@LadyMeowMeow - I think Harvard, and all of its peers, do the best they can to evaluate candidates meticulously with the limited information they’re provided (essays, recs, grades, scores and the occasional supplemental submission). They don’t claim to know everything, which is why if new information comes to light which, if known previously, would have resulted in a different decision, Harvard reserves its right to change that decision. Asking Harvard to spell out exactly what rules, if violated, would result in them rescinding an offer is akin to asking them to spell out exactly what criteria one needs to fulfill to be admitted in the first place. In both cases, there’s no magic formula - and they wouldn’t want to divulge it even if there were one.
The more interesting point, to my mind - which some have flagged - is that if these students had published these memes after they’d enrolled at Harvard, it’s highly unlikely that the punishment would be expulsion. I guess Harvard holds students to a higher standard pre-enrollment for no other reason than it’s easier to rescind an offer than expel someone.
Before writing recommendations, many teachers and counselors require students to provide a resume or “brag sheet” that lists their ECs, awards, and other accomplishments.
Do ethics dictate that teachers can only use these brag sheets to remind themselves of aspects of their students’ lives that they may have known but forgotten, or can they use them to incorporate information they have never directly observed into their recommendations?
@DeepBlue86 Yes, which is why I think Harvard should rethink its braggadocious claim that “personal qualities and character provide the foundation upon which each admission rests.” Do they really believe that? Does anyone?
In light of so many admitted students demonstrating poor character, perhaps it’s time for Harvard to admit that their system has serious flaws. Why continue to put “character” at the center of your admissions when you can’t or won’t define “character” and have limited data and no reliable method to determine it?
I don’t know if I buy into the “second chances” mentality. I tend to lean towards the idea that if you screw up an opportunity, that opportunity is gone. There may be other opportunities down the road, but as a general rule of thumb, each screw up narrows your path a little. That’s the inevitable consequence. Some people are painting it as “Harvard or nothing”, but really, it’s just “not Harvard”. That’s still a ludicrously wide path.
As for the race, gender, and SES of these kids-my personal observation is that this behavior comes from kids who are either immune from, or insensitive to repercussions for their behavior. That, and as Jennifer Aniston once so famously put it “lacking a sensitivity chip”. I see that in humans from all over, unfortunately.
We were on vacation when this came out, and it led to some interesting conversations (because we have extended time all together because we’re on vacation). Lots of discussion about context-we’ve played Cards Against Humanity (although not together with the kids because ew), and public face versus private face, and I think it was helpful for them to see that there are nuances of appropriateness that not every teenager is aware of or understands well.
I will go further and say that it is likely that Harvard and most other colleges have students enrolled who are doing something similar as we speak. We have been discussing these incidents for years on this forum.
A few months back Princeton suspended the swimming and diving teams season after discovering a university sponsored listserv distributing “vulgar and offensive material that was racist and misogynistic” in nature. Last Fall we discussed for weeks Harvard’s canceling of the men’s soccer season upon the discovery of “scouting reports.” They detailed appearance, numerical rating scores, photos, and hypothetical sexual positions” for the members of the women’s team. The men’s wrestling team at Columbia was recently exposed for racist, homophobic and misogynistic comments on GroupMe.
And what about the title of the group chat belonging to the PSU frat that has been in the news? Whoever came up with that has some real issues to resolve.
After presumably meeting their goals one would think these kids would be filled with gratitude and good will. Instead they direct hate towards other groups of people. This is a pervasive social issue that has taken on a life of it’s own. I think everyone here agrees that meaningful consequences are in order. I question the benefit of simply unleashing these kids on another university campus – makes more sense to have consequences that include things that might assist these students in doing some soul searching and rehabilitating themselves.
Aren’t we really talking about getting caught posting vulgar, inappropriate, racist, disgusting material rather than posting said material?
You can say it is being PC, or you can say that if someone is smart enough to get into Harvard, but dumb enough to post such material online without a very very VERY tight control over who is in the group, well, they can go to Yale…
I agree with @MotherOfDragons regarding second chances. Additionally, I think doling out “community service” as a form of punishment does very little to actually change someone’s views. I suspect that the rescinded students had many hours of community service noted in their applications. Hopefully, Harvard considered their actions as evidenced by their posts on the board compared to their words in their applications when they made the decision to rescind.
“if these students had published these memes after they’d enrolled at Harvard, it’s highly unlikely that the punishment would be expulsion. I guess Harvard holds students to a higher standard pre-enrollment for no other reason than it’s easier to rescind an offer than expel someone.”
It is easier, but it’s also qualitatively different to separate a community member as opposed to preventing them from joining a community. I think there is good reason to treat those two actions differently.
We treat choosing not to hire someone and firing someone as completely different acts judged by different standards. The same goes for choosing not to marry someone vs. divorcing someone.
I don’t disagree, @Hanna - that’s what I meant when I said “easier”.
@LadyMeowMeow - yes, the system has plenty of flaws, but I’m not too bothered because the flaw at issue here - lack of information - was ameliorated when Harvard found out about the memes and took the action it did.
There are also some incidental benefits to Harvard from how things played out: (i) they got to do some performative virtue-signaling because this became public, (ii) if they overadmitted, as is rumored, they’ve now reduced the problem by ten people and (iii) their yield may go up slightly, since they may now take some kids off the waitlist who’ll accept immediately.
@DeepBlue86 I agree that Harvard played this scenario right, but I think the “flaw in the system” is much more than a lack of information. It’s structural.
Harvard claims to know how to choose applicants based on personal qualities and character. They don’t, so they’re open to the charge of hypocrisy. With 40K applicants to choose from, the average Harvard admit should be quite saintly, or at least of demonstrably good character, but is there any proof that the undergraduate body at Harvard has better “personal qualities and character” than randomly chosen people?
Innocent until proven guilty. These boneheads proved themselves guilty.
As for over-admitting by ten people, I highly doubt that. They expect very high returns, that’s what the waitlist is for, adding people if their returns drop a little.
And bull about “second chance” - the second chance was when the group was started and people started posting worse and worse things. The “second chance” is YOUR chance to decide the right thing, not the “hey, I got caught, so now I won’t do it again, even though I did it a hundred times”. How can you have remorse for the act if the remorse is only for being caught?
That kind of stuff is hard for my son on the autism spectrum, it shouldn’t be hard for kids not on the spectrum who have the very highest GPAs, test scores, recommendations, and extracurriculars.
“As for over-admitting by ten people, I highly doubt that.”
They over-admitted by 60 or more, by my count. An 84% yield is unprecedented and a 4-point jump over last year. 84% of 2056 is 1727. They are short several dozen beds in the freshman dorms. I don’t know what they’re going to do about it.
I don’t know, you’re right, they are probably all on the autism spectrum and this is a disability discrimination case.
And of course they need to have a second chance from the authorities, just like anyone who spews hate speech couldn’t have taken a few minutes to think over what they are doing, they had to do it.
This woman had only one chance, right? She didn’t have any ability to control herself when her mind said, “oops, I shouldn’t have said that”, “oops, I shouldn’t have said THAT”…
I feel like this story is hitting too close to home for some people. That they were shocked when their little Johnny or Janie was kicked out of something for acting really, really, REALLY stupid. Because heck, they’re just kids. Not the future of the planet or anything.
@LadyMeowMeow - I’m going to have to disagree, because I view what you’re saying as a similar fallacy to that argued by people who say Harvard should just admit the kids with the highest stats. To those people, my answer is: there’s a certain academic bar that you have to clear (that you can do the work necessary to graduate), and then it becomes about everything else you bring to the party.
You’re saying that Harvard should, in effect, rank people by character and use the ranking as a criterion, to which I would respond: if, based on the totality of the application (essays, recs, etc.), Harvard judges you’re of good (as opposed to bad) character, it similarly becomes all about everything else that might make it in Harvard’s interest to admit you rather than lots of other people. You don’t have to be Gandhi (although I’m sure they admit some people they think are comparable to Gandhi) just like you don’t have to be Einstein (although every Harvard class probably has some number of people who might be in Einstein’s league).
In this instance, Harvard received additional information beyond the limited amount in the application, subsequent to admitting these students but prior to their enrolling, that caused it to change its opinion and determine that these students were of bad character. They no longer cleared the character bar, so their admission was rescinded.
@DeepBlue86 No, I’m saying Harvard should stop pretending that they can rank people by character. They can guarantee that their students are smart, have great ECs, are creative and talented, what have you, but as has been shown (and will continue to be shown), they cannot guarantee the slightest thing about morality. They should stop (disingenuously, pompously) claiming that “personal qualities and character provide the foundation upon which each admission rests.” It’s not true, it can’t be true, so they should drop the rhetoric.
But @LadyMeowMeow, where did Harvard ever say that they rank people by character? There is nothing in that Fitzsimmons article that you linked to that could be read that way.
Statements like “students’ intellectual imagination, strength of character, and their ability to exercise good judgment — these are critical factors in the admissions process, and they are revealed not by test scores but by students’ activities outside the classroom, the testimony of teachers and guidance counselors, and by alumni/ae and staff interview reports” and “personal qualities and character provide the foundation upon which each admission rests” and “the admissions committee…takes great care to attempt to identify students who will be outstanding “educators,” students who will inspire fellow classmates and professors” mean nothing more than “if you don’t have the mix of attributes we’re looking for, including a good character - which we’re not going to define for you - we won’t admit you”.
@DeepBlue86 The quotes you provide show that Harvard thinks they CAN judge students’ “strength of character” and “good judgement” by examining activities outside the classroom along with testimony from teachers, GCs, and alumni interviews. My shorthand for that process of judgment is ‘ranking by character.’
And my argument is: for the reasons Hanna and others have canvassed, they can’t do it. Character is not reliably revealed by the things Harvard says it is, so they don’t know anything very meaningful about their applicants’ “character,” so each new scandal gives the lie to their claim that “personal qualities and character provide the foundation upon which each admission rests.”
I think an institution is allowed to ramp up its responses in reaction to the incidents and the overall climate of the time. The more they see it, I think it is a rational reaction to start saying “enough!”. My guess is the wide coverage this story has received will cause many prospective applicants to think twice down the road. Not a bad result, IMO. The purpose of punishments in a society or community are two-fold - they serve as both a learning lesson for the recipient of the punishment and they serve as an example and warning to the community/society at large.