<p>Going to college at a place like HYP – or even Wesleyan or Vassar – is a profoundly conventional thing to do. Whatever the culture of the campus may be, the* task* is always about following instructions, meeting deadlines, etc. That’s just as true whether you’re a prep aiming for Goldman Sachs or a vegan wearing black and proclaiming your pansexuality. You express your creativity within a controlled framework of expectations.</p>
<p>This is a little less true somewhere like Hampshire where the borders of things like courses, grades, and assignments are more fluid. But the “elites,” even crunchy ones like Oberlin, are highly structured institutions, just like giant public schools. Given that, it is not surprising that truly unconventional people don’t go there. They shouldn’t. People who do not want to follow rules and jump through hoops are not a fit for a traditional bachelor’s program.</p>
<p>Hanna, while that’s certainly true, there are elite schools that are willing to take a chance on a person who displays an unusual sort of intellect, even if that person has not followed the traditional or perfect formula to admission. It isn’t a question of Harvard or Hampshire, there are plenty of mainstream elites that are eager to nurture this kind of student. </p>
<p>Nor is this an issue of whether to admit a noncompliant hippy personality who hasn’t demonstrated any ability to follow the demands of a traditional undergraduate institution. I think this discussion started out with the premise of a good student who showed brilliance in a creative area.</p>
<p>Vendler is mourning the loss of the centrality of the arts to the ideal of liberal education:</p>
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<p>Her essay is interesting in that it assumes a nationalistic role for Harvard as the principal nursery of American cultural achievements (a highly debatable assumption-I realize her primary audience are the readers of the Harvard alumni magazine so that can be excused). This quote comes from a paragraph in which she wonders how posterity will remember the United States. Her tone is really elegiac. I doubt that the global elite that Harvard now aspires to train would even recognize her concerns as valid. It’s also interesting that the poets she cites as unadmissible to Harvard today (Eliot, e.e.cummings, Wallace Stevens) got in because someone did the equivalent of making a phone call. When that’s done today, it’s seen as proof of [insert elite U’s] corruption and hypocrisy.</p>
<p>I agree with post #15. There is just no pleasing this crowd. On one thread, high-end schools in general and Harvard in particular are called “corrupt” and scolded for considering anything in admissions beyond objective academic factors (read: SAT and GPA). </p>
<p>But over here, high-end schools in general and Harvard in particular are scolded for lacking institutional clairvoyance and instead relying on “conventional” measures of achievement in making admissions decisions.</p>
<p>The real challenge is identifying the “unconventionally brilliant” while they are still in high school. The elites are probably far better at this than other excellent colleges. They turn down plenty of students with near-perfect scores and grades (who would be automatic admits anywhere else) in order to admit students with amazing musical talent, significant inventions, demonstrated leadership, etc.</p>
<p>The problem is that not all students who will be brilliant in some unconventional way as adults display their talents by age 18. Even a holistic admissions process that attempts to look beyond grades and scores will have difficulty spotting those later bloomers.</p>
<p>Coureur, maybe I’m misreading, but I thought the point was that there was something in the application that did suggest something exceptional. That’s the part that Harvard may be missing: whether to value that exceptional creativity or dismiss it. It’s not strictly a matter of ignoring conventional markers but of looking more closely and considering the merits of the person who shows unusual talent in one area. I do think it’s possible to spot at least some of these kids at 18 if that’s something the school wants to do.</p>
<p>What I took from the article and what I do think is valid is that Harvard and schools like Harvard may lose something when creativity isn’t especially valued in admissions. Don’t get me wrong. I know there are many exceptionally talented, bright kids at the school. What I don’t know is whether there are unconventional thinkers who bring something different to the table. That’s for Harvard to decide and for those who want to attend Harvard to weigh when choosing the school.</p>
<p>Let me be clear though. I don’t think the creative, unconventional kids lose. Perhaps they don’t head to Harvard. But, if my kid’s experience is at all typical, they’re eagerly welcomed elsewhere and they find community at those places.</p>
<p>It’s true that the IB/consulting firms have a huge attrition rate for entry-level staff. But I don’t know a single “unconventional/unconventionally brilliant” person who would even THINK of taking one of those jobs in the first place. It would likely be anathema to them, a form of “selling out” or “working for the man” or falling prey to corporate servitude. I also challenge the idea that many people one would consider “unconventional,” especially in the arts, would find Harvard an especially stimulating environment upon visiting. There are many other places where an artsy, creative student would find far more perceived peers, and most of them are not in the Ivy League at all.</p>
<p>Harvard has a lot of awfully creative people – maybe not as many as Yale, but close. I don’t know why any of you think that someone who is both creative and intellectual wouldn’t feel at home at Harvard, and with a critical mass of peers.</p>
<p>When my daughter was transferring into a public high school, we let her choose between an academic magnet school and an arts magnet school. Her initial inclination was to go to the arts school, which was considerably more attractive in terms of location and physical plant, and where she had at least one pretty good friend from her dance program. After substantial visits at both schools, she chose the academic magnet – because she thought the kids who chose the academic magnet were producing better art than the kids at the arts magnet (at least in writing, theater, and visual art, probably not so much for dance or popular music, and classical music was a push).</p>
<p>In terms of that passage quoted above about how the “campaign” for Harvard begins in pre-school . . . My guess is that things like that have the Harvard admissions people tearing their hair out. They would be thrilled to take the late-blossoming artistic genius, if they can identify him or her, and get the genius to apply. (Not every kid whose mom and art teacher thinks she’s a genius, of course, but a few of them.) </p>
<p>The big problem is that the Harvard admissions office probably does a better job identifying unconventional genius than the guidance counselors at most large public high schools, or than their high school peers. The genius will go to a guidance counselor, who will say “Harvard? No way!” And the genius will go on CC for chances and get told that even to ask with such awful stats is an insult, and get called dumb and unqualified for having 2200 SATs. So the genius will assume these people have some sort of clue, and look elsewhere. And of course if a few such geniuses do apply, some of them will get rejected anyway, confirming the opinions of everyone around them that they shouldn’t have bothered applying in the first place. The Harvard admissions office tries to encourage more of them to apply, eliciting howls of derision about how they are just trying to lower their admission rate.</p>
<p>Harvard doesn’t especially value creative talent? Scroll through these lists (they link to different sections of the same very long list) and then come back and tell us again about how Harvard is missing out on admitting creative people:</p>
<p>Ha! That list isn’t even complete! The music list is missing Stefan Jackiw, an A-list classical violinist who graduated a few years ago, as well as most of the members of Minneapolis indie bands Trip Shakespeare and Semisonic. (Yes, Dan Wilson, who sometimes gets to write with Taylor Swift, is a Harvardian.)</p>
<p>I wonder if Gish Jen and Mira Nair knew each other . . . .</p>
<p>This focus on Harvard is hilarious. I am married to a Harvard grad and socialized with some in her alumni circle. This reverance for Harvard as an institution that sets the standard for collegiate excellence is misplaced. If we are talking about a school for the unconventionally brilliant, it’s Brown. The kicker is whether you are talking Rhodes, Fulbrights, or other more conventional signatures of achievement, Brown does as well or better than the more conventional schools like HYP. Think for a moment. Its curriculum encourages intellectual exploration and creative thinking. Neither Harvard nor Princeton do. Yale does to an extent that approximates Brown.</p>
<p>True story. There was a Brown undergraduate who transferred to Harvard thinking that Harvard’s plethora of material resources would lead to a more intellecutually expansive experience. Her name I believe as Roark. She later transferred back to Brown. Why? Much of the resources of Harvard were off limits to undergraduates, and she found the atmosphere stultifying and the students about as bright as the Brown students but not nearly as interesting or excited about the courses they were taking.</p>
<p>For some reason, Brown is very underrated on this board. It is ridiculously hard to get into, for the intellectually curious, and, yet, offers all of the conventional opportunities of any of the ivies, including Harvard. Open your eyes people.</p>