is Harvard higher than Cambridge (#2) and Oxford down in #10 then thats just down to competition; positions will jostle up and down and all the universities will be competing for the top place. Britain has 2 in the top 10 and america 8, which is again britain getting a higher than would be predicted based on difference in population alone. So it doesn't appear the US media is making that much influence, and that the universities are competing fairly.
Reply:screw good schools...they cost too much...you can get the same information from any school.... just go to a fun school...drink for 4 years...and then get out and get a job... Bush went to yale too... mba was harvard, but i bet daddy took the classes for him
Reply:Popularity has nothing to do with intelligence or ability. In fact, the most popular people are usually clueless, because that's who most people identify with. Who are the best known and most popular people in the world?? Movie stars. More people know and recognize Brad Pitt or Hugh Grant than George Bush or Stephen Hawkings. OK, so Oxford may have one genius--or maybe two or three or four--but so does Harvard, or haven't you checked their faculty credentials yet? One supposed genius does not make a school the best, or even good. And anyway, isn't Hawkings associated with Cambridge and not Oxford? Talk about clueless. What counts is the success of the students who graduate from that school. And by the way, President Clinton, Mr. "I did not have **** with that Intern!", attended Oxford as a Rhodes scholar--you guys really know how to pick'em! Overall, Harvard produces the best educated, the best prepared, and the most successful students. Jealousy is a nasty trait.
Reply:You cannot base its success or lack of it on one pupil surely?
Reply:You have the best among the best.
Reply:Many "great" schools accept considerably large donations from alumni so their children can be allowed into the school (If they don't quite make the grade). It is done almost everywhere... Even with that, his popularity in no way reflects his intellect. Heard of Adolf Hitler?





Oxford is a good school. Some of the smartest people in the world never attend college; some because they don't want to, some because they can't afford it, some because they don't need too.





By the way, George W. Bush (Junior) received his BA from Yale, and his Masters from Harvard.





** I would just like to add... Just because you attend a "no name" school, doesn't mean you aren't getting a quality education. Anyone who argues that point is an elitist snob, who has yet to set foot on a "no name" campus. You can find GREAT faculty at many schools, even the ones that don't carry a "name".