Fall 2015
First Year
- Early Decision - 11/15/2014
- Regular Decision - 01/15/2015
Please tell us briefly (up to 100 words) why you are applying to Haverford.
Haverford Honor Code Essay (1-2 pages)
Haverford is a community in which members of a diverse student body and faculty can live together, interact, and engage academically and socially in ways that promote both personal freedom and community standards. If a diverse community is to prosper and if its educational goals are to be fully realized, community members must make genuine attempts to come to terms with their differences. Mutual understanding is fostered by respectful communication.
Haverford’s Honor Code engenders a climate of trust, concern, and respect. The Honor Code affirms, for instance, the importance of not seeking unfair academic advantage by cheating or plagiarizing. The Code also requires community members to take responsibility for their words and actions in the social realm. The Honor Code serves as an educational tool without being a list of rules, leading students to hold each other accountable and to resolve conflicts. By encouraging respectful dialogue and conduct, we hope to create an atmosphere that is open, respectful, lively, and conducive to intellectual and personal growth.
Haverford’s Honor Code has been in place for more than 100 years. Each year the Haverford student body reconsiders its commitment to these values, recognizing that the community and the Honor Code must continue to change and grow. The Honor Code is publicly re-evaluated and reaffirmed every year, yielding a dynamic living document that has a real presence in life at the College. Matriculation at Haverford will enable you to take part in this process of growth and change.
To read a complete version of the current Honor Code, or for additional information, please visithonorcouncil.haverford.edu.
We recognize that reading about an Honor Code is very different from living with it. Nevertheless, if you come to Haverford, the Code will be a part of your college life. We therefore ask you to write a reflective essay of 1-2 pages in response to one of the following prompts:
Given the dynamic nature of the Honor Code and the opportunity you will have to shape and change the Code if you come to Haverford, what issues and ideas do you think are essential for an Honor Code to focus on, and how should an Honor Code address them?
Write about an experience in which you encountered a tension between personal freedom and community standards. Discuss the experience and the underlying issues, how you dealt with the tension, and whether or not there was a satisfactory resolution.
The Honor Code at Haverford creates an environment of deep trust, respect, and collegiality between professors and students which, in turn, fosters open dialogue and free intellectual exchange. Talk about the conditions you think are essential to allowing this type of dialogue and exchange in both academic and non-academic settings.
Optional: Please elaborate briefly (up to 100 words) on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences.