I thought that this was an April Fool’s joke but today is September 7th.
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For decades, thousands of students at Harvard and other prestigious schools would arrive on campus, strip down, and pose in front of a camera with four-inch metal pins sticking out of their spines, essentially turning them into human porcupines.
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4 inch pins? What?
The article is about Harvard, and suggests that Hillary had to do this. But Hillary went to Wellesley and Yale Law.
A photographic technique used in Medicine to identify major skeletal landmarks.
Yes, I think the 7 Sisters schools had the students post for the same photographs. When I was a freshman at Princeton in the late 1980s I recall reading an article in the Daily Princetonian about the practice, which thankfully by then had been discontinued.
When I was at Cornell in the 1970s, men took the required swimming test in the nude (in a facility that was only open to men).
Women (who took their test in a facility open to both sexes) wore bathing suits.
Exactly this was my first thought when I just read the headline. (Though I don’t agree with the reason that he gives.)
It wasn’t uncommon to study individuals at “top” institutions to figure out what were the most desirable characteristics (physical and mental) were for couples to consider when finding mates. Shockingly, the results corresponded extremely well with the typical upper class, white men and women. On the flip side, this was also done at reformatories, hospitals, and prisons in order to prove that certain people were simply of inferior stock.
Though the nude photographs are news to me. Very interesting history!
Some of the 7 sisters had to pose for posture pictures. But that was long ago.
In Erich Segal’s novel The Class, which is set at Harvard in the 1950s, there is a description of the taking of the nude photos. One of the characters wonders what would happen if the photos became public after some of the members of the class had become prominent in their careers later in life. He also wonders whether Radcliffe women also have to have their pictures taken in the nude. The question is left unanswered – perhaps Segal didn’t know the answer.
Erich Segal, like the fictional young men he was writing about, graduated from Harvard in the 1950s, so I think his description of the ritual is likely to be accurate.
Segal taught at Yale in the 60’s
I know he taught at Yale, but he graduated from Harvard. http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/01/love-story-author-erich-segal-72/
Now you’ve got me wondering whether faculty members had their photos taken in the nude, too.
Wow!
good grief.
Its amazing the things that otherwise “intelligent” people will do if asked…
I wonder what would have happened if a student outright refused?
^^^ I wonder that myself. I think that was before “refusing” had been invented, though 
If you read the desperation in some CC threads, I suspect there are students who would do this today if it meant admission to an Ivy.
Ha! @gettingschooled, this would be a great April Fool’s thread to start!
Mens sana in corpore sano or was that Columbia?
We had posture pictures taken at Pembroke (Brown) in the late 1960’s in our underwear. If you failed-and most did–you had to take a semester of an approved gym class and get the picture retaken. I don’t know of anyone of failed the second time.
I don’t know why this is so surprising. If it was the norm, then it was the norm and we don’t tend to challenge norms.
It may have been the 'norm" for those schools, but it wasn’t the norm for those incoming students. I can think of a whole bunch of parents back then who probably would have flipped out at the thought.
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If you read the desperation in some CC threads, I suspect there are students who would do this today if it meant admission to an Ivy.
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so true…and worse.