(Image courtesy of Google Images)

The five criteria taken into consideration are (excerpts from the actual article):

• The cost: Financial pressure is a huge stress-inducer. Tuition plus room and board, weighted at 35 percent. With 2009-2010 data from the National Center on Education Statistics.

• Competitiveness: How academically rigorous is the school? Weighted at 35 percent, with 2010 data from US News & World Report.

• Acceptance rate: More competitive schools generally produce a more competitive student body. Weighted at 10 percent, with 2010 data from US News & World Report.

• Engineering: Is the school known for its particularly rigorous graduate engineering program? Weighted at 10 percent, with 2010 data from US News & World Report.

• Crime on campus: Adapted from The Daily Beast’s analysis of college crime, weighted at 10 percent and ranked relative to this particular group of colleges. With data from the US Department of Education.

The moral of the story: Harvard is stressful. Also, it snows a lot during the winter in Cambridge. In other words, what else is new?

Comparing the stress levels at premier institutions is like comparing apples and oranges. It’s stressful, period. With acceptance rates hovering around the 10% mark, these schools take in the most intelligent, capable and competitive high school graduates, who will go on to be intelligent, capable and competitive throughout their undergraduate career. They juggle five million tasks at the same time. They seem constantly stressed out. They complain. And then, somehow, they manage to survive. That’s how it works. Did anybody come here expecting a bed of roses?

The most peculiar part of the article, however, is that Harvard has a crime rating of 2 (out of 50), making us the second most dangerous campus in the list, while good ol’ Eli ranks 12 overall, with a crime rating of 9. For the sake of perspectives, the “most crime-ridden” crown belongs to Tufts, while MIT places third. Um, are we missing something here? Why does Boston all of a sudden seem like the dangerous area to go to school? Besides, I don’t remember Cambridge ever rivaling New Haven in the thug department. Bored and procrastinating, I decide to dig deeper and check out their article on college crime. Turns out, the news website also honors Harvard as the 20th most unsafe college, alongside Buffalo State University.

The evaluation reads like a powerful and persuasive indictment. Not.

The nation’s oldest university reported more on-campus crime than any other university on this list. The majority of these crimes were burglaries, and Harvard was also near the top for crimes in nearby public places (mostly robberies, assaults, and vehicular thefts.) Harvard was also the highest among the top 25 in terms of rapes listed, although this is likely because the university is particularly good at getting students to report date and acquaintance rape, and therefore may actually reflect campus safety instead of danger.

If the limit of your study is known, and if it’s acknowledged that the abundance of crime reports at Harvard “may actually reflect campus safety instead of danger,” then why reuse the same flawed result as a basis for another study?  I have a feeling that in this part of Cambridge, the concept of “burglary” might not be too dissimilar from this. On the other hand, when someone who goes to your school is murdered and stuffed in a wall, a case of stolen handphone might seem much less of an issue. Comparing Harvard’s stolen Easter eggs with Yale’s missing person does seem juuust a tad crooked.

Moreover, while it’s true that a year at Harvard costs well over $50,000 in room and board, the university’s excellent financial aid initiative allows a majority of students to receive substantial financial assistance, making a Harvard education affordable.

Finally, the author seems to have forgotten about all the top liberal arts colleges like Williams and Amherst in his list. These schools might also be pressure cookers, methinks. So prefrosh, if you’re reading this and giving Yale the advantage over Harvard in your decision because it’s less stressful and safer, or moving Williams right to the top of your list because “OMG it’s not stressful at all!” then you’re sorely mistaken. Be prepared for a crazy ride! Just know that it will all be worth it in the end.

P.S: Since we’re already discussing stress, let us also remember the recent suicide cases at Yale (ranked #12) and Cornell (ranked #17).

Hello, world.

Sure, Harvard’s still working on picking its broke ass off the floor, but as a cutting-edge research university, some expectations that it’ll keep updating according to the internet’s modern standards remain despite a total endowment fail. But after browsing through some webpages affiliated with FAS, we… well, we really wish we hadn’t. Luckily, Noice did all the dirty work to save all the Harvard kiddies some cyber-aesthetic pain.

THE BEST

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences: This one’s a no-brainer, what with all the hackers that the SEAS has on demand. With an exhaustive menu on the homepage, the site lets any idiot find anything, anywhere from research opportunities for undergraduate research as well as a complete census of the school’s demographics (74% male–again, no surprise there). Take a peek at the course website of CS50, maybe the only undergraduate class that doesn’t use a crappy my.harvard iSite (and also the only course page that embedded an LOLcat applet last year).

Anthropology: Links to sweet interviews with awesome faculty! Cool header! Sans serif font! Very noice indeed.

Literature: Shocker, right? But entering the Lit site proves to be a candied orgasm for the eyes with rainbow books as the background (gay pride, anyone?). Not only that, the department proves it’s not just about lofty and obscure theory and academia, as shown by its extremely functional, minimalist menu on the bottom, linking visitors to the department’s degree requirements easily and its Ph.D. dissertations pompously. But after seeing the quality of the site, we’ll forgive them.

See the sites for sore eyes after the jump.

THE REST

Visual & Environmental Studies: Always one-upping the academics who sit in Widener theorizing but never acting, those artsy-fartsy laborers in the Carpenter Center know how to combine pleasing color schemes, easy-to-browse organization, and plain and simple informational display into one straightforward site. With their front page constantly updated on upcoming exhibits and lectures given by visiting speakers, it’s easy to keep updated with departmental happenings. And if not for that reason, checking out some sweet art produced by resident professors isn’t a bad way to spend a night procrastinating on the internet. But surprisingly, VES’s web design skills weren’t as impressive as we expected. Two words: ARIAL BOLD. </vomit>

History of Art and Architecture: After a total revamp from last year’s arguably more modern, minimalist interface, the new HAA site appears too crowded according to a VES concentrator, not scarce enough by an economics concentrator, and not “philosophically stringent upon the work’s emotive display and discourse on contemporary aestheticism” by their own standards. In all seriousness, it seems bizarre that HAA would allow so much “anti” white space. But when in doubt, perceive it HAA-style–attribute it as an expression of pain.

THE GROTESQUE

Folklore & Mythology: Scroll all the way to the bottom to see the not-so-hidden Apple logo. Really? They couldn’t find anyone to design a website? And someone who didn’t think Microsoft Word clip art was legitimate graphic design? We’d say that’s completely heinous, but we didn’t mention yet that the front page consists only of American Heritage Dictionary definitions of the department’s title. The new FML: Folklore and Mythology is Lame.

Romance Languages and Literature: “Hey, Grandma Erma, want to make a website? What, you don’t know HTML? That’s OK, you can just draw something up on paper; we’ll scan it in.” At least it’s not as bad as the World’s Ugliest Webpage.