<p>From what I've heard, people talk of it as a super-elite-rich-WASP-legacy-group that is outside of Harvard's jurisdiction. Is that true? Can anyone elaborate on this? Will not joining something such as this hurt your undergraduate experience?</p>
<p>Since no one has replied...</p>
<p>There are several finals clubs. The only person I know personally who was a member was in Porcellian, and perfectly met the criteria you cite, for what it's worth. On the other hand, others who met that criteria chose not to join any of them. I think that finals clubs have no effect on the undergrad experience of the vast majority of students, but perhaps a current Harvard student will comment if you ask in the Harvard forum.</p>
<p>seems to be a delicate subject since no-one has elaborated on anything about it in the Harvard forum.</p>
<p>As with Yale's secret societies, these are joined by only a very small proportion of students. Consolation is correct that they have little to no effect on most undergrads.</p>
<p>People not responding in the Harvard forum has nothing to do with the topic being a "delicate subject." People are not responding because there are a lot of new threads in that forum that appear to simply repeat stereotypes, and yours fits that mold. If you do a search of the forum, you'll find many, many threads discussing the issue.</p>