This year, 39,506\u00a0applicants vied to be one\u00a0the\u00a02,056 students\u00a0in Harvard\u2019s class of 2021. With\u00a0a\u00a05.2 percent acceptance rate, the competition was certainly fierce. Those who made the cut would\u2019ve needed to rack up a number of academic and extracurricular achievements, and likely even followed the\u00a0now-ubiquitous advice to clean up their social media presence, lest a college admissions officer stumbles upon a questionable selfie or two on Instagram.<\/p>\n
This spring, 10 incoming Harvard freshmen found out that this advice\u00a0applies long after acceptance.\u00a0According to\u00a0The Harvard Crimson<\/em>,\u00a0the university has given several admitted students\u00a0the boot over their offensive postings to a\u00a0Facebook group for Harvard teens:<\/p>\n In an email to the\u00a0Crimson<\/em>, Harvard spokesperson Rachael Dane wrote that \u201cwe do not comment publicly on the admissions status of individual applicants.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n As widespread as Facebook is these days, it\u2019s easy to forget that it was originally created as a platform for college students. Today\u2019s teens often prefer Instagram and Snapchat, but higher education institutions still use Facebook to connect students with each other. The Harvard College Class of 2021 Facebook group description reflects that intent. \u201cJoin this group to meet your classmates, share where you’re coming from, ask questions, keep in touch, etc. Your experience starts with the amazing peers around you, so stay connected,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n The description also cautions students that \u201cHarvard College reserves the right to withdraw an offer of admission under various conditions including if an admitted student engages in behavior that brings into question his or her honesty, maturity, or moral character.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Despite that explicit warning, about 100 incoming freshman formed a separate group to share pop culture memes and jokes. Incoming freshman Cassandra Luca told the Crimson<\/em> that things took a turn into offensive territory when some students decided to form \u201ca more R-rated\u201d group, which she did not join. Officials at Harvard found out about the group and emailed each of the student members, asking them to send copies of everything they\u2019d posted to the unofficial group.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the one hand, I think people can post whatever they want because they have the right to do that,\u201d said Luca. \u201cI don\u2019t think the school should have gone in and rescinded some offers because it wasn\u2019t Harvard-affiliated, it was people doing stupid stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the messages joked that abusing children was sexually arousing, while others had punch lines directed at ethnic or racial groups.<\/p>\n The First Amendment grants people the freedom to say what Luca calls \u201cstupid stuff.\u201d\u00a0Internet bullies and trolls are all too common online\u00a0and most get away with it. But that doesn\u2019t mean there aren\u2019t sometimes consequences for that kind of behavior. Just ask some of the folks who have been fired from their jobs in recent years for posting offensive content\u00a0on social media.\u00a0<\/p>\n Digital strategist Luvvie Ajayi, who wrote the bestselling book I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual<\/em>, had some firm words for the dismissed students on her own Facebook page:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Still, some incoming students might have been surprised by Harvard\u2019s actions. Last year when incoming members of the class of 2020 shared racist and sexist posts in an unofficial social media group, officials at Harvard didn\u2019t take such a strong stance. They merely expressed that they were \u201ctroubled and disappointed\u201d by the group and had it shut down.<\/p>\n p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px; font: 13.0px Helvetica; color: #323333; -webkit-text-stroke: #323333} This year, 39,506\u00a0applicants vied to be one\u00a0the\u00a02,056 students\u00a0in Harvard\u2019s class of 2021. With\u00a0a\u00a05.2 percent acceptance rate, the competition was certainly fierce. Those who made the cut would\u2019ve needed to rack up a number of academic and extracurricular achievements, and likely even followed the\u00a0now-ubiquitous advice to clean up their social media presence, lest a college admissions…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/googmn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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