After John F. Kennedy's grandson Jack Kennedy Schlossberg graduated with a dual degree from Harvard, JFK's own Harvard admissions essay went viral. The 35th president of the United States graduated from Harvard in 1940, and his admissions essay looks a lot different than essays today.
In one tweet from February 7, a UCLA PhD student tweeted JFK's Harvard application essay with a simple screenshot and the text "YALL IM CRYING PLEASE LOOK AT THIS!!!" The tweet has nearly 70,000 likes and 8,000 retweets.
Many users point out how underwhelming the essay is, others suggest that the line that got him accepted was the mention of his father, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., who graduated from Harvard in 1912.
It reads the essay full:
The reasons that I have for wishing to go to Harvard are several. I feel that Harvard can give me a better background and a better liberal education than any other university. I have always wanted to go there, as I have felt that it is not just another college, but is a university with something definite to offer. Then too, I would like to go to the same college as my father. To be a "Harvard man" is an enviable distinction, and one that I sincerely hope I shall attain.
It's only five sentences long, and as many pointed out on Twitter, it doesn't really say much. Yet, the essay worked—he got in, started in fall of 1936, and graduated cum laude in 1940 with a Bachelor of Arts in government.
Harvard admissions has become extremely competitive in the years since JFK applied; the acceptance rate fell to 3.43 percent in 2021. Yet, according to the Harvard Crimson, "Between 2014 and 2019, the acceptance rate for legacies, 33 percent, dwarfed Harvard’s overall acceptance rate of only 6 percent."
JFK's own children and grandchildren attended Harvard: his daughter, Caroline Kennedy graduated from undergrad in 1980, and granddaughter, Rose Kennedy Schlossberg, graduated in 2010. Jack Kennedy Schlossberg didn't attend for undergrad, opting to go to Yale University instead, but he recently graduated with dual degrees from Harvard Business School and Harvard Law School.
It's not just Twitter where JFK's essay is going viral; on TikTok, law student Rashid Eldoma analyzes the essay:
Musician Jordan Kahan, who goes by Boxout, also responded to the essay on the platform joking that it "basically boils down to 'Harvard's pretty cool, also my dad went here, so let me in please."
This isn't the first time the essay has gone viral. It surfaces every few years, in part thanks to the Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum's digitized version.
Emily Burack (she/her) is the Senior News Editor for Town & Country, where she covers entertainment, culture, the royals, and a range of other subjects. Before joining T&C, she was the deputy managing editor at Hey Alma, a Jewish culture site. Follow her @emburack on Twitter and Instagram.
