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Dear markomalley,

At Hopkins, everyone must live on campus freshman year - no savings there. Otherwise, it's only about a 40-minute drive from my house.

Harvard isn't quite as toxic as we conservatives sometimes imagine. My son's high school sends kids to Harvard from time to time, and they seem to come out as messed up, or not-messed up, as they went in.

In many ways, it's enemy territory, behind the lines. But they're very upfront about it, and that's far better than a pseudo-Catholic school like Notre Dame. My son's a warrior. He relishes smiting the heathens. He might have a grand time at Harvard.

sitetest

If he relishes smiting the heathen, he'll love the campus at Hopkins

Buy him a sword

I'd suggest to sweeten the pot for his decision, if he chooses Maryland, tell him you'll invest for him, for the next 4 years, the money you'd have spent at Harvard or Hopkins, and he can help manage the investment

Nice cushion to start his graduate/PhD studies or other professional beginning

Harvard, Yale and Columbia and probably the rest of the Ivies have serious underground Catholicism and somewhat more public opportunities for excellent conservative formation and activity as well. My wife went to Yale in the 1970s, arrived a radical and not terribly religious and graduated as a strong conservative and well on the way to Catholic, despite mainline Protestant upbringing with something of a strong leftist bent. She was not, by any means, the only Ivy undergrad to make exactly that sort of transition.

As to smiting the heathens, hey, he is going off to college and there will be plenty to smite no matter where he goes but when you smite Ivy League "master of the universe" heathens, you know you can smite any. Some that he would encounter at Harvard may well become the Harvard equivalent of John (did you know he served in Vietnam?) Kerry (regrettably a Yalie and every bit as despicable there as in later life). Of your choices, your son would likely not regret choosing Harvard. If your income were modest, Yale would be practically free but IIRC all the Ivies have "need-blind" admissions and university scholarships to match. If he is a warrior, he is needed there to be involved with those already here. Also, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and likely the rest of the Ivies to a lesser extent are in the centuries long process of graduating what Tom Wolfe called: "masters of the universe." The advantages of Ivy League rolodexes are not easily matched.

I would describe Notre Shame as anti-Catholic rather than pseudo-Catholic. Google The Land 'o Lakes Conference of 1967. It has not improved since. Rather the contrary.

I can think of only two disadvantages of Harvard. First, the weather in Cambridge is not pleasant in the worst of winter. Then again, if weather were the determinant, Florida and California have many schools describable as "Beach Blanket University." I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that weather will not be a major consideration in your son's choice.

Second, if your son were a seriously talented variety football player type, my household would prefer that he not attend Harvard and possibly win the annual contest with Yale known as The Game. But, that's just us. Yale's mascot is an English Bulldog named Handsome Dan (the 47th or whatever number). You would not willingly allow your son to break the puppy's heart, would you?

In the totality of circumstances and in your son's cornucopia of outstanding choices available, you may reasonably be forgiven for sending him to Hahvard and to believe that Harvahd should be allowed player personnel who make the Cantabs quite competitive which they all too often tend to be in games against Old Eli.