<p>Miami, I hope you won’t take it badly if I remind you that it’s dangerous to extrapolate from only one data point. Certainly, I did know some rich, WASPy people at Harvard (and some more who weren’t quite Thurston Howell III, but *really *wanted to be), but they weren’t anything like a majority. In my day, they were quite outnumbered both by very artsy free spirits, who wore black and smoked clove cigarettes, and by people who were neither SoHo nor the Hamptons. </p>
<p>As for taking oneself seriously, I think most Harvard undergraduates learn pretty quickly not to. If you spend four years at Harvard constantly thinking you’re the smartest person in the room, it’s a very good bet you’re constantly wrong!</p>
<p>Gibby, for what it’s worth, you know Yale College’s degree in theatre is nothing like the Yale School of Drama’s M.F.A., right? The M.F.A. is a performance degree, but the College’s B.A. in theatre is very academic. A little bit like Harvard College’s A.B. in Music, which is not a performance degree at all. Back in the '80s, at least, the joke was that Harvard believed its Department of Music should be seen and not heard.</p>
<p>But I’m sorry your daughter isn’t happy. I’m sure that’s not fun for either of you!</p>