For better organizations, discriminate

Bastard Hat
    By David Auerbach

Harvard and Yale aren't that different. Both offer majors and courses of a comparable scale, and 10 to 20 percent of both student bodies are on antidepressants. But Harvard has a curious event known as a "comp," something for which there is no real Yale equivalent, for no apparent reason.

Let's compare: I joined Yale's radio station, WYBC, as a naïve, exuberant freshman. Within three months, I had ascended the ranks (well, one rank) to become the music director of rock programming. Such a meteoric career would be impossible at Harvard. WHRB, Harvard's radio station, has a very long and involved process--they call it a "comp"--that involves extensive training, music "assignments" (e.g., listen to the Germs' first album until you love it), and music history "tests" (e.g., "How much heroin was in the Germs' Darby Crash at his time of death?). Four months after this sort of hoop-jumping, you are most likely rejected by fiat anyway, because the old music director decided he didn't like you. But if you should pass the test, becoming the next music director is a long process of connections, self-aggrandizement, and self-proclaimed non-conformity. Luckily, apathy reigns at WYBC, and none of the above was necessary to hold such a place at the station.

The WHRB process is not an anomaly. Most every newspaper, magazine, and public service organization has some sort of drawn-out comp in place that invariably rejects half the applicants: inside sources tell me the Harvard literary magazine's comp is quite the hipness pageant--wearing black and smoking French cigarettes are strongly advised. It's as though every extracurricular were a singing group. But for their celebrated rites of triage, nothing at Yale even comes close to Harvard's glorified popularity contests. Even when the glitzy Yale Political Union comes up with a scandal, it's something as inconspicuous as its president "ignoring responsibilities," whereas Harvard's public service collective spat out a spectacular mismanagement of funds when an organizer embezzled thousands of dollars out of the budget for an ice skating event for disabled children. Activities just seem to be of more consequence to the Cantabs.

I was at a loss to explain the disparity. Not that I mind; sheer apathy on the part of most Yalies has allowed me to pollute the airwaves and newspapers with my tastes. If the Herald had required that I hobnob with their editorial board at cocktail parties before I could write for it, you wouldn't be reading this today. But with the exception of the radio stations (which can be attributed to differing communities), the quality levels of the Harvard's and Yale's media barely differ. (Consider that Harvard's daily, the Crimson, ran an entire article on a man with "prostrate cancer.") The comps have no effect except to thin the swelling ranks of people eager to prostrate themselves before their potential superiors. And swell the ranks they do: the number of applicants for most activities at Harvard necessitates a comp.

It's a case of chicken and egg. Harvard's comps put every arbitrary blockade in the way to prevent all but the ambitious from gaining power, and somehow the self-declared high stakes attract suckers by the dozens who perpetuate the system. To paraphrase Groucho, "I wouldn't put any club on my résumé that would have me as a member." Though oversimplified, the force behind Harvardites' willingness to subject themselves to humiliation is the prospect of being on the other side, having traversed the rickety bridge of chance and popularity.

All this begs the question. Which is the better system: indifference or manic competition? The former may be a better mirror of everyday life, but it's out of place in the academic environment. Indiscriminate acceptance of applicants is hardly good policy to establish credentials anywhere. Worse, it hardly gives one an appreciation of the secret, accredited selection process that is tenure, for those considering entering academia. Better we learn now that if you can't stand the heat, get out of the conservatory.

Yale organizations must bootstrap themselves into the comp process, for the betterment of Yale as a whole. Next year's activities fair should emphasize the difficulty of attaining membership in an organization, and convince freshmen that it has always been this way. Institute rounds of cuts with a masque of tradition behind them; with each new year should come greater membership and the opportunity for stricter selection. Soon, the establishment of desperate competition here should match Harvard's, so that even if the chosen members aren't quite an elite, they'll at least look like it.

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