After Tumultuous Year, Harvard Adds Application Question on Learning from Disagreement

Harvard College will require applicants to the Class of 2029 to answer a question about a time “they strongly disagreed with someone,” the second year in a row the College has revised its application.

The prompt, which asks students “How did you communicate or engage with this person? And “What did you learn from this experience?” comes a year after the College overhauled its long standing optional, longform essay in favor of five short-answer questions starting with the Class of 2028. That change came after the Supreme Court ruled in June 2023 that Harvard’s race-conscious admissions system was unconstitutional.

Harvard College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo wrote in an emailed statement that the change was part of a regular review of application materials.

“Harvard reviews our application on an annual basis and makes adjustments to ensure we are providing candidates with the best opportunity to represent themselves,” Palumbo wrote.

But while the question is a new addition to Harvard’s college application, multiple peer institutions — such as Brown, Yale, and Princeton — have had essay questions that ask applicants about a time they disagreed with someone else for years.

The application question’s emphasis on dealing with disagreement comes as the University attempts to center efforts on exploring open inquiry and academic freedom, such as the College’s Intellectual Vitality Initiative, which set out to promote the “free exchange” of ideas on campus.

In the wake of historic campus turmoil after Hamas’s attack on Israel on Oct. 7, Harvard has launched programming on a civil discourse initiative spanning the Faculty of Arts and Sciences — Harvard’s largest school — and launched presidential working groups on “open inquiry and constructive dialogue” and institutional neutrality. The University announced in May that it will stop taking public positions on controversial issues.

The new application question comes as top Harvard officials voiced concerns of an unfriendly environment for disagreement between peers.

Just four months before the College unveiled its revised application, University President Alan M. Garber ’76 — then serving as interim president — told prospective members of the Class of 2028 that there had been a “change” in students’ freedom to share dissenting opinions on college campuses.

“It’s a change that we intend to reverse here,” Garber said.

—Staff writer Elyse C. Goncalves can be reached at elyse.goncalves@thecrimson.com. Follow her on X @e1ysegoncalves or on Threads @elyse.goncalves.

—Staff writer Matan H. Josephy can be reached matan.josephy@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @matanjosephy.