Discordant Harmony

Tag: CYN

  • 2026 Ivy League Tour Log 3: UPenn and Princeton

    Here we are on the final log of the 2026 Ivy League Tour (although there might be a special fourth log containing some additional information about Columbia and Juilliard). On Wednesday, we visited the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton, which are about an hour and a half away from each other.

    I was thoroughly stunned by many aspects of Princeton, ranging from the breathtaking campus design, to the versatile student programs, and the expansive classrooms and halls. UPenn was slightly less memorable and notable, and ranked more among Brown and Harvard. Overall, it seemed like Princeton surpassed Yale in all categories, although the two colleges are still pretty close in overall score.

    University of Pennsylvania (Score: 3.8 / 5)

    Located in West Philadelphia, UPenn’s campus is about the same size as many of the other universities we toured. The university featuers many different departments and divisions, ranging from Penn Arts and Sciences to the Wharton school to Penn Medicine. On the tour, we entered some of the buildings from the Wharton school–and ate lunch there–and peeked inside the Penn visitor center.

    On the whole, though, I found the UPenn campus to be very bland and not as memorable as any of the other universities. I also didn’t get a very strong sense of values or missions from the university’s message, and I was left feeling a little unsure about the principles UPenn wants to uphold. With MIT, for example, there was a clear message of curiosity, authenticity, and imagination spread throughout the campus and its mission statements. UPenn, however, didn’t seem to have any of that. This was the primary reason for its lower score.

    Below, find a few photos of the UPenn campus that we took, some inside the Wharton school buildings and others inside the university’s visitor center.

    Princeton University (Score: 5.0 / 5; Tour Winner!)

    Our final elite university on the tour was Princeton, located in the aptly-named town of Princeton, New Jersey. It was about an hour-and-a-half drive from UPenn, and the trip took us through some remarkable winter scenery in the countryside. When we arrived, it wasn’t quite as cold as it had been at Harvard, but many of the trees were still decked out with snow, and the ground was frozen in many places.

    Almost immediately it became clear that Princeton wasn’t fooling around with its campus layout and architecture. The main gates were tall and ornate, and a colossal hall loomed just inside the entrance with grandiose, neo-gothic design. (There’s a myth about the main gate of the campus, in fact, that anyone who walks through it will never graduate and will be cursed with having to study for the rest of their life. So please make an attempt to walk through one of the flanking side gates). The campus was large and contained several open green spaces, and even a few paths where maintenance carts, small vehicles, and bicycles could move.

    We happened to have a student tour guide while visiting Princeton. He was a Mechanical Engineering major, and gave us some key insights into his admissions experience. Although his stats had not been impressive on a national level, he told us, his personal statement essay was so impressive that it enabled him to get into Princeton and one other college on his application list. However, he’d applied Early Decision (ED), so he was forced to attend Princeton. He definitely wasn’t regretting his choice, though; campus life was extraordinary with small eating clubs available to participate in for extra social stimulation.

    Our large amount of alloted time for this tour allowed us to enter several buildings, including a breathtaking sanctuary with ceilings at least eighty feet tall, and Room 302, where Albert Einstein once gave a lecture. We also walked past the many eating clubs on campus, one of which our tour guide was a member of personally. We also discovered that Princeton has a prominent music department, making the university another promising possibility in similar ways to Yale. However, you aren’t allowed to double major at Princeton, but that’s probably for the better.

    Overall, I found Princeton to be one of the most impressive universities on our tour, if not the most impressive one. Combined with its stunning campus layout, flexible programs, and outside social opportunities, this was definitely a more-than-notable college. Enjoy our many photos below!

  • 2026 Ivy League Tour Log 2: MIT and Harvard Universities

    2026 Ivy League Tour Log 2: MIT and Harvard Universities

    Welcome back to Day Two of the 2026 Ivy League Tour. Today we visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard, both of which are pretty close to each other in the Boston area. In this post, find some comments and a review of the two colleges, in addition to some photos.

    On the whole, I found MIT and Harvard to be pretty close to each other, in terms of quality of campus layout and diversity of student programs. MIT was drastically different architecturally from the neogothic designs of Yale and Brown, of course, but it had its own unique styles in many different ways. Harvard was more similar to Yale in terms of design and layout overall. Read more about these comments in the sections below.

    MIT (Score: 4.6/5)

    As expected, the design and layout of the MIT college was significantly different from that of the others we’d visited. The building designs were much more modern, and occupied a larger total area. We actually ended up entering the hallways of several buildings, peeking inside the classrooms to see how things are organized. Everything seemed very organized and coordinated, and easy to keep track of.

    MIT’s classrooms still seem to use traditional chalkboards, but they have different layers of boards that you can drag down over other ones, useful for writing long equations that you don’t want to erase yet. The layout of the classroom appeared to be very comfortable (not an auditorium design though) with long rows of tables and chairs.

    We didn’t have a student tour guide when visiting MIT, but we did manage to check out a large number of the buildings on campus. Here are a few photos from the tour:

    Harvard (Score: 4.3 / 5)

    Our tour of Harvard took place during some of the coldest weather of the week. However, we did have a student guide to show us around the campus, which was similar to Yale in architectural style and layout. There were some hidden features and statues embedded in various gates, like the rabbits and watches present in one of the campus side gates. There was also a large dining hall that seemed to be the inspiration for the fictional Great Hall at Hogwarts.

    As with Yale, there was also a statue of Harvard’s founder in the main courtyard, and touching the toe of the statue was said to provide good luck to the students. We weren’t allowed to enter any of the buildings on the Harvard campus, however, so there really wasn’t much information or insights there.

    There is a recurring theme of the “Three Lies” at Harvard. The first one is that the statue of John Harvard in the main courtyard isn’t actually of John Harvard (the sculptor had to use a student model as no actual image was available). The second is that the university was founded in 1636, not 1638, as the statue proclaims. The final one is that John Harvard wasn’t the actual founder, and that he was only a major benefactor who donated to the university.

    While we didn’t have the opportunity to enter any buildings on the Harvard campus, it did seem like the options for outside interests and clubs weren’t as varied as with some of the other universities. There didn’t appear to be very many flyers advertising other clubs, or details about student programs or organizations outside of classes, which can be a crucial aspect of the college experience.

    Here are some photos of our adventures on the university campus:

    Winner of Day Two: MIT (based on outside student clubs, atmosphere, and class opportunities).