Wed 8 Aug 2007
Wick Sloane ‘76 has stories from the wait-list.
Let’s dispense with my first encounter. This was an entitled, highest-honor, elite prep school, Latin prizewinner, classical diploma, varsity rower, community leader, Middle East Prize winner, with APs in hard sciences and classics. Harvard deferred her early decision application to regular admission in April. In April? Wait listed. In late June? Rejected. This one is my own daughter, that’s how I know. My question: Why the six months of water torture? Take her, don’t take her. Of course I hoped she’d be admitted. In the end, what I can’t understand is the six months. She started with a worthy record and kept racking up successes. The wait, I think, was mean of Harvard but a fair fight within the social and economic strata on both sides.
My current encounter is a formerly homeless mother from Manchester, N. H., who found her way to a 4.0 average at Bunker Hill Community College and a Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship. She lives with her daughter and works four jobs. She’s on the Harvard wait list. Read for yourself this story in the Boston Globe and have a look on ABC News. A couple of weeks ago, Harvard reiterated that there is still no room, though the student is welcome to stay on the wait list. Is the wait list ranked? Where does the student stand? No ranking. If openings occur, Harvard related to the student, the committee pulls out each person on the wait list “to see if there is anything new in the file.”
New in the file? She’s already an advocate for homeless and domestic-violence victims, advising state commissioners from her own experience. What else is there? Win Wimbledon?
Never hurts.
August 8th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
If Sloane’s suspicion about the wait list process is correct, then some of our most reputable institutions are, in my opinion, corrupt. My idealistic side prefers not to believe that conclusion.
August 8th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Wake up, Frank. Wick is spot on.
August 8th, 2007 at 4:01 pm
Interviews with Harvard alum around the country play a crucial role in Harvard admissions. Two old friends of mine do interviews for Harvard in San Francisco. They feel that Harvard does not take the very best students, the young men and women my friends think are really the best and try to push. Harvard has its own idea of the best all around student and shy away from the truly original. People who work in admissions departments were rarely outstanding students themselves. I think they resent true intellectuals and discriminte against them.
August 8th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I don’t understand why people want to go to Harvard as undergraduates… but I don’t live very comfortably in a “brand name” world so maybe that’s why I don’t see the attraction.
Wick perfectly describes the negotiation process I’ve just watched a Harvard alum (and major volunteer fundraiser for Harvard) successfully engage in for his son. The boy was happily going to a great liberal arts college (not Williams, though) in three weeks and really doesn’t want to start Harvard in a year from September (or ever). But the pressure from all sides (except from a few brave friends who are no longer welcome in the boy’s house) is monumental, and he’s going, after a suitably crafted gap year (bribe? the best glittering experience that Daddy could provide?).
On top of everythng else, the process is not only corrupt but corrupting.
August 8th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
If Sloane is spot on, then my cynical side cheers to my idealistic side, “I told you so” and “what did you expect, you moron?”.
August 9th, 2007 at 8:09 am
The story continues –
Last week, someone from Harvard registrar’s office called this student to review her transcript. H. needed more info from Bunker Hill. So, the student went to the BHCC registrar and they sent along the information. “What’s up?” said the student to Harvard. No, this doesn’t mean there is an opening, said H, we are just reviewing the top candidates on the wait list. That was a week ago.
This is just as the student has happily signed on at BU. As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods, they kill us for their sport.
As to comment above, I agree on reasons for not going to Harvard. This situation came to my attention only after she was on the wait list,. Williams and Amherst admissions are coming to visit in a few weeks. This is great but most community college students are older than Williams seniors, so this one is a tough social fit. Smith and Mount Holyoke have funded programs for older woment. That’s where I wish this student was going.
Harvard alumni, who are smarter than I am (they went to Harvard), affirm something called the Z list. Entry fee $1 million. It seems your child must be practically perfect in every way, but if so, he/she is in. As you can see in full text of the essay David posted. Sen. Grassley agrees something is rotten in Cambridge.
Treatment of this student does make Williams look good. I know Williams will not blink in turning away alumni children. However, the stories I hear show far more considerateness — declaring game over at the interview — and no power games.
August 9th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Isn’t possible that Harvard may have more info— a fuller picture– on this formerly homeless woman than we do, and as a result, be better able to make a more informed decision in this matter than we can? Harvard,like Williams, has a demonstrated track record of offering disadvantaged candidates admissions. This track record and, more importantly, the yearly profiles on admitted students at Harvard, fly in the face of an earlier poster’s assertion that Harvard admissions people resent true intellectuals and discriminte against them. Utter nonsense.
August 9th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Wick,
You are right about Smith and Holyoke as providing very supportive programs for older (”reentry”) women. That also trickles down in terms of being more supportive of the younger students than many other schools are. Being an older student is always difficult at a residential-type institution — I remember a few Vietnam vets of our era who, not surprisingly, had a struggle socially at Williams (but who added enormously to the college and to experiences of those of us who were fortunate enough to know them).
What I don’t understand about Harvard is what Harvard “needs” another $1 million here and there for. The endowment is already grossly bloated and does not serve the educational community’s reputation well on many fronts. Those who want to attend Harvard and are accepted are treated as princelings; the vast majority of students who apply to colleges and the colleges themselves have monumental monetary needs but the extraordinary sums locked up in Harvard’s coffers do them no good.
August 9th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Re: Harvard and better information.
Don’t know name of post author.
I take Harvard at it’s word — that, by definition, someone on the wait list is qualified and able to attend. My issue here is whether the wait list is an appropriate decision for such students. Their lives have no room for the ambiguity. I suggested to one of my family-with-name-on-Harvard-building friends, who has been helpful here, that if Harvard can’t offer such nontraditional students a place in April, reject them then. Harvard is free to keep it’s own wait list of those rejected. If something changes, who’s going to turn down a call from Harvard? Let these students move on.
By putting her on the waitlist, Harvard by its own rules has said this student is qualified. Why the telephone calls from the registrar in August? If Harvard had rejected this student in April, I’d be silent on the whole issue.
August 9th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Maybe these applicants should be aiming for schools other than Harvard… why the obsession with this one university when they may in fact be happier or better suited at other places?
Too bad these qualified individuals are such slaves for brand names.
August 10th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
I think we all tend to gravitate towards the names we’ve heard of. Years ago, someone told me that any kind of publicity, even mindless pablum or unfavorable, tends to increase membership in institutions.
Harvard is a publicity machine.
We could help Williams and other educational institutions by even such small things as making sure that our initiatives and reports are always labeled with the appropriate college’s name. Have you ever noticed that everything at Harvard gets publicity as “the Harvard University” this or that? I’m not a fan of branding, but we live in the real world. Packaging and positioning for marketing should be thought about each time the college undertakes something.
August 13th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
Don’t all students apply to college knowing that they may be wait-listed? Students can elect to opt-out of the wait-list sweepstakes any time after they are initially notified, thus ending the ambiguity in their lives. Last year, my friend’s daughter waited until mid-August to find out she would not be accepted at one NESCAC institution. Harvard is only one of hundreds of the colleges that wait-lists kids, so why are they singled out here? I believe though that wait-listed students at Harvard are often offered positions in the following class ( the next year ) if they choose to take a year off– correct me if I’m wrong on that. The kids I really feel badly for are those who get flat-out rejected.
August 15th, 2007 at 4:40 am
“Too bad these qualified individuals are such slaves for brand names.”
Ronit, are you aware of the field called “the economics of information.” About dozen economics Nobel prizes in the last 30 years have gone to the people whose work shows (among other things) that brand names do matter. A lot. The Spence signaling model is a case in point here.
August 15th, 2007 at 6:22 am
But matter a lot for largely, what I would call, superficial reasons.
August 15th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
Breaking News:
Harvard accepted the student yesterday, Tuesday. And she has accepted Harvard.
Liz Tilley of Williams Admissions visits Bunker Hill Community College August 28, thanks to the kind help of Morty Schapiro and Dick Nesbitt.