<p>I have had previous arguments on this board about this topic. I was too lazy to dig them out, but this article in today's Crimson describes what I believe is a major deficit of Harvard, namely, its lack of school spirit. </p>
<p>If school spirit is important to you, then don't go to Harvard. I have always been repelled by people who go nuts by doing things like painting their bodies in their school colors and literally becoming horribly depressed if their teams lose.</p>
<p>If you want a "rah rah" atmosphere, go elsewhere. Harvard is definitely not the place for you.</p>
<p>For those too lazy to click on the article, here's a snippet:</p>
<p>"actors. So I decided to examine the views of identical twins on the subject. These twins, having grown up in the same house, same town, and same community, should have similar levels of apathyeven if one goes to Harvard and the other goes to Yale.</p>
<p>Heres the question: What would you do if someone sitting next to you were wearing a Yale sweatshirt?</p>
<p>Nothing, says Ross Lipstein 08. I wouldnt even notice.</p>
<p>Apathy level: extremely high.</p>
<p>Now, what would Rosss twin brother at Yale do if someone sitting next to him were wearing a Harvard sweatshirt?</p>
<p>I would make some witty, clever, or snide remark to the best of my fun-making ability, says Bulldog Greg Lipstein 08.</p>
<p>Apathy level: medium.</p>
<p>Okay, there might not be a stark difference. But this is Harvard-Yale, not Michigan-Ohio State or Duke-UNC. Whats important, though, is that even among twins, the one that attends Harvard is more apathetic towards his rival school."</p>
<p>There is a difference between what you describe (which is the extreme, like Cameron Crazies) and just an ordinary college student having some school spirit. You seem to be completely polarized against it, as if any sort of identification with your college is an anathema and waste of time. I doubt all the harvard althletes (more division I sports than anywhere else can be found at harvard) would agree, and looking at articles like this, I think many non-athletes at harvard might agree as well.</p>
<p>It can be traced back to the inferiority complex Yale students have, especially when it comes to their "rival" Harvard. Must be terrible to know that 80% of students choose Harvard over Yale, and to lose the football game every year. Harvard students don't care too much about Yale, while Yale does care about Harvard.</p>
<p>don't listen to northstarmom crimsonbulldog, what she says isn't always accurate. In this case, she's speaking from a personal perspective. Apparently she is appalled by people who love their school, therefore she resorts to saying that harvard has none.</p>
<p>*Year after year, Harvard has the highest yield rate among all the nation's elite schools: ie, if admitted, people want to attend.</p>
<p>*Year after year, the overwhelming majority of common admits to Harvard and to all of its top competitors choose Harvard.</p>
<p>*These are the nation's top students - most of whom are well informed about opportunities open to them, and about higher education generally, and can go anywhere they want - and they overwhelmingly choose Harvard.</p>
<p>*Moreover, Harvard has the nation's highest "retention rate" - meaning that of those matriculating, a higher fraction stay around to graduate at Harvard than at any other school in America. Once admitted, almost no one seeks to transfer out.</p>
<p>*A higher fraction of Harvard graduates have sufficient "school spirit" to contribute financially to their alma mater than any university save Princeton.</p>
<p>*Harvard supports more teams, and produces more Division I varsity athletes, than any other school in America. All these people represent Harvard in competition with other schools - and none of them receive "athletic scholarships" as an incentive to do so.</p>
<p>*With all due respect, Harvard students are seldom accused of lacking "pride" in their school; if anything, outsiders (with perhaps a touch of jealousy?) regularly accuse them of excessive pride (ie, "arrogance".)</p>
<p>*Perhaps due to this pride (often muffled in the face of the standard accusations of "arrogance") Harvard students seldom feel the need to denounce their academic or athletic "rivals" - proclaiming that Stanford, MIT, Yale, Princeton etc. "suck", etc etc.</p>
<p>*This failure to regularly denounce their rivals, or to paint their faces Crimson and dance around a bonfire to get worked up before the big Dartmouth game or whatever, can either be viewed as more of that pride (ie, "arrogance") - or as a lack of "school spirit". I tend to view it as the former.</p>
<p>I commend to all this classic editorial on the topic from the student newspaper at Berkeley:</p>
<p>I know that if I got into Harvard and Yale, I'd go to Yale and if I got into Harvard and Princeton, I'd go to Princeton, no question.</p>
<p>Pepis had always attached CocaCola in their ads, but CocaCola have never done that.</p>
<p>(byerly's The Daily Californian article is exactly expressing my idea applied onto colleges.)</p>
<p>Addressing the OP's message, I will say, "So what?" Is this a useful criterion to apply to a school that has one of the strongest programs in the country in most of the major fields it offers, has an unmatched college library, has art museums that would be the envy of most big cities, and has a diverse, interesting, high-achieving group of entering first-year students each year? What do I care how much rah-rah there is on campus if there is serious academics and serious extracurricular activities of all kinds on campus? </p>
<p>P.S. I'm not a Harvard alumnus, nor am I the parent of a Harvard applicant (at least not this year). I'm just a graduate of a nonillustrious state university who has traveled to Harvard's campus for business trips on various occasions in the 1980s and 1990s, who likes to join issue with arguments that aren't fully fleshed out yet by thoughtful debate.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I know that if I got into Harvard and Yale, I'd go to Yale and if I got into Harvard and Princeton, I'd go to Princeton, no question.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You're obviously the minority.</p>
<p>Is it a true sibling rivalry?</p>
<p>To the editor:
......</p>
<p>Harvard couldn't care less about beating Yale, on or off the football field. As a recent alum of the former school and a new student at the latter, I've been amazed at the one-sided nature of this supposed rivalry. At Harvard, few people ever mentioned Yale, let alone in a competitive spirit. Yet here, and on the pages of this publication in particular, more attention is paid to the Cambridge counterparts than is healthy or appropriate. It is rare to read an entire issue of the News without coming across the word "Harvard." I can assure this paper's readers that Harvard's daily, The Crimson, mentions Yale far less frequently.</p>
<p>I think the explanation for this phenomenon is as simple for Harvard kids to understand as it is painful for Yalies to hear. Harvard is better, plain and simple. If Harvard-Yale was a sibling rivalry, Harvard would be the older, more successful and accomplished child. Yale, on the other hand, would be the modestly talented younger sibling who has grown up, ever envious, in the shadow of its older brother. With the 120th playing of The Game upon us, Yale students would do well to realize and accept their perpetual inferiority and move on with their lives. As older siblings, we Harvard kids still love you, even though we pity and mock your lesser talents (except, of course, for your outstanding Law School).</p>
<p>Daniel E. Fernandez LAW '06</p>
<p>November 14, 2003</p>
<p>I don't know how everyone started talking about yale. My OP was solely directed at Harvard, and the example of yale in the article (given by Northstarmom) was minor and not really glowing about Yale. The point was not about Yale hating Harvard (Byerly) or about cross admit data or about inferiority complexes. It was about how Harvard students lack school spirit and it is becoming an often bemoaned fact of harvard college life. Go to any harvard athletic event, and you will see what I mean, or just read the weekly crimson article on the matter. No one cares save for the game and sometimes men hockey. And its a real shame because Harvard has some really amazing division I teams that get no support. And how impudent is Harvard arrogance, which condescends down at yale for wanting to have a semblance of rivalry, faulting Yale in some sort of sick ego-laden twist of a three hundred year old archrivalry. </p>
<p>I think Byerly brought up one good point lost among his so called "facts" (which at the end sounded more like opinions), that Harvard students really donate at a high degree to the college. I think this is the only relevant argument to show that harvard college kids really do harbor some (hidden) love of harvard. That harvard college students think they are the best and therefore don't participate in any sort of school pride is bogus. Take Duke and UNC. I know Duke has a major superiority complex over UNC. It doesn't lessen their enthusiasm one ounce when Duke plays UNC - just watch in a few days.</p>
<p>I find your response confusing, since the matter of "school spirit" (whatever that is) cannot be gauged in a vacuum, but must be viewed in context - ie, relative to schools that - presumably - come up to the posters apparent standards, spirit-wise.</p>
<p>Quite simply, I believe the whole issue is overdone. What happened, apparently is that a female sportswriter for the Crimson got her nose out of joint because the women's ice hockey team drew "only" 1,000 fans to a game, whereas the men banged the place out to the tune of 2,800 a few nights earlier.</p>
<p>I say, so what? It was ever thus. Perhaps womens' basketball games draw big at UConn and Tennessee, but generally speaking few womens sports draw enough paying customers to break even. (I hasten to add that I am a long-time supporter of womens lacrosse, and have been regularly attending games for years.)</p>
<p>Sure, attendence at football games is down, but that is true throughout the Ivy League. (I might hazzard a guess that with the H/Y game in Cambridge, Harvard led the league in attendence this year - or came close.)</p>
<p>The reasons for declining attendance at college athletic contests generally (a fact that is disguised by large crowds for "revenue" sports at a small number of schools supplying "professional" entertainment to the masses) are many; most of them (in the Ivy League at least) are, IMHO demographic.</p>
<p>I do not view it as a sign of institutional "ill health" at Harvard or elsewhere that PARTICIPATION in athletics is up, even as the number of spectators is down. I view it, rather, as healthy that more people are DOING even as fewer are WATCHING.</p>
<p>I think one reason may be that Harvard students see themselves as being above things like school spirit? Wrong? Elitist? I don't know. But that is certainly an explanation. They may not see a point in living vicariously through athletes.</p>
<p>You raise a good point in the OP. I suggest three possible explanations for apathy.</p>
<p>Part of the answer may lie in the difference between perception and reality. I suspect too many students select Harvard because of the brand name without fully appreciating all of the pros and cons (and there are many in each camp). When they arrive at campus many are stunned at what they didn't realize. This clearly impacts spirit. In the student review poll 34% H students surveyed indicated they would not go there again.</p>
<p>Second, school spirit is usually most felt at the undergraduate level. At Harvard, because two thirds of the students are older grad students(sometimes much older since Harvard prefers work experience before grad school), undergrads are diluted to the extent that they are a small minority. They are unlikely to do some of the silly school spirit things when so many older, more serious grad students are walking around.</p>
<p>Third, President Summers is not a rah, rah guy. He does little to lift spirit. In fact he has done much lately to dampen it (particularly with faculty and women). He is not a leader of people.</p>
<p>On another note I don't think it makes any sense to attack the article's author. I don't think the essential message was a surprise to anyone. As the OP stated this was an issue long before the article.
Note to OP: Yale was clearly brought up as a diversion. An attempt to move people away from the essential message (a lack of school spirit at H).<br>
Don't be surprised if there is an attempt to get nasty and get this whole thread wiped out.</p>
<p>I think it is true that Harvard students are less inclined towards spectator sports than the general population, and less inclined than the general population to yell "you suck" when they do attend a sporting event. I don't really view either of these as a particular negative (in fact, I view the latter as a positive).</p>
<p>Other than football, I don't think I ever attended a sporting event while at Harvard except for those where either I was competing or a good friend was competing. There were just too many other things to be doing.</p>
<p>Why do you trivialize school spirit? It certainly means much more than yelling a profanity or attending a game.</p>
<p>As an inveterate sports fan - of both amateur and professional teams - I must admit that HH05's point about people "living vicariously" though teams strikes close to home. </p>
<p>The past year, triumphs by the Red Sox, Patriots and Harvard football have improved my mental attitude - or at least given me much joy.</p>
<p>That said, I do not look down on people who find this kind of diversion unnecessary to their mental health or spiritual well-being.</p>
<p>Despite my own addiction, I refuse to condemn others who do not share it.</p>