I Didn’t Get into Harvard

Thin Envelope

Full disclosure:  I didn’t get into Harvard.  I first tried as a high school senior.  My grades were good but not great (enough).  But I did have some great (enough) standardized test scores, particularly in American History.  I led our Ohio State High School Social Studies State Championship Team (go Wyoming!!!). And I had a great interview when we visited the campus, so I hoped that, combined with my “non-academics”, it might be enough to push me over the edge.  After all, Harvard could choose all the “4.0’s” they wanted.  Maybe they needed to academically “diversify” their incoming class of 1974.

And for a brief twenty-four hours, I thought it worked.  My guidance counselor took me out of class to tell me that her “contact” at Harvard admissions said I was “in”.  For that moment, I was literally walking on clouds.  But the clouds disappeared the next afternoon, when I received the desperately thin envelope with the two paragraph letter on Harvard Admissions stationary.  “Thanks for applying, but you did not make the class.  Good luck in your future endeavors.”

Sure, there might have been grounds for appeal, but I was seventeen, and if they didn’t want me I didn’t want them, I guess.  I moved onto other institutions, ultimately visiting Denison University in Granville, Ohio, on an October day with the leaves in full fall bloom.  They absolutely wanted me, and I was happy to oblige.  As the saying goes, “no regrets”.

No Regrets

Well, maybe a few.  Denison led to teaching, and Watkins Memorial High School, but three years into my career the school district was in financial trouble. I decided to go to law school (Dad said “It’s about time!!”).  And I took one more shot at Harvard, this time with a much better college grade-point, and more great standardized test scores.  The “quirk” was that I was also a three-year teacher and coach.  

But, again, I got that thin letter with the embossed crimson symbol.  I went to the University of Cincinnati Law School, and after the first semester made my “final decision”.  I came back to Watkins, to teach and coach, and made a career of it.  Forty-five years later, as the saying still goes, “no regrets”.

The Best

Why apply to Harvard?  Jimmy Carter, entitled his 1975 auto-biography, Why Not the Best (he went to Annapolis).  And long before I joined his campaign, I knew I wanted to try for “the best”.  Rank universities in the United States based on almost any academic criteria; Harvard is on top.  Seven US Presidents went to Harvard including two of my heroes, Franklin D Roosevelt and John F Kennedy (much later, Barack Obama joined that list as well).  It is the premiere academic institution in the Nation.  So, if you think there’s a “shot”, why not the best?

Which is exactly why the Trump Administration takes aim specifically at Harvard.  It is the best, the symbol of American excellence in intellectualism.  And the “intellectuals” in the MAGA movement (some of whom actually went to Harvard) are following the authoritarian “playbook” to power.  One of those “plays” is to create a scapegoat, someone or something to blame for “everything” that’s wrong with America.  One of those scapegoats clearly is the “brown” people, particularly migrants.  They are blamed for everything: higher taxes, medical costs, unemployment, and increasing crime (none of which is actually true).  

Money

But the other is American intellectuals, defined by MAGA-world as those who are “woke”.  Here’s a “lower level” thought problem.  If intellectuals are “woke”, and “woke” is bad, then the highest concentration of intellectuals in the Nation must be the “woke-ist”, and therefore the “baddest”.  And where is that located?  Cambridge, Massachusetts; the University located on Harvard Square.

If Trump and his MAGA/Project 2025 anti-intellectuals can force Harvard to “knuckle-under”, as they were able to do to another premier institution, Columbia University, then they can ultimately control them all.  Harvard has the largest private endowment of any university in the Nation, $41 billion.  Columbia is 12^th with $11.57 billion (NCES).  My Denison has an endowment of $1.1 billion.   It is that endowment that allows universities to have some independence from the Federal money that infiltrates almost every school.  The “Fed” not only gives research grants, but also controls the ability for students to use Federally based student loans.  

Woke is the Enemy

What does MAGA-world want with Harvard?  They asked for literal control of the curriculum, a complete reform of admissions policy, a remake of the academic governing structure, and more (Harvard).  They want to recreate Harvard along the model of MAGA/Project 2025’s favorite university, Hillsdale College in Michigan.  Hillsdale is the bastion of not just conservative thought, but the home to the anti-intellectual reforms of public schools and universities in the United States.  Want professors to stop talking about “controversial” subjects (Ohio Senate Bill 1)?  That came from Hillsdale.  Want American History taught like it was in the 1950’s, with no “woke” civil rights or civil protests or Black contributions?  Check out Hillsdale’s 1776 Project. 

If “woke” is the enemy, Harvard is at the core and the ultimate scapegoat.  It is the university most financially capable of surviving a Federal “storm” of cuts and attacks.  If Trump can knock off Harvard, then the entire academic world must “come to heel”. 

And that should sound familiar.  Authoritarians like Vladimir Putin, use the full power of the government to stifle any opposing views.  Sure, Harvard administrators aren’t falling out of high windows, yet.  But this is a dangerous step away from what American freedom and democracy means.