Hacking Harvard

Title: Hacking Harvard
Author: Robin Wasserman
ISBN: 1416936336

Plot Summary: A group of intelligent yet rebellious Boston high school students come up with a plan for the ultimate "hack," or sophisticated prank: take a thoroughly below-average student, groom him properly for the job via any means necessary... and get him into Harvard. Doing this will not only prove that the system is beatable, but will also deny admission to someone the group feels deserves to be shut out of Harvard - preferably a particularly obnoxious classmate. They initiate a complicated and technology-heavy espionage method to find out exactly what Harvard's admission standards are, but get more than they bargain for when the Average Joe they select starts actually believing in his own ability to get in. Meanwhile, Lexi, the lone female member of the group and a chronic overachiever, is desperately trying to get into Harvard via honest means. Whether or not either he or she get into the world's most exclusive University will be a learning experience for all involved.

Critical Evaluation: Although the group feels, as a whole, that beating Harvard at its own game would be the ultimate proof of the system's fallibility, Max's motivation for convincing them to do so in the first place has less to do with philosophical ideas and more to do with getting back at his own father, who already has Max's entire future mapped out for him. Lexi, although she does want to go to Harvard, is worried that her participation in the hack will hurt her chances of being legitimately accepted. Eric, for all that he considers himself a "good guy," is primarily interested in Lexi. The group's overall low opinion of the "slacker" they pick, moreover, does not go unnoticed by the subject himself, indicating a certain amount of classist bias on their parts. Overall, Wasserman ends up showing the flaws inherent in her protagonists as much as those of their intended target, and what they are able to learn, if anything, from the discovery of these flaws.

Reader's Annotation: What happens when a hack-happy band of Boston high school students try to get a totally unqualified student into Harvard University? What Eric, Schwarz, Max and Lexi find out along the way may surprise them, both about themselves as people and about whether or not getting into the number one University in the country is what they really want.


About the Author: Robin Wasserman was born in 1978 outside Philadelphia, and attended Harvard University and UCLA. After working for a while as an editor for a children's book publisher, she wrote and published a number of young adult titles, including the Seven Deadly Sins series and the Skinned Trilogy. She currently lives and works in New York City.

Genre: Fiction

Curriculum Ties: None

Booktalking Ideas:

Hook: Schwarz's obsession with vintage Playboy magazines
Approach: Character-based
Ideas for Booktalk: Uses a litany of centerfold names to calm himself down, only likes the non-airbrushed, non-surgically-enhanced "older" pictures. Less about being able to "use" the magazines and more about simply possessing them. Examine how this fits in with Schwarz's overall interests and personality. Discuss the possibility of Autism Spectrum Disorder, and the extent to which, if at all, his friends realize this.

Hook: The Plan
Approach: Plot-based.
Ideas for Booktalk: Flowchart of key points in the plan: Bet -> Campus Visit -> SATs -> etc. What needs to be accomplished by each deadline, how they plan to groom their "slacker" subject for his next step. Discussion also of the degree to which, if at all, these steps work.

Reading Level/Interest Age: Grades 9-12

Challenge Issues: Sexual content, offensive language, anti-authority. Schwarz is obsessed with the centerfolds in pornographic magazines; his friends, for their part, are constantly trying to help him get lucky, preferably with a college woman. Characters use typical high-school-level language with each other, and Eric makes no secret of the fact that he is interested in Lexi, although neither she nor he has any compunction about rejection if they think the other is less than genuine. More to the point, the underlying premise of the book is fundamentally anti-authority. However, rather than completely overthrowing the collegiate system, Eric and his friends only wish to show that it is not perfect, and all of them do in fact wish to go to college and get jobs at some point. Schwarz's porn-mag obsession has less to do with sex than it does with the collection of aesthetically pleasing objects, a function of the way his personality works.

Why I Chose This Book: High school students being groomed for college are taught to think of Harvard as the be-all and end-all of college admissions achievement, a perception Harvard does its best to cultivate. However, students are often under a great deal of pressure - from parents, school, and even themselves - to get in where they "should" but not necessarily where they want to go. Wasserman, who actually went to Harvard, does her best to puncture that myth, making the essential point that it is more important to go to the school that will fulfill your needs the most than whichever one is ranked as the "best."