First Year Social Committee. Harvard Crimson Dance Team. Harvard Student Agencies. Harvard Ballet Company. Hasty Pudding Tech. Eleganza. Harvard Radcliffe Modern Dance Company. Identities. DAPA. Crimson Key.
This is the list of organizations that I was “regretfully informed” I would not be accepted into during freshman year. If you have ever tried to be a part of anything remotely exclusive on campus, you have surely been rejected from something, a fact of life that I was not quite familiar with prior to coming to Harvard. When you go on college tours and hear the spiel at orientation week and the Activities Fair, you are constantly being reminded of how many opportunities there are on campus to try new things (“with over 400 extracurricular organizations!”) Unfortunately, those campus ambassadors artfully conceal the hours of applications, auditions, and comps that narrow down the population of interested potential members to elite new members who have proven themselves worthy.
Having never attended college anywhere other than Harvard, I cannot speak to how competitive it is to join various extracurricular activities at other universities. However, when speaking with friends at home, none of them have a “comping” equivalent, and it seemed quite easy to walk on to different teams and clubs without experience. My brother just started his freshman fall at the University of Miami and after his activities fair he told my parents that he thought he joined Hillel after putting his name down on every email list in sight.
Of course, I recognize the benefits of having applications and vetting processes like auditions and comps. Applications pick out those who are interested enough in the organization to be able to sit down and answer questions like “What can you contribute to XYZ organization?” Applications also add some incentive to keep people coming to meetings and events because they feel like they have invested something into the organization (their time, for example) and thus have an obligation to make that investment worth it. The implication that an application means that some people don’t get in perhaps would spur members to make the most of their time in the organization because they beat out someone else for a spot. Auditions and comps separate those who are up to the group standards from the rest, and keep the number of members at a reasonable size for the resources allocated to each club, administrative communication within the club, and to provide some unity or ability to socialize with members. And frankly, the dance company, a cappella groups, theater groups, athletic teams, business organizations, and publications that cut so many people with every application, audition, and comp are amazing at what they do.
But getting rejected still sucks.
Hours of callbacks and late nights only to be cut on the final night. Spending a month practicing a Crimson Key tour in your head every chance you get just to find out via email that you will not be participating in the initiation party that night. Getting let go by a final club, no reason given.
The juxtaposition of being accepted to Harvard with constant rejection at the beginning of each new semester of comp season was completely unexpected, at least to me. Formerly a high school “big fish,” Harvard was an ocean of waves that I couldn’t swim through. It’s frustrating to wonder why you’re not good enough, if you did something wrong that reflected on your audition, or to be angry at things you can’t change. It wastes time and energy, but after being told how special you are your whole life, after putting hard work into everything you achieve, after being accepted to the most elite educational institution in the world, how could you resist the feeling that you’ve been wronged?
Perhaps it’s because nearly every organization on campus has some sort of application or comp or audition that there is an underlying suggestion that any organization can exclude, reject or cut. Last year I had a friend who wanted to try a cappella. He auditioned for 6 groups and didn’t make it past a single round. There was no alternative group that would teach people who want to sing, only the option to shell out money for private lessons. The same applies to dance: you can either pass through auditions, use one of your 32 academic classes to take a curricular dance class, or pay up to $70 a semester for a class. But why should finances make a difference in whether you try something new? But then again, why should an extensive comp process or audition turn away enthusiastic potential new members?
I joined a sorority last February. Despite not being recognized by the University for being a single-gender and nationally affiliated organization, I found myself most included at Alpha Phi. The process was transparent: sororities are social organizations. Consequently, the basis of recruitment was conversation in order to determine how well you fit with the members of the sororities. There was no comp, no audition, no ridiculous time commitment to show your worth. Just talking. And unlike final clubs, who solely determine who is invited back to their punch events, potential new members are a part of the recruitment process by ranking sororities that they liked the most, making for a mutual selection process.
Alpha Phi. Pets as Therapy. Student Mental Health Liaisons. Harvard Political Union. Harvard Radcliffe Modern Dance Company. Club Swim. Her Campus Harvard. Harvard Radcliffe Drama Club.
These are the organizations that I was included in. Some had applications, some had interviews, and some were completely welcoming and open. Like most students who are part of organizations on campus, I have been accepted and rejected from competitive groups. Now, I value most the products of the organizations I am a part of—the shows I produce, the dances I perform, the friendships I made—not that I rose above the others in the pool of applicants to make it to elite organizations. Frankly, elitism characterizes getting into Harvard, but there’s so much more than simply being among the best.