the ch!cktionary

26 Aug 2010
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A Final Word On The “Harvard Factor”

You do ride a lot on your Harvard education, more than you should. Open up your pretty little eyes: Having a Harvard degree, just by itself, is not going to land you places … When you’re at the elite school level, you don’t get compared against the rest of the pool; you get compared against people from other elite schools. Shitty economy aside, it’s still hard to land a job for us, because we have to measure up to brainiacs from other elite schools with a perfect GPA and a bazillion internships. Your Harvard sociology degree will look like shit next to the MIT econ major’s. — Anonymous Reader

You know, I will be the first to say that I’m completely unqualified to be an investment banker. (Hear that, employers? Lena Chen cannot figure out Excel.) I’m also not qualified for a job at a research lab, a paragliding school, or the local zoo. See? Lots of knowledge that a Harvard education doesn’t equip you with!

But seriously? If our major competition consists of MIT econ majors, we do not have it that tough.

I’ve observed that what I wrote about this topic has rubbed a ton of people the wrong way: both the alums of elite institutions and also those who didn’t attend them. I have a theory why:

Those who didn’t go to an elite institution think that the subtext to my argument is that they’re “inferior” for not having a fancy pedigree.
Those who did attend an elite school think that I’m dismissing their hard work and writing off their success as a result of their academic affiliations.

First off, I do not think I’m better than you because of where I went to school. Are there advantages? Sure. But that doesn’t mean I’m better. Second, you may work damn hard as the graduate of an elite school, but other people may work comparably hard and do not make nearly as much money. It doesn’t mean that you’re just riding on your degree, but it does mean that you’re — relatively speaking — rather privileged. Take for example, this article from The Crimson, which shows that even newly minted Harvard grads make over $60,000 a year, nearly $20,000 more than the typical American male (who, on average, is probably much older). Obviously, this figure doesn’t represent everyone (it’s like twice my expected annual salary) but it does demonstrate that there’s a real discrepancy in income between those who attend elite schools and those who don’t.

As I wrote in my original post on the topic:

A Harvard degree, of course, does not mean you will definitely get a job, and sure, some of my friends graduated without offers. But let’s be real, their unemployment is temporary and bears little resemblance to the unemployment facing most bewildered college grads. (I don’t just assume this; the non-Harvard grads I know have a much tougher time than their equally unemployed Ivy counterparts.) Unless they are one of the few who come from a truly impoverished background, most Harvard kids are able to get by until they find something. It’s just that many want very specific jobs, often located in New York, which pay a certain wage and select among a candidate pool filled with other Harvard grads. And my unemployed classmates have yet to land one of those jobs yet. There’s nothing wrong with holding out for a good gig, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that an unemployed Harvard kid has the same lot as your typical unemployed American who can’t make ends meet. All kidding about my “banking back-up plan” aside, I think you have to agree that an Ivy Leaguer is going to have an easier time on the market.

I think the reason why people are so resistant to acknowledging their privilege is because they see themselves and their friends working really hard. And maybe they haven’t landed the jobs they’ve wanted, maybe they’re having to settle, and maybe this whole post-grad thing is not working out the way they originally planned. Look, I never said that Harvard grads don’t have anything to worry about, ever. But when I write about privilege and the fact that some people have it while others don’t, it comes off as really entitled when some of the responses are, “BUT HARVARD KIDS HAVE IT TOUGH TOO! IT’S NOT SO EASY COMPETING AGAINST MIT!” I mean, really? I know young people who are on unemployment, state-subsidized healthcare, and food stamps. A few are graduates of elite schools, but most aren’t and they would probably laugh in your face if you came to them with your life woes. The job search you’re undertaking may be hard, but it’s still a privileged one. And you know what, recognizing one’s privilege — say, in the case of Male Privilege — is usually interpreted as a good thing, a sign of self-awareness.

As I told one reader:

While I don’t love everything about my school (who does?), I totally acknowledge the fact that it gives me a leg up — and that’s not something that’s just a myth. But part of the problem with explaining that meritocracy is a sham is that there’s not really a nice way of doing so, when so many people are invested on the idea that their hard work means they “deserve” the end result.

We live in a market economy. No one really “deserves” their lot. Almost everyone who makes money in America makes money off the back of someone else, someone who makes less, who lives with less, who may be just as hard-working but was less fortuitous when it came to life circumstances. There’s nothing fair about the way our economy is organized, and nothing fair about the way my income or your income is determined. When I say, “I have privilege because of my degree, and you might have privilege because of yours”, it’s not that I’m trying to condemn you for having advantages that others don’t have. A lot of people have things that others don’t have. Nor am I suggesting that you rip up your diploma and head for an ascetic life in the mountains. Obviously, that’s not going to change the world either. What will change the world — in my view, at least — is if more people begin to acknowledge the way wealth is distributed, not on the basis of need or on the basis of hard work, but largely on the basis of pre-existing wealth and pedigree. And once enough of us recognize the inherent injustice in an economy such as this one, maybe we’ll also be more willing to challenge the very system that conferred upon us all this privilege in the first place.

11 Aug 2010
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Anonymous asked: Hi Lena! I used to read you during Sex & the Ivy and then only recently discovered your Tumblr - and I must admit, some of your posts rub me the wrong way. I haven't placed down the exact reason, but I noticed earlier today that for someone who wrote that many of the privileged people are Harvard are at least humble enough to not flaunt their 2nd & 3rd homes... you do a lot of flaunting of your Harvard degree. I think it's great that an ivy-educated minority female has done so much boundary-pushing for sex & blogging, but so many of your answers to questions of how to survive post-graduation on free-lancing or traveling inevitably all leads back to your solid faith in your Harvard degree, which-- I don't know, I know several friends who graduated from Harvard this year who are still struggling to find full-time employment. To joke that you could just fall back on investment banking thanks to your degree is a bit insulting to those who work so hard (even at Harvard!) to get a job.

Also, you mentioned before that you don't think you "deserve" all the privileges that Harvard brings because for many people Harvard is not an option, but your words & behavior are very unapologetic for those privileges - a little like a male who admits that he doesn't deserve higher wages simply for being male but still insists on taking advantage of it. I'd feel differently if you wrote more about how you used hard work or universal traits to get what you want in life (because I'm sure you ARE very hard-working!) - the Harvard degree standard answer is getting pretty tiring.

I came from a university with tons of international students, and even with those friends and their exotic family homes, I never found traveling to be cheap. If nothing else, trans-oceanic plane tickets are expensive, and wealthy friends tend to have expensive hobbies and interests. Besides, international kids are everywhere nowadays (an American degree is worth a lot in Asia & Europe) - you can give tips on crashing at friends' without constantly relying on your Harvard degree. Believe it or not, most other schools have similar benefits!

(Advance apologies if I come off as kind of brutal; I’m just losing patience with the concept of “hard work” and “achieving your dreams”.)

I received this question a while ago, but I decided not to respond to it until I had a chance to answer questions on the feasibility of a freelance writing career (which I shot down as a long-term option in yesterday’s post). I generally try not to be obnoxious about the fact that I went to Harvard, especially because I don’t think it means I’m smarter or more capable than the next person. (If Harvard has taught me anything, it is that Harvard does not churn out superior human beings, but it does churn out a lot of human beings who think they are superior.) That said, my life took place at this school, not any other school, and when asked how I personally budgeted for travel, I’m going to have advice informed by my own experiences (e.g. crashing at friends’ places). I try to offer general tips (like au pairing or student loans) which are applicable to everyone, but failing that, I ask other readers to contribute suggestions, since I’m one person with an obviously limited viewpoint.

I bring up my alma mater when it comes to things like freelance writing, because it has everything to do with why I’m willing to take a totally risky, non-lucrative career path. It’s not about “flaunting” the fact that I went to Harvard; I’m trying to be honest about the sort of mistakes you can afford to make just because a bunch of adults declared your 18-year-old self one of the Chosen. (And in doing so, I hopefully shed light on the ludicrous way our society measures intelligence/competence.) A Harvard degree, of course, does not mean you will definitely get a job, and sure, some of my friends graduated without offers. But let’s be real, their unemployment is temporary and bears little resemblance to the unemployment facing most bewildered college grads. (I don’t just assume this; the non-Harvard grads I know have a much tougher time than their equally unemployed Ivy counterparts.) Unless they are one of the few who come from a truly impoverished background, most Harvard kids are able to get by until they find something. It’s just that many want very specific jobs, often located in New York, which pay a certain wage and select among a candidate pool filled with other Harvard grads. And my unemployed classmates have yet to land one of those jobs yet. There’s nothing wrong with holding out for a good gig, but let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that an unemployed Harvard kid has the same lot as your typical unemployed American who can’t make ends meet. All kidding about my “banking back-up plan” aside, I think you have to agree that an Ivy Leaguer is going to have an easier time on the market.

While I stand by the fact that none of us “deserve” the privileges we get for graduating from Harvard, I’m not going to apologize for the fact that I have opportunities other people don’t have and abstain from using those opportunities. I will be perfectly honest about my privilege and avoid patting myself on the back too hard, lest I one day think that America is actually a meritocratic country, but what’s the point of not taking advantage of my Harvard degree? Even though I’m an avowed feminist, I wouldn’t expect some guy to not ask for a raise because he knows he already gets paid more than a woman in a comparable position. That’s just stupid. Unless you manage to organize a mass revolution involving all privileged people eschewing their privilege (in which case, kudos), living your life based on principle does not change anything for anyone else; it only leaves you worse off.

And though I could tell people that all it takes is hard work to “get what you want in life”, it simply wouldn’t be true. I am not trying to be condescending, but you have seriously been drinking the Kool Aid, if you think that successful careers are only the result of hard work. More often than not, it’s hard work in combination with connections, a privileged upbringing, a good school, and/or an important last name. And yes, effort counts, but my mother, for example, worked as hard as she could for three decades and at the end of the day, she is still a maid. Even if she worked twice as hard, she would probably still be a maid. She showed up to this country without knowing English or possessing an American degree, disadvantages that aren’t erased just through sheer force of will. The ugly fact of the matter is that individuals come from different starting points, advantages are distributed unevenly, and yet all of us are forced to compete in the same market economy. Unless you believe that poor people are only poor because they’re too lazy, then you have to agree that those who came from the “right” family and attended the “right” school are going to fare much better than those who didn’t. I’d rather admit that the Harvard brand is what made my blog popular (and a book deal viable) than fool you into thinking that it’s really just my extraordinary writing ability and endless work ethic. To me, there’s no shame in admitting that I get a lot of unjustified credibility because of where I went to school. That’s the truth, and I’d rather own up to it — humble or not — than sell my readers some hackneyed version of the American Dream.

9 Aug 2010
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Anonymous asked: As a feminist and a queer supporter, you are (probably) a believer in minority rights. What do you think of affirmative action in college admissions? Many Asian-Americans, as "overrepresented minorities", seem to resent the practice.

Even though it’s an imperfect solution to a structural problem, I support affirmative action in college admissions. I didn’t always. In high school, I very much bought into the idea that those who have the best stats should get into the best schools. I’ve long since realized that this was a belief borne in self interest and ignorance. Brief history lesson for those not familiar with how affirmative action works: the policy was first instituted in 1965 by executive order of President Kennedy, whose aim was to stop racial bias from keeping minorities out of the workforce. Explicit quotas in college admissions have been illegal for decades and a points-based systems (which award underrepresented groups extra “points” on the basis of race) used at the University of Michigan was declared unconstitutional in a 2003 Supreme Court ruling. What affirmative action consists of nowadays is the inclusion of race as one of a litany of factors when making admissions decisions. (This is what Harvard does.) In other words, having brown skin alone is not enough to get you into college.

A lot of my beliefs about affirmative action changed when I went to college and realized that my peers grew up with all kinds of unexamined privilege. I’d hear remarks about how “no one actually needs to be on full financial aid” while partying at final club. Someone once drunkenly related to me their resentments about having to go to a high school where poor students were bused in from the other side of town. I learned that despite the University’s official stance on diversity, there were still a lot of rather ignorant members of the student body. And I thought, dude, this is happening AT a place that is extremely diverse; imagine what sort of ideas are commonplace elsewhere! Meanwhile, I’d gone from having exclusively Asian friends in high school to being a part of a peer group that resembled a Kodak commercial. My closest friends from college include: a Midwestern farm gal, an upper-middle class New England gay, a Black Southern-Baptist-turned-atheist, and a Texan Latina. There are others, but you get the idea. When I graduated in May, I can guarantee you that I had learned a ton more from the people I met at Harvard than I had from the classes themselves. And I credit them for expanding my worldview, for making me and this blog what it is today.

There are a lot of other reasons why affirmative action continues to make sense to me:

Race and class remain very much connected in America and minorities continue to suffer the disadvantages of being born into poorer families, living in poorer neighborhoods, and attending less well-equipped schools. All of these are factors which contribute to generational poverty and de facto segregation in higher education. If my readers have learned anything from my blog, it’s that social mobility in America is a myth for most of our country’s citizens. Given how unequal the playing field is, it’s unreasonable to expect minority students to succeed in a “meritocratic” system. They simply don’t have the means to compete in the first place. People talk about “reverse discrimination” and how they’re punished for being White or Asian (“I didn’t create slavery! Why should I pay for it?”) but there are all kinds of disadvantages that Black people didn’t ask for. (Helloooo racial profiling!) Those who believe most fervently in of the American Dream assume that all you have to do to get ahead is to work hard. Guess what? Someone who grew up in the urban slums can work as hard as they like; they’re still not going to get into Harvard, and even if they do, they’re the exception, not the rule. Most of their peers will likely never even breathe Cambridge air.

Say what you will about racism against Asians (certainly, it exists), but as a whole, Asians fare much better than other groups. They have the highest medium income and lowest incarceration rate of any racial group, including Whites. (Of course, this is just an overall statistic that doesn’t hold true for every Asian minority — which is why the “Model Minority” myth is not only untrue but harmful, since it glosses over the struggles of Southeast Asian immigrant groups.) I am going to be much less likely to be arrested than, say, someone who’s Black. Is that because I’m such a law-abiding citizen or is it because of how I look? I don’t think we have to conduct an shop-lifting experiment involving me, a Black guy, and your local Target in order to figure out the answer to that question. And look at UC Berkeley or Cal Tech, schools that operate with zero affirmative action. Asians comprise the majority of the populations at those schools, with Whites following closely behind. But is it actually good for the Asian students there? They might be satisfied knowing that they’re attending classes only with those who have been properly vetted for GPA, SAT score, and “demonstrated leadership”, but isn’t college also supposed to be an opportunity to learn about the world through interactions with different people? How are you supposed to do the latter if you spend your early twenties not seeing any brown-skinned people for days at a time?

Last, and most important, colleges do not owe you anything. Admission is a privilege, not a right. And quite frankly, I think it reeks of entitlement when someone rages that they’ve been robbed of their rightful spot at a school, because some “less deserving” minority took it. Look, if the school is a private institution, they can do whatever the hell they want to do, and sometimes that includes diversity initiatives that you don’t agree with. The world is an unfair place, and it’s a far more unfair place for those who grew up without the means to even pay the application fee for college. Let’s not even get into the fact that White people are also admitted for all kinds of reasons that aren’t “meritocratic”. (I’ve met athletes whose SAT scores are several hundred points lower than mine, legacy admits who share a last name with a Harvard building, the list goes on.) Personally, I’m glad that some schools have determined that a diverse student body is crucial to create a future leadership that is representative of the country’s population. It’s their prerogative to create an admissions policy that reflects these goals.

For the students who do get in, it’s absolutely to their benefit that they are exposed to a diverse peer group. As I wrote nearly three years ago on Sex and the Ivy:

I don’t value my relationship with JB because he’s gay any more than I love CK because she’s black, race — like everything else — still matters. I am positive that my relationships with people of different colors, sexual orientations, religions, etc. shape and influence my world view for the better and that I will be better off when I graduate for having known and loved people who are not mostly white, Asian, or Californian. Perhaps I would’ve met some of them (or their equivalents) anyway, but I know that at Berkeley, it would’ve been much harder to forge a bond with a tongue-ringed five-foot wonder with a Southern drawl and skin several shades darker than my own. And wouldn’t that have been a shame?

3 Aug 2010
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aquariuschicken asked: Hey, Lena. I just read your "guide to getting into Harvard," and seriously, you sound like me, except more impressive. I'm going to be Asst. Editor-in-Chief of my school's newspaper the upcoming year (I'll be a senior), and I was on Speech and Debate freshman and sophomore year, but not last year because my parents made me quit. I'll be on the team next year, though. I do DI, Congress, and LD (but I'm not very good at LD). I'm also a California girl; I hail from Claremont. Anyway, I wanted to ask you what you wrote about in your essays. I know you said you wrote about newspaper and debate, but how exactly did you write about it? Was it about how they changed your life, or what, and was that your personal statement essay or your extracurricular essay? I'm not asking this so I can get into Harvard; I'm actually looking at more plausible schools, but my crazy Asian dad wants me to apply anyway. Thanks for you help! I really admire you. :)

I honestly don’t remember much about my college admissions essays, but I believe that I tried the “look at the evolution of me!” tactic. I actually didn’t write about debating, per se, but rather the process of coaching novices. (I was, for inexplicable reasons, the captain for all oratory events despite having never competed in any of them.) For the piece on newspaper, I’m pretty sure I talked about how I came to realize journalism’s importance in changing local/public policy. (I actually no longer believe this.)

This is going to sound incredibly jaded of me, but I would advise that you fake it. If you’re 18, your life has probably not been radically altered by your involvement in an extracurricular. So much of what I thought at your age turned out to not be true at all, but it looks like my naivete and endless optimism is what got me into Harvard. Do NOT lie (bad, not to mention unethical, idea) but do embellish when it comes to how life-changing an experience is. We know what colleges want to hear. And I’m here to tell you that it’s perfectly acceptable to over-inflate the value of your favorite after-school activity for instrumental purposes. That’s why you signed up for them in the first place.

9 Jul 2010
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Blast from junior year of college past. This is my Currier dorm room (photo snapped during the fall of 2007) which was really the only good college housing I experienced during my three years of residence in Harvard buildings. It was a corner room in Bingham Tower with THREE WINDOWS and a ton of closet space.

Sadly, despite decorating it, converting my bookshelf into a shoe display, and organizing my wardrobe into a complicated drawer-system involving dividers (really, don’t ask), I didn’t actually sleep in the room very much. But at one point, when I had just met Patrick and was staying overnight at his place a lot, I got a month-long squatter (a friend’s boyfriend) who did sleep there and got a lot of mileage out of my bedazzled footwear.

Of course, the dorm kitchens (like all dorm kitchens) were gross, no guy who ever spent the night could fit lengthwise on the bed (a twin long), and the few times Hamlet visited, he trampled over three semesters worth of notes and two weeks worth of unwashed laundry.

There are probably things more worthy of nostalgia than my old dorm room.

9 Jul 2010
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This photo, taken and blogged on February 1, 2008 is proof that my room also often turned into a total hovel (usually because I would leave it for weeks at a time to live at Tara and Tiff’s off-campus pad). The German would never allow this in our communal living space, and I have been surprisingly good at suppressing my messier tendencies since we started living together.

1 Jul 2010
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Anonymous asked: What other colleges did you apply to besides Harvard? What would have been your second or third choice?

Harvard actually wasn’t my first choice, because I thought it was a total crapshoot. I decided to apply three weeks before the early admission deadline and sent in an eleventh hour application that required scrambling to collect a bunch of recommendation letters and pulling several all-nighters. In other words, this wasn’t a very well-prepared effort, nor was I that attached to getting in. In general, I wasn’t one of those kids who aspired to the Ivy League from age 6. Like I’ve said before, my public school was not the type of place where hordes of graduates went on to Harvard, Stanford, and the like. (Not because my peers weren’t bright, but because we didn’t have access to the best resources, nor did many people come from families who could pay for expensive tours through New England schools.)

Still, I knew that I wanted to go to college in the East Coast, and I really wanted to leave Los Angeles (mostly, to become independent from my parents). Northwestern, specifically the Medill School of Journalism, became my first choice when I decided to pursue writing, and I very much fixated on it as my “dream school”. I also thought I stood a good chance of getting in, given my stats and interests, so unlike H-Y-P, it was a realistic aspiration. I applied to all the other schools as a political science major, since none had writing programs.

I sent in the Harvard Common App in October (along with the one for Yale, only because it had essentially the same application, not because I had any particular affection for the school). I then applied to UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, and UC Irvine in November, with plans to send in the rest of my East Coast applications by their December and January due dates. After being admitted to Harvard in December, I didn’t apply anywhere else, so I don’t know what options I would have had to choose from. Of the schools I did apply to, I was admitted to all the UCs and rejected from Yale. I also half-heartedly completed the Stanford app the night I got into Harvard and was later wait-listed.

Because I keep meticulous records of my entire uneventful adolescence (no, seriously), these were the schools for which I had semi-prepared applications, in the order of preference indicated by my then-17-year-old self:

1. Northwestern, Medill School of Journalism (IL)
2. Columbia (NY)
3. Georgetown (DC)
4. Brown (RI)
5. Williams (MA)
6. Amherst (MA)
7. Wellesley (MA)
8. Smith (MA)
9. Stanford (CA)
10. Claremont McKenna & Pomona College (CA)

I briefly considered Macalester but then quickly nixed the idea because I wasn’t that enthused about living in Minnesota for four years. Barnard was also a consideration, but with two women’s colleges already on my list, the application fees were starting to get ridiculous and unjustifiable. (I did get a fee waiver to all the Ivies and Stanford, though — lower-income kids should look into these options.)

I admit that most of my preferences were geographic, and in retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have thought about college as a way to “get the hell out of California”. In the end, I chose Harvard because it was Harvard and probably would have done so even if the campus were on Mars. So prestige won out.

But if I could do it all over again and Harvard weren’t an option? I would have still applied to Yale (which, based on my personal experiences with Yalies, seems like a less neurotic version of Harvard), Brown (because everyone seems so happy and chill there), and Columbia (because it would be amazing to live in New York).

But who knows where I’d even be able to get in nowadays given the über-competitive climate?

30 Jun 2010
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How To Get Into Harvard College: Tips From An Ivy League Sex Blogger

The most frequently asked reader questions I receive (and the ones I am least qualified to answer) are the following:

How did you manage to get into Harvard? Most people say that getting into the Ivies are a crap shoot for anyone. Did you have awesome stats? Valedictorian? 1600 SAT? Save African orphans during your free time? Do you have any tips or strategies?

Hi, I know this is such a typical overachiever question to ask, but how did you manage to get into Harvard? What did you do in high school to get that “golden ticket”? I’m about to be a junior, and I’d really like to know. Thanks so much; your blog really kicks ass!

Hey, I kinda liked those nude pictures. And your female empowering blog. Is it ok to like both?

Oh, silly me, that last one wasn’t a high schooler, just someone with a terribly contradictory world view, how tragic.

Anyway, step 1 to getting into Harvard: Arrange to be born into a wealthy family fond of making selfless philanthropic donations to educational institutions.

KIDDING!

But no, seriously, that helps a lot.

Ahem, ahem, time to be serious. To be brutally honest, there is no magic formula for us commoners that guarantees Harvard admission. If I knew this magic formula, I would bottle it, patent it, make millions, and retire to aforementioned Southern European villa to entertain guests I fly in from all corners of the world. But I don’t. So, alas, looks like I’m staying in frigid-ass Boston.

I’m going to use the very anecdotal example of myself to illustrate what a potentially successful Harvard application might look like, but please remember that I went to high school when flared-bottom jeans were making a comeback, so take this advice with a grain of salt. You kids these days are even crazier and more competitive than my crazy competitive then-classmates. (I went to a school that was 50 percent first-generation Asian Americans, so I should know.) And I was NOT, by any means, a model student. And I’m not a college admissions counselor. Though I did manage to get into college without one, so there’s that.

Anyway. I digress. I was a good, but not always motivated student with a really academically obsessed mother. Thus, for fear of being locked into my room with a poster of the multiplication tables (which actually once happened when I was six), I never got outright bad grades. Still, I wasn’t the type to get straight-A’s either, because I simply didn’t care about doing well in Trigonometry or Calculus or OH GOD Chemistry. (Have I mentioned that I took Advanced Placement Chemistry? No? That’s because I repressed the memory until now.) I basically hated math and science after middle school and never managed to ace any of the classes in those fields, but once you were placed on the “honors” track at my high school, you had to do pretty bad to get kicked out. So I somehow made it through several years of advanced courses which I took expressly for the purpose of beefing up my college application and in which I had no particular interest. Needless to say, I was much more enthused about the humanities and social sciences and as a result, also did better in those subjects. My weighted GPA was 3.97, which placed me at #30 out of roughly 750 in my graduating class (I went to a huge public school).

Want to know my AP scores? They’re not amazing, but here you go:

American History 4, Chemistry 2, English Literature 5, European History 4, Government and Politics - American 5, Calculus AB 3 (which I got a C in), Psychology 4, Spanish Language 1. (I fell asleep during the last exam but to be frank, to this day, I cannot speak Spanish, so I really deserved that 1. Also, I spent most of Chemistry class making out with my boyfriend.)

My SAT score was 1530 (790 Verbal, 740 Math) which is a 2295 on the new scale. My SAT IIs were all in the 700 range. I was also a National Merit Scholar Finalist, which is determined through PSAT scores, I believe. I test well, don’t I? That’s because I realized halfway through my sophomore year of high school that I needed to learn how to jump through these ridiculous hoops if I ever wanted to get out of Southern California. But let’s not kid ourselves, okay? Standardized testing is a totally bullshit measure of intelligence. If you want to get into Harvard and have subpar grades like I did, learning how to fake it via the SAT is probably your best shot. For your benefit, here is a totally unscientific sampling of SAT scores of the six Harvard students and alums Lena found on her G-chat contact list a moment ago:

1440, 1450, 1500, 1510, 1600*, and 2240 (from the only person I know who isn’t an oldie like me)

* This person took the SAT twice and submitted the highest score from each sitting

You’re going to have to convert those numbers yourself to the 2400-scale. (Because I don’t know math, remember?)

Okay, next up: Extracurriculars! I think these are what got me in, because I clearly didn’t discover my own mathematical theorem anything. I did speech and debate for four years: Lincoln-Douglas for three, Congress for senior year, and Extemp for three even though it constantly terrified me and I oscillated between being really good at it and forgetting speeches in the middle of speeches. My school most definitely did not compete on the national circuit (again, we were poor and underfunded). My biggest moment of glory was scooping up at TOC bid at Berkeley despite showing up to the final round half an hour late because I incorrectly assumed I had gotten eliminated. I was never sent my shiny, golden plate for placing in that competition, which bums me out because that could be Hamlet’s food dish. I would later attend college with the kind of kids who probably played frisbee with the shiny, golden goodies they picked up every weekend of high school at these tournaments. </end debate geekiness> My other big commitment: I was copy editor of my school newspaper for two years and the co-editor-in-chief my senior year, won a couple regional writing things, and once suggested a sex column which was promptly rejected. In between, I somehow clocked 100 community service hours a year and also interned at E! Entertainment the summer before college apps were due. I’m pretty sure I did/won a bunch of other minor things that I listed on my application but which are clearly insignificant since I can no longer remember them today.

I had good recommendation letters, all of which emphasized my love for writing. Even my history teacher wrote about my passion for journalism, which was bizarre because it had nothing to do with anything he’d taught me. My essays were on debate and newspaper and I like to think that they didn’t suck, because that sure would have invalidated the whole this-girl-is-a-good-writer schtick I had going.

My interviewer liked me a lot. That helped seal the deal, I’m sure. Also, I applied early, which demonstrated that I would probably attend if admitted. I was and I did. (I was rejected from Yale in regular admissions. Not even wait-listed!)

Here is the part that no one applying to Harvard is going to want to read: You’re probably not going to get in. I’m not saying this to be a bitch, and I’m certainly not saying this because I think I’m better than you. (In fact, I suspect that most overachieving high school kids are boatloads more impressive than me.) But the reality of the situation is that only 7 out of 100 kids who apply end up getting into Harvard. The acceptance rate for my class was tough but not seemingly impossible. We also didn’t have as many college counselors, helicopter parents, or study drugs as you bright, young, medicated things. The odds are against you, and I am not saying you shouldn’t apply, but don’t be disappointed if Harvard doesn’t send you a fat envelope. You’re in good company.

And if you do get in? Pat yourself on the back, but not too hard. We all know that meritocracy’s a sham.

3 Jun 2010
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So this happened last week …

For the official record, I graduated with with a B.A. in Sociology and a “secondary concentration” (the Harvard equivalent of a minor) in Studies of Women, Gender, & Sexuality. Plus, departmental honors for having written a thesis. This almost makes it seem like I was a good student. Hurrah for having finally gotten my shit together.