Poll: Harvard Students Mostly Unhappy
Tue Mar 29,11:42 AM ET U.S. National - AP
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - A long-held stereotype that Harvard undergraduates feel neglected by their professors and don't have as much fun as students at other colleges now has some data to back it up.
Student satisfaction at Harvard College ranks near the bottom of a group of 31 elite private schools, according to survey results outlined in a confidential memo obtained by The Boston Globe and reported in Tuesday's editions.
The group of 31 colleges, known as the Consortium on Financing Higher Education, or COFHE, includes all eight Ivy League schools, other top research universities like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford, and liberal arts colleges like Amherst and Wellesley.
The 21-page memo, from staff researchers at Harvard to academic deans, documents student dissatisfaction with faculty availability, quality of instruction, quality of advising, as well as the sense of community and social life on campus.
"Harvard students are less satisfied with their undergraduate educations than the students at almost all of the other COFHE schools," according to the memo, dated October 2004.
On a five-point scale, Harvard's overall student satisfaction comes out to 3.95, compared to an average of 4.16 for the other 30 schools. Only four schools scored lower than Harvard, but the schools were not named in the memo.
The difference appears small, but some Harvard officials say they take it very seriously.
"I think we have to concede that we are letting our students down," said Lawrence Buell, an English professor and former dean of undergraduate education. "Our standard is that Harvard shoots to be the very best. If it shoots to be the very best in terms of research productivity and the stature of its faculty, why should it not shoot to be the very best in terms of the quality of the education that it delivers?"
The data in the memo comes from graduating seniors in 2002, but is the most recent available.
Harvard administrators declined comment on the survey, though they told the Globe that their internal numbers have improved since 2002.
Students complain that Harvard lacks places where students can socialize and has so many rules that it is difficult to hold a party on campus, where almost all undergraduates live.
In the classroom, students can go through four years with limited contact with professors. Large lecture classes are divided into sections headed by graduate students. Small classes are frequently taught by temporary instructors. In many cases, advisers are graduate students, administrators or full-time advisers.
"I've definitely had great professors," said Kathy Lee, a junior majoring in psychology, "but most of the time you have to chase them down and show initiative if you want to get to know them."
wow...definitely thank u for posting this article, miss shoya....
more people need to see articles like this forreal....
my homegurl @ NC State (a PWI) sort of says the same thing about the great level of formality and distance between the instructors and students there....esPECially compared to when she comes 2 my classes here @ A&T...
in the past, when she's come 2 some of my classes...she's always been like towards our interaction....she can't believe how much more personal and informal we are with our professors....and how more interactive they are with us...in comparison to how it is at her school....
she even always takes notice to the difference in interaction between students....she's always like....at NC State, people act stuck up as hell....Blacks AND Whites....people don't know how to speak, are in their own worlds, and are just generally not very friendly...
but she's like...whenever she comes here to visit, she can always count on some random person - male OR female - speaking to her...or trying to help her out....or do some other nice gesture.....and she's not used 2 any of it, based on how everyone is at her school....
there are aspects of her school that she favors over ours, of course...or at least, those she's CONVINCED herself of....but the things i meanted before are important to me....i LOVE the "family" feel here...even tho we do have our "stuck up" folkz...but what place doesn't?!?
but anywayz....aiighty, finished now...again, thanks 4 the article!
Harvard?....What about Jawja?...LSU?...Bama?..Auburn?...UNC?....Ohio State..Harvard is a dry school in Liberal Boston..
Bring some Sh*t about Harvard ****...an Ivy League school....how about you come on down to Auburn after you put a whipping on a Top 10 ten after College Gameday has been here all day and thousands of people..dont even care what race...is showing the school pride and having fun.
**** @ HARVARD....a damn Ivy League school...full of snobs...of course they are going to be unhappy they are spoiled.
Theres some definite truth in Monte's statement that I agree with cause Ive been over to Florida State, and them white kids are off the chain...they have some live parties, and a very social black student union...and people across the tracks at FSU for the most part speak highly of their professors, and how they make an effort to be readily available to their students...but I mean I definitely understand and respect the point that Shoya made when posting that article...but I really dont think it is a HBCU vs PWI thing...I really believe its just the individual schools itself, and the setting of where its located, and the type of school is it ( like Ivy League ), etc...that is more so the deciding factor of how students feel about their respective universities.
How is Harvard not a PWI? A predominately white institution, that has nothing to do with whether it's "Ivy League" or not, it's still majority white.
But on a different note, this article did not surprise me at all. I've always heard comments like that about Harvard. However, I do know that doesn't apply to all pwi's because I've heard more positive things about other top notch schools such as Yale and Brown. Like other people have said, I think it just depends on the school.
towards our interaction....she can't believe how much more personal and informal we are with our professors....and how more interactive they are with us...in comparison to how it is at her school....
she even always takes notice to the difference in interaction between students....she's always like....at NC State, people act stuck up as hell....Blacks AND Whites....people don't know how to speak, are in their own worlds, and are just generally not very friendly...
but she's like...whenever she comes here to visit, she can always count on some random person - male OR female - speaking to her...or trying to help her out....or do some other nice gesture.....and she's not used 2 any of it, based on how everyone is at her school....
there are aspects of her school that she favors over ours, of course...or at least, those she's CONVINCED herself of....but the things i meanted before are important to me....i LOVE the "family" feel here...even tho we do have our "stuck up" folkz...but what place doesn't?!?
but anywayz....aiighty, finished now...again, thanks 4 the article!
