Attention, Class of 2017: Faust's Advice for Prefrosh

Hey, prefrosh! Can't make it to Visitas this weekend? Eager to make your choice before then so you can have fun? Want to feel more confident in your tentative decision to stay away from New Haven? Look no further for guidance.

We spoke with University President Drew G. Faust and asked her what advice she would give to potential members of the Class of 2017.

On Harvard's Size:

"Harvard is a wonderfully large place, and that means that you have all kinds of opportunities that you can search out, that will be presented to you, but that requires a certain amount of entrepreneurship to make the most of, and that that's different from a tiny little college where the choices are not as numerous, they're more evident, there's more, kind of, bumping into those choices.

"I try to make that distinction about how those are different temperaments, perhaps, that would find one or another of those choices appealing. I try to also emphasize now how much of the University is available to undergraduates, through concentrations, like the regenerative biology one, or the new architecture field that's going to become a concentration, or Gen Ed courses taught by people from the Business School and the Ed School—so that set of intellectually rich opportunities."

On the House System:

"I talk a lot about the House system and how that's a special undergraduate experience that is very involving, and people might want to choose to go off to an institution where they can live in an apartment and not have to be bothered with it all. So I just think it it's important that they understand that Universities are different."

On Other Ivies:

"I think that I was well into my adult years as a professor in higher education before I understood the difference in size of different Ivy League schools, for example. You know they're all Ivy League schools, but Princeton is a lot smaller than Harvard, and Cornell is huge, and has all these additional schools of agriculture, and labor, and things like that."

On Harvard's Location:

"I also talk about where Harvard is. It's in an urban area, and that's different from some other choices. It has, in my view, great opportunities associated with it, but someone may feel differently and want to be in a more rural setting."

On This Year's Low Admissions Rate:

"I think it's very hard for the people in admissions to disappoint so many wonderfully qualified students who would bring so much to a community like this. We certainly haven't been trying to increase the number of applications just to have a huge number to report; there's no purpose in that. We're grateful that so many people are interested in Harvard, but it's really a tension and a struggle."