The Courses Others May Take

Sometime this week, a large portion of the Harvard Class of 2004 will receive letters from the admissions office inviting them to join the College. Because of Harvard's early action policy, students won't need to respond to the offer until May 1, allowing them the chance to apply elsewhere and possibly weigh the pros and cons of several schools before deciding which will be best for them. Some eager beavers may send the admission card back to Byerly Hall by express mail this week; other more contemplative thinkers might wait until midnight on April 30. Harvard's policy is increasingly rare in the competitive world of admissions, where many schools use an early decision policy to lock in their acceptances and so increase the magic yield percentage of students accepted who actually attend. But the policy is a wise one because it allows students freedom of choice in one of the most important decisions they've probably ever had to make--where to go to college for the next four years.

The process of choosing and attending a college is the first chance many students have to be truly independent in their thinking. Sure, parents often play an influential role in the process, pushing for the school where they themselves had gone or perhaps for the campus that's closer to home, but ultimately, students will be on their own at their chosen college, reasonably free to explore new academic, extracurricular and social options. That's the way it's supposed to be.

But next year, there will be a college sending out admission letters of a very different sort. According to a story in the Boston Globe, the creators of Patrick Henry College (PHC), currently awaiting accreditation by the Virginia board of higher education, plan to invite home-schooled students to make up the college's undergraduate population and create a rigid learning environment where students wear uniforms at all times, don't drink and are required to ask their parents before going on a date.

The school's motto is "For Christ and For Liberty," and the only major will be government. The plan is to educate students through a combination of a classical liberal arts curriculum (which, according to their Web site, consists of "Bible, logic, rhetoric, composition, Latin, western civilization, American history, and a great books study of English and American literature") and a clinical experience program working on Capitol Hill with members of Congress. PHC wants to create a new generation of politicians out of home-schoolers.

Home-schooling is a tough issue in the field of education. On the one hand, it's possible to understand why parents--for either educational or religious reasons--might want to teach their own children, rather than sending them to a poorly-funded public school or to an institution which does not promote and may in fact ignore their personal beliefs. Home-schooling provides control in a society where parents often feel powerless. And it may seem like a logical extension of that control for those parents to send their children to a home-schoolers' college with all of the same rules and values that individual homes try to maintain.

But the most important part of college life is not the quality of the academic experience, not the kinds of extracurricular activities available, not the luxuriousness of campus facilities but merely the idea of student independence. Home-schooled students already miss out on a great deal of social interaction and diversity during their middle and high school years; imagine the level of isolation PHC's environment will create. Undergraduates may learn a great deal about the liberal arts and the Western canon; they may even learn a great deal about the workings of Congress, but they will graduate without ever having lived independent of the direct and strict influence of their parents and other like-minded adults.

There's no question, of course, that the founders of PHC have every right to create a private college which teaches the values they hold most dear. However, it is sad and a little disturbing to think that there will be enough home-schooled students available to fill their class of 2004, students who will complete their education without ever encountering a diversity of thought and faith. When Harvard's early acceptance letters arrive in mailboxes across the country this weekend, their contents will immediately provide students with independence, whether to come here or to wait and see what their other options are. Acceptance to Harvard--or to any college--is an accomplishment and a gift, but the choice of what to do with that acceptance is the best gift of all.

Susannah B. Tobin '00 is a classics concentrator in Lowell House. Her column will resume in January.