Just like the sociologist Jerome Karabel writes from inside the “The fresh Picked” (Houghton Mifflin; $28), their outstanding reputation for the fresh admissions processes during the Harvard, Yale, and you may Princeton, you to definitely meritocratic heart soon led to a crisis. Of the 1922, they constructed more than a 5th off Harvard’s freshman classification. The latest government and you will alumni was indeed up inside palms. Jews was indeed thought to be sickly and you will gripping, grade-grubbing and insular. They displaced the brand new sons out of rich Wasp alumni, and that did not bode really having funds-raising. A. Lawrence Lowell, Harvard’s president throughout the nineteen-20s, stated flatly you to so many Jews create ruin the college: “The summer months resort which is destroyed from the admitting Jews matches its future . . . because they push aside the brand new Gentiles, and pursuing the Gentiles have remaining, they leave in addition to.”
Karabel argues that it was now your records and you will nature of your Ivy League got a life threatening change
The hard region, not, are discovering a way of staying Jews aside, given that because a team these people were academically a lot better than everyone. Lowell’s first suggestion-an effective quota limiting Jews to fifteen percent of the student body-is roundly slammed. Lowell tried restricting the amount of scholarships given to Jewish people, making an attempt to take for the youngsters from personal universities on the Western, in which there are a lot fewer Jews. Neither approach did. In the long run, Lowell-and his equivalents from the Yale and you can Princeton-pointed out that if the a definition of quality predicated on academic prowess was ultimately causing unsuitable sorts of scholar, the clear answer were to alter the concept of quality.
The fresh admissions workplace on Harvard became a lot more searching for the latest specifics of a keen applicant’s private existence. Lowell informed their admissions officers so you can elicit information regarding the “character” from people regarding “individuals just who understand the individuals well,” and so the page from resource turned into 
required. Harvard come asking people to provide a photograph. “Starting in late 1922,” Karabel produces, “people was indeed needed to respond to questions into the ‘Race and you can Colour,’ ‘Spiritual Liking,’ ‘Maiden Term off Mom,’ ‘Birthplace regarding Father,’ and you will ‘Exactly what changes, if any, has been made since beginning in your name or that of your own father? (Identify fully).’ ”
At Princeton, emissaries have been sent to the top boarding colleges, having recommendations in order to rates prospective individuals into the a scale of just one in order to cuatro, where step 1 is actually “really common and you will apparently outstanding thing from every attitude” and you may 4 try “undesired from the viewpoint of character, and, thus, are omitted no matter the result of the entry assessments might possibly be.” The personal interviews turned into an essential component out-of admissions in order, Karabel produces, “so ‘undesirables’ have been known and also to determine important however, subtle indications off history and you can breeding particularly message, top, deportment and you can physical appearance.” By 1933, the conclusion Lowell’s label, the latest portion of Jews in the Harvard was back down to ten per cent.
Candidates had to build private essays, proving its aptitude for leadership, and record their extracurricular situations
If it the latest admissions program appears familiar, this is because it’s simply the exact same system that the Ivy Group spends even today. According to Karabel, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton did not forget the fresh new elevation away from reputation because Jewish drama enacted. It institutionalized they.
Starting in 1953, Arthur Howe, Jr., spent a decade because the chair out of admissions within Yale, and you will Karabel identifies how it happened below their information:
Brand new admissions committee seen proof “manliness” which have kind of desire. You to guy gathered entry even after an educational prediction away from 70 given that “there’s appear to one thing manly and you can distinctive on the your that had acquired more each other his alumni and staff interviewers.” Various other applicant, accepted even after his schoolwork getting “mediocre in comparison with numerous,” is recognized over a candidate with a much better number and you may higher test score since the, as the Howe put it, “we just consider he was a lot more of men.” So possessed are Yale on appearance of its pupils that the proper execution utilized by alumni interviewers actually had an actual physical functions number as a result of 1965. On a yearly basis, Yale carefully counted the fresh height out-of typing freshmen, noting with pride this new ratio of your own classification from the six legs or maybe more.