Harvard Tours: A Reality Check

Crowds of eager tourists walk through the Yard each day, led by peppy guides who promise to give them the lowdown on all things Harvard. And while there are a ton of quirky facts about Harvard (a room designed solely for use by the ghost of a former student, anybody?), some of the information on those tours is highly embellished or just plain incorrect. Here are the top five false facts the tour guides will tell you.

1. It is tradition for students to rub the foot of the John Harvard statue for luck before an exam or first date. On the contrary, one of the first lessons incoming freshmen learn is to never touch that shiny bronze foot, especially without a vat of hand sanitizer to use afterwards. Yes, tourists may line up to get their hands on it for luck (or for admissions success), but it's highly unlikely you'll see a Harvard student doing the same.

2. Freshmen can petition for co-ed suites. As well as rightly informing you that Harvard’s "Great Experiment" with co-educational housing began in 1970, with Straus Hall the last to go co-ed in 1980, a least one tour guide also informs visitors that if freshmen ask nicely, they can reorganize suites into mixed-gender configurations. In fact, gender-neutral housing is available only to upperclassmen in some houses, and Resident Dean of Elm Yard Sue Brown confirmed that freshmen don't have this option.

3. Harry Elkins Widener's mother stipulated in her donation funding a library in her son's memory that all students must take a swim test in order to graduate from Harvard. This falsehood stems from Widener's true unfortunate fate aboard the Titanic and his mother's supposed belief that had he known how to swim, he would have survived. Tour guides say that his grieving mother demanded that every graduating student pass a swim test. While there was a swim test in place for decades, it did not actually have anything to do with the Widener family.

4. Lamont hands out deodorant to students during reading period. An unusual claim and one that students probably wish was true, one tour guide claimed that the library provides deodorant for the students who ditch their dorms to become tenants there during reading period. Although it's true that some students bring their sleeping bags to camp out in the reading room, students are in fact responsible for their own personal hygiene during their stay.

5. JFK's freshman room got "shafted" when elevators were installed in Weld Hall. Due to renovations to the building, Weld 32 indeed no longer exists in the same location that it did when President John F. Kennedy '40 lived there. However, the elevator shaft does not cut through that room.