Harvard reputation permanently stained?

Has Harvard University lost forever its reputation for high academic standards and scrupulous fairness to all members of its community? So it would appear, especially since the president of Harvard seemed to excuse antisemitism on her campus. Now a professional admissions consultant to the upper crust of American society reports that his clients are shunning Harvard – actively.

Harvard early admissions take a double hit

Fox News reported last week – and The Gateway Pundit echoed this yesterday – that early admissions to Harvard were down 17 percent this application season. Now a top-flight “admissions consultant” says the problem is worse. Not only are his clients not applying to Harvard, but some who had Harvard early-admission applications pending,have withdrawn them. In fact several clients have turned down early admission offers which that institution has already extended to them.

Christopher Rim is Chief Executive Officer of Command Education, a company specializing in getting students into elite schools. They offer Premier Roadmap Packages to high-school underclass students, as well as their Premier Senior Package to seniors. Command Education will start working with a student as early as that student’s first high-school year (formerly “freshmen”). The company also offers tutoring, test preparation (for the American College Test and College Board SAT and AP families of tests), and a boot camp to help students write the dreaded Personal Statement, an autobiographical essay.

They do not limit themselves to Ivy League admissions, but they feature the Ivy League most prominently. Tellingly, they boast 100% acceptance of their clients who applied for early admission to Harvard for the 2021-22 academic year.

Mr. Rim told Fox and Friends First on Wednesday that he had seen Premier Roadmap clients steer clear of Harvard.

Virtually every student I’ve ever worked with who got into Harvard early pretty much stopped [looking elsewhere].

Not anymore!

This is the first time and first application season where I’ve seen a student who got into Harvard early that I’ve worked with for almost three and a half, four years now, starting in ninth grade — we’re seeing them say, “You know what? I want to apply to other schools because what if I graduate and this stigma and this reputation of Harvard stays the same?” That’s their true concern.

Now his clients would as soon apply to universities outside of the Ivy League – like Duke, Washington University in St. Louis, Vanderbilt, and Emory.

This is the first time this has happened. Normally, my student will get into Harvard or a top-tier school, and then that’ll be it. We’re done. So congratulations. We’ve finished the process, but now we’re seeing students say, “You know what? Let me double think this. Let me think about other options.”

What’s going on?

Harvard’s early-admission application deadline passed on November 1. But before then, came the beginning of the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, and the statement by 31 student organizations at Harvard blaming Israel completely for that war. That the Islamic Resistance Movement (Arabic Harakah al-Muqāwamah al-Islāmiyyah, abbreviated HAMAS):

1. Committed an incredible series of atrocities,
2. Had a large contingent of civilian irregulars accompany them and take part in the atrocities,
3. Prefaced this with an indiscriminate rocket barrage against multiple Israeli cities, and
4. In other ways violated every concept of the rules of war,

did not elicit one scintilla of sympathy from elements of the progressive left at Harvard. The conservative group Accuracy in Media outfitted a panel truck with programmable billboards to drive around campus, revealing students’ names. This “doxxing truck” has made appearances at other Ivy League institutions, including the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University.

This explains why 17 percent fewer students were applying for early admission to Harvard. It does not explain students withdrawing applications and refusing acceptances. For that one must look to Claudine Gay, President of Harvard, making excuses for antisemitism on her campus.

But more than that, she now has a reputation – a personal reputation – for plagiarism, and for racism against anyone who is not “of color.” Yet the Harvard Corporation came out in support of her continued tenure as President. Peter Wood, Chairman of the National Association of Scholars, waxed indignant at RealClearPolitics. “[They] take us for fools!” snarled his headline.

Anyone who has followed past plagiarism scandals knows that this story is probably not over. The Fellows of Harvard College should keep their pencils sharpened and their minds nimble – they will likely need to draft more creative excuses for their president in the days ahead.