I find this statement to be very interesting. From what I’ve gathered from friends who attended/taught at Harvard and my own observations, students who tended to gravitate towards socially exclusive organizations like Final Clubs or fraternities/sororities tend to be quite conformist.
Most actual non-conformists…especially to mainstream American upper/upper-middle class norms commonplace in many private elite colleges and moreso…most such socially exclusive organizations tend to do their utmost to avoid having any association with such organizations beyond possibly being hired to perform their art/music for some cash.
Yeah, I meant raised drinking age. Der. I graduated from Yale in 1980, and the Greek presence was tiny. Most of the social action was in the residential colleges, and there were lots of social events sponsored by the residential college that featured alcohol. Those have all been more or less eliminated–and those that persist are marred by students who have “pre-gamed.” I’ll bet that the growth in Greeks began in the late 80’s.
Perhaps those non-conformists who will eschew Harvard because of the restriction on finals clubs will go to Princeton instead so they can “bicker.”
I predict applications to Harvard next year will increase, again. That’s been the case with the other schools that have taken similar (or more extreme) steps to ban membership in fraternities (Amherst, Williams, Midd, Wesleyan, etc). For every student unhappy with such a policy there seem to be more who welcome it.
“I’ll be very surprised if Harvard becomes less desirable to any prospective student because of this policy.”
Oh, there may well be some. But that’s OK with me. Harvard’s power gives it a lot of wiggle room. Suppose this policy cut desirability in half and the admit rate skyrocketed to 10%. Well, that’s where it was just a few years ago, and Harvard did OK then.
“Yeah, I meant raised drinking age.”
I agree that these societies are overwhelmingly about access to alcohol. That’s why they have grown so much. They don’t attract a lot of nonconformists, either.