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<p>Fair enough. But Charles Darwin, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Pablo Picasso, George Bernard Shaw, and Ludwig Wittgenstein were all people who either struggled with or rebelled against formal secondary education before going on to produce works of genius in their respective fields. They were not the conformist types who would do well in todays elite college admissions game. Of course, Harvard may be right that their non-conformist approaches and outside-the-box thinking would not have made these people best suited to gain from the Harvard experience. But let’s be clear, then, that notwithstanding its claims, Harvard is not necessarily seeking out the “best and the brightest.” It’s seeking out those among the best and the brightest who also fit a certain mold: diligent, high-achiever types who dot all their i’s and cross all their t’s, and who perform well in conventional instructional settings.</p>