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Even most Americans probably have no clue where Harvard actually is. It wasn’t until I visited Boston at 22 years old that I realized that Harvard was basically in the urban core of Boston. I had thought Cambridge, MA was just some out of the way college town in a similar vein to Ithaca, NY.
Yea, that's been some of my experience as well especially since I came from a background where there were few people who were college-educated or possibly even college-bound
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Originally Posted by MarketStEl
That may be true, but if the questions I get asked to answer on Quora and where the posters asking them are located are any guide, that international drop-off still leaves lots of people overseas wanting to know about:
1) what the best American universities are and how to get into them
2) how to get into an Ivy League university; the term "Ivy League" itself definitely has brand power on its own
3) how to get into Harvard specifically
I'd say that corporate HQs confer bragging rights more than they are status indicators, though here at least, numbers of Fortune 500 companies headquartered in a city or metropolitan region does seem to serve as a status indicator.
The two best-known companies based in Kansas City are a family-owned company now in its fourth or fifth generation of family ownership and another that was family-owned before the family sold it to Swiss company Lindt about five years back. (The last generation of the family that owned it included one of my Pem-Day '76 classmates.) I tell people that between these two companies, Kansas City owns Valentine's Day. (Well, those two companies and FTD, not headquartered there.) When the one company presents one of its "Hall of Fame" made-for-TV drama specials, it makes a point of saying in its sponsor ID that it is "of Kansas City." (I'm assuming I'm giving you enough information here that I don't have to name either company. They're both very well-known names and leaders in their respective industries.) But because privately owned companies are not required to report their revenues or earnings publicly, I (and no one else) have no idea where they would rank on the Fortune 500. I bet both would (would have been) on it.
Absolutely, people will ask this on Quora and they'll get people that will answer such. Though the people asking and answering these questions are going to be highly self-selected.
Right on about Fortune 500 listing as a public listing versus very large privately held companies. For a Boston vs Chicago topic, it looks like both have large privately held corporations: https://www.forbes.com/lists/largest-private-companies/
The Chicago area has more of them, and as with publicly traded corporations, there's an outsized proportion of them somewhere in the agricultural product to consumer perishable goods chain which is the odd, not very glamorous industry in which Chicago has a particularly strong presence.
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Originally Posted by btownboss4
Harvard is so much more well know amongst the people of the world it literally doesn’t matter if most people who have heard of Harvard don’t know it’s in Boston cause most people do not know the University of Chicago exists at all.
I understand this to some extent and this goes into actual influence of the institution versus the perceptions of the city/metro of that city. The former for Harvard is also very broad and deep, sort of similar in argument to what was said about corporate headquarters of massive and influential organizations / companies. This is also true of the University of Chicago which is not nearly as old, but arguably was as roundly influential on global affairs as just about any top US university in the 20th century. That can be a separate though related question though to how people from elsewhere perceive that city and metropolitan area though because the drop-off between knowing of that institution or that company and attributing it to the city and metropolitan area where they are located. Harvard is far more well known, but a small percentage will know that it's in Boston. University of Chicago will be far less well known, but a very large proportion of people will know that it's in Chicago simply by dint of its name.
This doesn't mean that Harvard isn't far better known or overall more influential than the University of Chicago or that Harvard isn't a bigger feather in Boston's cap than University of Chicago is in Chicago's, but the conversation was about knowing about these places.
I'll note that there is a third city, NYC, in this conversation and it has two globally very well-known universities with each leaning towards the characteristics of the above (not including Yale and Princeton in the larger CSA). Columbia University is also an incredibly well-known school abroad and is long-established. This is arguably a hair less well known that Harvard, and again, does not come with the name of the city attached. The other is New York University which in the last few decades has become some sort of odd global brand and has climbed very high up in the rankings and has the name of the city attached into the name. New York University though is an odd one in that while it's now quite well-regarded, its history as such isn't very deep and it doesn't rank quite as well, but it does have a massive student body compared to most of the others, and I argue a large part of its cachet for both students and professors is that it's in New York.
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Originally Posted by BostonBornMassMade
Now were here pretending people don't where Harvard Univeristy is? Yea but in sure they know where Vince Vaughn is from.
I swear, it gets more ridiculous every week. I can't even read this whole page- its too silly/uncomfortable.
Who's pretending? Harvard is really, really famous. It's something that a lot of people will casually know the name of it even without having any relation to it or any prospect of going to it or having anyone in their social circle with any prospects of going there. However, with that fame as a very large denominator, the proportion of people who know it is in the Boston area is going to minuscule when talking about people from overseas. It's truly minuscule compared to the number of people who have heard of Harvard. You'll even get this with people within the US, but city-data is going to be different in that I reckon the vast majority of posters on this forum, a US-based English-language forums who are nerdy about ranking cities and what they have, are going to know Harvard is in the Boston area. It's way too silly to pretend that the regulars like you and me on this forum are representative of general knowledge and interest of people around the world in large proportions.
Harvard and UChicago are like not close to the same.
Harvard is literally just shorthand for smart in Hollywood. So much so the generic “smarty pants school” got changed to Yale when they want their protagonist to be relatable.
It wins, it’s that simple. Good Will Hunting, Legally Blond, in Gossip Girl it’s about the Ivy Leagues, not UChicago vs Stanford vs Vanderbilt. There are a million op Ed’s about Harvard and Yale campus culture in the NYT and WSJ but very few about other elite schools. Harvard has produced 8 US more presidents than UChicago and Northwestern combined. And currently has 4 Supreme Court Justices, 4 more than UChicago and Northwestern combined.
Harvard has “The Game” on ESPN every year. Arguably due to College sports Boston college has a higher profile than University of Chicago.
There are 3 active heads of state that went to Harvard. None American.
The Ivy League in General is such a strong brand that comparable universities just aren’t as famous. Sorry Carnegie Mellon, UChicago, Case Western, Emory.
It’s an unambiguous win for Boston in terms of the most famous institution between the three cities. Even if Some people don’t realize where Harvard is. It’s not enough to offset the massive advantage it has in recognition
Harvard and UChicago are like not close to the same.
Harvard is literally just shorthand for smart in Hollywood. So much so the generic “smarty pants school” got changed to Yale when they want their protagonist to be relatable.
It wins, it’s that simple. Good Will Hunting, Legally Blond, in Gossip Girl it’s about the Ivy Leagues, not UChicago vs Stanford vs Vanderbilt. There are a million op Ed’s about Harvard and Yale campus culture in the NYT and WSJ but very few about other elite schools. Harvard has produced 8 US more presidents than UChicago and Northwestern combined. And currently has 4 Supreme Court Justices, 4 more than UChicago and Northwestern combined.
Harvard has “The Game” on ESPN every year. Arguably due to College sports Boston college has a higher profile than University of Chicago.
There are 3 active heads of state that went to Harvard. None American.
The Ivy League in General is such a strong brand that comparable universities just aren’t as famous. Sorry Carnegie Mellon, UChicago, Case Western, Emory.
It’s an unambiguous win for Boston in terms of the most famous institution between the three cities. Even if Some people don’t realize where Harvard is. It’s not enough to offset the massive advantage it has in recognition
We're not quite having the same conversation here.
Harvard absolutely is the most famous university from the US, I don't think anyone has any doubts about that, and I certainly don't contest that.
Its greater name recognition arguably exceeds its actual output, but that makes sense given how in popular culture it's a shorthand for smart. In respects to that, the difference isn't quite so large as the difference in name recognition. That's an important point to recognize.
As a corollary to that though, if you're going by name recognition rather than just output, then there's a reasonable argument that the name recognition does not extend that far to the actual city / metropolitan area that it's based in. Of course to some extent that will happen, but it's going to be a pretty far minority if you're talking about global recognition. This is analogous to some extent with what I said about people knowing brands/companies based in Chicago or the Chicago area, but for the most part not tying it to the actual city. Remember, here we're talking about name recognition as it's related to the city and not the actual output. McDonald's is based in Chicago and has been based in the Chicago area for a while. It's often used as shorthand for fast food, for consumerism, even to some extent for American cultural hegemony though often in a negative sense. A small proportion of people will know McDonald's (among other products) are based in Chicago or the Chicago area, but it's not something that most will know is from there. This to a lesser extent also happens with Harvard.
Sort of a side bar here, but University of Chicago is generally not ranked alongside Carnegie Mellon, Case Western or Emory. Those are fine schools, but they don't generally have quite the same rankings as Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, and UPenn.
I used to professionally and still every once in a while for relatives and the kids of friends, do tutoring and application, uh, massaging, for undergrad and sometimes grad school applications. I used to have to have this conversation on a nearly daily basis and professionally and financially dependent on getting this right and targeting the right possible schools for people. I did this mostly abroad in East and Southeast Asia and in the Los Angeles and NYC area. In the former especially, I had to speak to a lot of nouveau riche capital letter emphasis on both of those words to prospective students and parents. It's interesting how far the brand name itself can carry beyond the city and how someone can know of these things, but have almost no idea about anything else related to them save for that they're very good. One funny thing about this is that sometimes you get to spots or circles where a US university has an incredibly outsized name recognition as you can see that some institutions have built up a very strong international recruitment arm since higher education in the US is a massive money maker. You're talking about essentially each student putting in the monetary equivalent of a brand new premium car every year for four years or even more each and every year, but with the costs of goods sold being incredibly cheap for the institution overall.
We're not quite having the same conversation here.
Harvard absolutely is the most famous university from the US, I don't think anyone has any doubts about that, and I certainly don't contest that.
Its greater name recognition arguably exceeds its actual output, but that makes sense given how in popular culture it's a shorthand for smart. In respects to that, the difference isn't quite so large as the difference in name recognition. That's an important point to recognize.
As a corollary to that though, if you're going by name recognition rather than just output, then there's a reasonable argument that the name recognition does not extend that far to the actual city / metropolitan area that it's based in. Of course to some extent that will happen, but it's going to be a pretty far minority if you're talking about global recognition. This is analogous to some extent with what I said about people knowing brands/companies based in Chicago or the Chicago area, but for the most part not tying it to the actual city. Remember, here we're talking about name recognition as it's related to the city and not the actual output. McDonald's is based in Chicago and has been based in the Chicago area for a while. It's often used as shorthand for fast food, for consumerism, even to some extent for American cultural hegemony though often in a negative sense. A small proportion of people will know McDonald's (among other products) are based in Chicago or the Chicago area, but it's not something that most will know is from there. This to a lesser extent also happens with Harvard.
Sort of a side bar here, but University of Chicago is generally not ranked alongside Carnegie Mellon, Case Western or Emory. Those are fine schools, but they don't generally have quite the same rankings as Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, and UPenn.
I used to professionally and still every once in a while for relatives and the kids of friends, do tutoring and application, uh, massaging, for undergrad and sometimes grad school applications. I used to have to have this conversation on a nearly daily basis and professionally and financially dependent on getting this right and targeting the right possible schools for people. I did this mostly abroad in East and Southeast Asia and in the Los Angeles and NYC area. In the former especially, I had to speak to a lot of nouveau riche capital letter emphasis on both of those words to prospective students and parents. It's interesting how far the brand name itself can carry beyond the city and how someone can know of these things, but have almost no idea about anything else related to them save for that they're very good. One funny thing about this is that sometimes you get to spots or circles where a US university has an incredibly outsized name recognition as you can see that some institutions have built up a very strong international recruitment arm since higher education in the US is a massive money maker. You're talking about essentially each student putting in the monetary equivalent of a brand new premium car every year for four years or even more each and every year, but with the costs of goods sold being incredibly cheap for the institution overall.
“foreigners who want to go to elite American Universities” are not a representative sample. The University of Chicago among the Masses has basically no recognition. Where as if even 5% if people who know what Harvard is knows where it is, Boston beats out Chicago. Universities are very different than Chain restaurants as the latter is exclusively known for being basically everywhere and explicitly have little identity.
Also one pretty simple way to measure how impressive Harvard is, is “going to school in Boston” is such a brand Harvard/MIT pretty much dragged up BC, Tufts and Northeastern from regional commuter schools to top 50 institutions. There is no synergy between like DePaul or UIC and UChicago.
Northeastern University basically became a top 50 school by sharing a hockey tournament with Harvard.
“foreigners who want to go to elite American Universities” are not a representative sample. The University of Chicago among the Masses has basically no recognition. Where as if even 5% if people who know what Harvard is knows where it is, Boston beats out Chicago. Universities are very different than Chain restaurants as the latter is exclusively known for being basically everywhere and explicitly have little identity.
Also one pretty simple way to measure how impressive Harvard is, is “going to school in Boston” is such a brand Harvard/MIT pretty much dragged up BC, Tufts and Northeastern from regional commuter schools to top 50 institutions. There is no synergy between like DePaul or UIC and UChicago.
Northeastern University basically became a top 50 school by sharing a hockey tournament with Harvard.
One of the things about working in different countries for extended periods of time and also knowing the language of those countries is that it doesn't mean you are only going to know about the people and culture via your work. I definitely was not going out with or hanging out with my clients whether the students or their parents, and I was never a live-at-their-home tutor. Knowledge about these universities and where they are located and what they are like are an overall *high* point among that specific sample and I reckon was a skew towards people who supposedly would know this much better than the average population rather than normative, and they still for the most part wouldn't have come initially with knowledge of where these universities were.
Outside of that, the general knowledge of this was seemingly far, far lower. Think about this, if people who are trying to actively get into US universities from abroad (or at least have parents who want them to do so and have the funds for that) start off without knowing where these universities are for the most part, then it does make sense that for people who have no desire or prospects of doing so would know this even less. This kind of conversation would happen a lot with people outside of work for me since it's common to ask where I'm from and what I'm doing there (the US, college prep) and the vast majority of people I met outside of work were not people who went to college in the US and a good chunk of people I worked for also weren't (well, at least at that point--I was pretty decent at my job so they ended up going). Similar to some extent, pretty much everyone knew McDonald's or Coca-Cola, but probably almost nobody knew where these companies were based though the difference between knowing of these two brands and where the companies are located was probably much more extreme than the divide between knowing of Harvard and knowing it's within the Boston area. A funny thing about this though, probably because of its West Coast location and the huge numbers of Asian Americans in California, I'd occasionally get people asking about In-N-Out upon learning I'm from California.
I am not familiar with "going to school in Boston" or I went to "college in Boston" as shorthand for Harvard and MIT. I have heard "I went to school in New Haven", or better and more common in my experience, "went to school in Connecticut" as shorthand for Yale. I have never heard of such for Boston. That's pretty interesting, but I'm also skeptical of how much this rings true.
I have heard confusion between, which I think is somewhat different from lifting up, UIC and University of Chicago. I hadn't heard even once heard mention of DePaul while doing this. Northwestern and University of Chicago were and probably still are common mentions with the latter sometimes having a bit of a reputation for being quite hard to get through (also hard to get into, but this is a somewhat unique reputation about how difficult it is academically and how relatively little leeway for screwing around there is). Again though, just so there's no confusion, they are nowhere near as popularly known as Harvard.
Anyhow, to bring the third city back in the topic, one thing that was surprising was the seemingly meteoric rise of name recognition of New York University. They definitely did a lot of outreach, but I also think that at least some part of it is sort of the reverse of what we're talking about where instead of the school giving the city some cachet, it seemed more like it was the city giving the school. Last year I looked at some of the admission stats for incoming year NYU class, and it is pretty wild as is the tuition cost.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 11-13-2023 at 12:48 PM..
Which the New York State tourism-promotion folks gleefully exploit by appropriating an icon, and occasionally the song associated with it, that pertain to the city rather than the state.
OTOH, there is also the Billy Joel song "New York State of Mind" that they can also use (and have). No confusion there.
Not to drive you crazy but if you are talking about I Love New York, New York State did not appropriate the song or the symbol, it was invented by the NY State Dept of Commerce back in 1977 to represent the whole state.
I realize the confusion because it is used very often by tourists to represent the city but it actually is for the whole state.
Not to drive you crazy but if you are talking about I Love New York, New York State did not appropriate the song or the symbol, it was invented by the NY State Dept of Commerce back in 1977 to represent the whole state.
I realize the confusion because it is used very often to represent the city but it actually is for the whole state.
Right on about Fortune 500 listing as a public listing versus very large privately held companies. For a Boston vs Chicago topic, it looks like both have large privately held corporations: https://www.forbes.com/lists/largest-private-companies/
The Chicago area has more of them, and as with publicly traded corporations, there's an outsized proportion of them somewhere in the agricultural product to consumer perishable goods chain which is the odd, not very glamorous industry in which Chicago has a particularly strong presence.
To your larger point on this subject, that one company I mentioned is No. 154 on that Forbes list, and I spotted at least three companies based in the KC area that were ranked above it. Two were construction/engineering companies, and I doubt that anyone not from KC or not in that industry would know their names.
That probably goes for a lot of the non-consumer-goods companies based in Chicago, though another poster has already pointed out (publicly traded) McDonald's as a good example of what you were talking about. Back When, however, I suspect lots of people would have been able to tell you that Sears, Roebuck — "America's department store" — was based there, thanks mainly to its huge mail-order catalog, even before it put its name on what was then the world's tallest skyscraper. (Of course, Sears — since merged with Kmart Corporation — is now a hollowed-out shell of its former self.)
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I understand this to some extent and this goes into actual influence of the institution versus the perceptions of the city/metro of that city. The former for Harvard is also very broad and deep, sort of similar in argument to what was said about corporate headquarters of massive and influential organizations / companies. This is also true of the University of Chicago which is not nearly as old, but arguably was as roundly influential on global affairs as just about any top US university in the 20th century. That can be a separate though related question though to how people from elsewhere perceive that city and metropolitan area though because the drop-off between knowing of that institution or that company and attributing it to the city and metropolitan area where they are located. Harvard is far more well known, but a small percentage will know that it's in Boston. University of Chicago will be far less well known, but a very large proportion of people will know that it's in Chicago simply by dint of its name.
This doesn't mean that Harvard isn't far better known or overall more influential than the University of Chicago or that Harvard isn't a bigger feather in Boston's cap than University of Chicago is in Chicago's, but the conversation was about knowing about these places.
Perhaps worth noting here, however, is that Boston itself has some name recognition in the US as a capital of higher education — I have on occasion heard it referred to as "America's biggest college town."
They should rename the whole state New York City State. Then we can have New York City, New York City.
It would still be New York City, New York State. Or New York City/State, New York City/State.
But seriously, I always thought the state should be Yorkshire (or New Yorkshire). It was like that way for a few decades in the 1600s. But for some reason when the British signed a peace treaty with the Dutch, the "Shire" was dropped.
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