Harvard or Cambridge?

If you had undergraduate offers from both Harvard and Cambridge, which would you choose? 

Primarily accounting for global brand recognition, prestige, course, culture, and location.

16 Comments
 

International brand name recognition: Harvard

Prestige: Harvard

Course: Cambridge for maths

Culture: Cambridge for the tutorial system

Location: Harvard

 

The tutorial system belongs to Oxford. Cambridge’s version is called the supervision system, but most people don’t even know about it.

Every time I see a Cambridge Union clip on social media everybody mistakenly thinks it’s the Oxford Union instead.

Point being, Cambridge’s prestige comes almost entirely from its affiliation with Oxford. Cambridge isn’t even the most prestigious or famous university in the UK.

 
Most Helpful

International brand name recognition: Harvard

Prestige: Harvard

Course: Harvard for math

Culture: Harvard

Location: Harvard

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

OP, where do you want to be long-term, what do you want to study?

I would probably go to Cambridge to study maths and get a job in London, while for the US its always Harvard, without a question.

 

Why would someone apply to and go to Cambridge when Oxford is so much more prestigious than Cambridge?

If someone can get into Cambridge they should be able to get into Oxford as well. You might as well just go to the one with the greater brand strength (Oxford).

 

I’m from Europe (not the UK) but almost all British people I know would choose Harvard over Cambridge. 

Not only is Harvard a way bigger name than Cambridge globally but the money to be made in the US is insane compared to the UK.

 

If you pick Cambridge over Harvard then you’re an idiot.

Cambridge isn’t even the most prestigious university in its own country. Harvard is probably the most prestigious and famous university in the WORLD. The only university in the world that can be considered in the same tier as Harvard is Oxford (the university that literally founded Cambridge). 

 

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