Every post would include those marked private or invitation only groups
Stanford has the highest yield in the US, including Harvard.
All the posts concerned in the incident were posted in the Harvard group and/or effectively abetted by it as a result. It’s in the Crimson article I linked to earlier.
I’m sorry to say that I’ve seen disappointing posts from educators on sites for professional counselors. The parents here are more measured and wise than some high school counselors I’m running across today. We can note that these kids screwed up without making them into monsters. We know very little about each individual or what else they have to offer the world or how much they may learn from this.
Harvard can and should do what it thinks is best for its class. However, I do not think the students’ sins merit national media attention, which will likely lead them to be outed individually and shamed in their communities. This matter ought to be between Harvard and its applicants. Now, a lot of busybodies will get to work sniffing out which kids in their town announced they were going to Harvard and then suddenly changed their minds or decided to take a gap year.
“This matter ought to be between Harvard and its applicants.”
I agree conceptually. I assume they made it public to discourage other students from similar behavior.
I know it has been said a million times before but it still blows my mind that this generation still does not fully comprehend that what you post on a social media is never private.
I’m not too surprised considering many middle-aged/older adults…including elite college/professional grad school alums who should know better getting nailed for similar/worse practices*.
*I.e. Ibankers…some who were middle-aged senior execs with Top 10 MBA/PhDs using firm computers/internet access to access and exchange pornographic pictures during working hours which scandalized the firm.
I don’t assume that. If Harvard did leak this deliberately, then that would be horrendous, because (1) the description of the worst statements will be wrongly attributed to all and (2) the attention will likely mean that children get outed by name and shunned in their communities. That could genuinely wreck their lives and even lead to suicide.
I deal with a lot of kids who’ve been rescinded, expelled, publicly humiliated, etc. I haven’t lost one yet, but like my psychiatrist mother, I have to be ready for the likelihood that I won’t be able to say that at the end of my career. So I really hope that the snitch called the Crimson, not that Harvard leaked.
Just to be clear, Harvard admissions did not make this public; it was reported by The Harvard Crimson, which probably picked up the topic from Reddit, where it have existed for several weeks. Personally, I’m not going to look for conspiracy theories here.
Out of curiosity, why the casting of aspersions on the individual for notifying the Crimson about the story by labeling them a “snitch”?
Could a social media site be setup such that it’s a violation of the TOS to share any postings outside the site? Could the members of the group agree to legally binding non-disclosure agreements? If so, in the future, would Harvard accept or act on information it received in violation of the site’s TOS or a NDA? Do we have any tech lawyers in the group who know how it could all play out?
One fly in the ointment, Harvard isn’t bound by that particular sub-group’s or any outside party’s TOS/NDA unless they were actually one of the parties. While the discloser might be, Harvard isn’t and thus, neither the TOS/NDA could be held against Harvard.
Moreover, there’s a bit of precedence on this as Harvard did act indirectly on a disclosure of an applicant’s name while a criminal case was being processed through Juvie court which by law should have been kept confidential and sealed once the individual turned 18 without any further infractions.
However, the sheriff involved James Metts in the case opted to release her name to the press and an anonymous individual sent an article about the case to Harvard’s adcoms who then opted to rescind her admission for not disclosing a crime she committed as a minor despite the fact it was handled in juvenile court/LEOs who should by law have kept her name confidential considering she was a minor at the time.
Neither Harvard or Columbia cared when they opted to rescind their acceptances once an LEO leaked her name to the press when it shouldn’t have been and then her juvie record was leaked to their offices.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gina_Grant_college_admissions_controversy
“Out of curiosity, why the casting of aspersions on the individual for notifying the Crimson about the story by labeling them a “snitch”?”
It’s been widely reported that one group member turned in all the others. I’m speculating that the same person may have called in the press. I don’t think that sunshine was beneficial to anyone except the Crimson and its advertisers. The discipline should have remained between Harvard and these families. If your child had this information, would you advise them to publicize it?
Snitch is a pretty casual term to me, but I grant that others may not see it that way. There doesn’t seem to be a neutral word for This concept: whistleblower is strongly positive to my ear, and tattle, snitch, and rat are all negative.
Anybody who grew up with a sibling or raised 2+ kids can probably think of times when a kid reported someone else’s misbehavior for less than appealing reasons (notably the joy of seeing a sibling punished). There’s the drive for justice and then there’s getting a sadistic kick out of watching somebody else get whacked. We don’t know what’s going on here, but I can tell you that I see a lot of the latter both in families and in school discipline situations.
“Leaker”? Seems to be positive or negative depending on one’s point of view on the subject.
““Leaker”? Seems to be positive or negative depending on one’s point of view on the subject.”
Yes, though that term only applies to sharing info with the press. If you go to the FBI or the vice principal with the same info, I wouldn’t call it a leak.
Why would any social media site want to do that? Part of social media sites’ revenue and notoriety comes from sharing things widely. I think any site that began as a private place would quickly go public. I mean, that’s essentially what all the social media services that currently exist today started as.
I think it’s kind of pointless to speculate what Harvard might do if some hypothetical social media site with some hypothetical TOS existed in the future…especially given that this kind of TOS is really unlikely.
I see this as a violation of the code of conduct. Virtually every university has its own code of conduct regardless of whether it is a private university or a public university. I would not be surprised of a similar outcome if it occurred at UCB or any other major public university.
@TiggerDad No, it wasn’t sarcasm at all. They were rescinded in April and still had ample time to choose a different school. It is safe to say that out of 10 Harvard admits, at least some of them also had admissions to other top schools and will be attending one of them in the fall. My point was that these kids will probably make out just fine. They’ll just be sharing their views on another campus instead of Harvard’s. None of their lives have been ruined because they will be attending Yale, or Duke, or their state flagship.
I never said that Harvard was everyone’s first choice. My S1 was admitted to Harvard and it wasn’t even amongst his top 5. However,if the rescinded students were planning to attend Harvard it was their 1st choice, and somewhere else had to be their 2nd choice. Pretty straightforward and I don’t know how you inferred anything offensive in that.
According to the Today Show, only 35% of college admissions offices check social media sites for all of their applicants. What do the other guys do?
The Crimson article specifically stated that their sources were “members of the group” and other admitted students and that Harvard refused to comment.