After spending a lifetime being evaluated and measured up against their peers, too many Harvard students take a perverse delight in switching roles—being handed the keys to the door. Final club punch pageants, The Crimson executive “Turkey Shoot,” comp parties at a semi-secret Sorrento Square social organization that used to occasionally publish a so-called humor magazine: all of these events are about who gets in and who gets left out. In the end, it hardly seems to matter what you’re joining to do in the first place.

State schools that harvardparties.com ridicule in their e-mail usually don’t have this problem. Fraternity pledge processes are more open, more honest and less heavily reliant on backroom politics. And whether you get in has more to do with who you are and how you act than where you came from and what your parents do. State school parties are most often open to whoever shows up at the door with four dollars for a cup. And advertisements for those parties just invite people to come without playing to our own students’ greatest weakness—the need to feel special and elite.

That’s what it’s really about, in the end. After a preliminary lifetime of trophies and awards, scholarships and fat envelopes in the mail, our need to feel special is cultivated here at Harvard.

There’s nothing wrong with throwing a party for “Harvard State University.” I think most students would agree that state schools generally have better, more open parties than our final club-dominated scene. But it’s sad to see that in throwing a party open to all Harvard students, we must be constantly reminded of how special we are, and we must continue insulting the plebes who couldn’t play the admit game past their state school.

It doesn’t surprise me when people in Southie or Arizona or Middle America hear the Harvard name and assume they’re about to meet an elitist jerk. They should know that they’re working hard to lead lives that we could have just “coasted through.” We remind them of that fact in our attitude, our choices and our party advertisements. Why should they think differently of us?

Lucas Tate ’05-’06 is a government concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Wednesdays.