Longform

  • Podcast
  • Best Of
    • 2021
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
    • 2017
    • 2016
    • 2015
    • 2014
    • 2013
    • 2012
  • Archive

    • Sections
    • Publications
    • Writers
    • Tags
  • Random Article
  • Contact

    • podcast@longform.org

Tags

Harvard

Arts Movies & TV

King of Comedy

The making of Caddyshack.

Kate Meyers Golf Digest May 2004 20min Permalink

Politics

Where Does Affirmative Action Leave Asian-Americans?

A lawsuit against Harvard forces students to choose sides.

Jay Caspian Kang New York Times Magazine Aug 2019 45min Permalink

Best Article Crime

The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge

He was a Harvard Law professor who taught a class on judgment, which made him an unlikely target for an elaborate paternity scheme that nearly cost him his house and family.

Kera Bolonik New York Jul 2019 30min Permalink

History Science

What Makes Us Happy?

In 1937, Harvard researchers began following the lives of 268 students. Year after year, the men were interviewed and given medical and psychological exams. The goal? Find a formula for happiness.

Joshua Wolf Shenk The Atlantic Jun 2009 45min Permalink

Arts

Uprooted

A moment of racism at Harvard leads the writer to consider Huckleberry Finn.

Kenzaburo Oe The Literary Hub Oct 2015 15min Permalink

Business Tech

A Tale of Money, Sex and Power: The Ellen Pao and Buddy Fletcher Affair

How Alphonse “Buddy” Fletcher Jr., an openly gay hedge fund star, came to marry Ellen Pao, a partner at a powerful Silicon Valley firm, before they “went to war with their elite worlds.”

Adam Lashinsky, Katie Benner Fortune Oct 2012 15min Permalink

Business World

How to Get Into an Ivy League College—Guaranteed

Tony Ma will bet you as much as $600,000 to train your student for college acceptance. If the student gets into their top choice school, Ma takes the cash. Rejected? He gets nothing.

Peter Waldman Businessweek Sep 2014 15min Permalink

Sports

Medora Goes To The Game

A father and his 9-year-old daughter watch Harvard play Yale in football.

George Plimpton Sports Illustrated Nov 1981 Permalink

Crime

Adam Wheeler Went to Harvard

Adam Wheeler lied on his college application. Lawrence Summers facilitated the destruction of the global economy.

Only one of these Harvard men was given jail time.

Jim Newell The Baffler Jul 2012 15min Permalink

Arts

The Library of Utopia

How Google’s utopian/dystopian plan to scan the world’s books failed and the Harvard-led team that’s picking up the pieces.

Nicholas Carr Technology Review Jun 2012 15min Permalink

Arts

The Last Gentleman

On New Yorker writer George W. S. Trow’s descent into madness.

Ariel Levy New York Mar 2007 25min Permalink

From Libya With Love

What did $3M paid to a US consulting firm get Qaddafi? A glowing profile in The New Republic, written by a Harvard professor, who travelled to Tripoli to interview him. On the consulting company’s dime. Which he failed to disclose.

David Corn, Siddhartha Mahanta Mother Jones Mar 2011 10min Permalink

Best Article Science

The Great Ivy League Nude Posture Photo Scandal

From the 1940s through the early 70s, incoming freshman at Harvard, Yale, Vassar, Wellesley, and several other top schools were photographed nude in the name of science–bogus science, as it turned out. Most of the photos were destroyed, but not all.

Ron Rosenbaum New York Times Magazine Jan 1995 Permalink

History

The Great Sorting

Part two of the history of the Educational Testing Service.

Nicholas Lemann The Atlantic Sep 1995 40min Permalink

History

The Structure of Success in America

The first article in a two-part history of the Educational Testing Service, the institution behind the SAT.

Nicholas Lemann The Atlantic Aug 1995 35min Permalink

Lethal Chemistry at Harvard

When one of the best young chemists in the world took his own life, Harvard was forced to reconsider the relationship between PhD students and their (often Nobel Prize-winning) advisers.

Stephen S. Hall New York Times Magazine Nov 1998 25min Permalink

History Sex

The Secret Court

In 1920, Harvard University officials suspected that some students were gay. So they kicked them all out.

Benoit Denizet-Lewis The Good Men Project Jun 2010 10min Permalink