More Incoming Harvard Students Have Cheated On Their Homework Than Have Had Sex
Bloomberg points out a potentially revealing comparison between two figures in the Harvard Crimson's survey of the Class of 2017 - only 35% of Harvard's newest students have had sex, while 42% admit to having cheated on homework.
While cheating is a problem that is currently causing a stir at Harvard, the details of these students' sex lives become even more interesting when examining them in the context of their four years at college.
Looking at numbers from the past few years of the Crimson's outgoing senior survey, approximately 70% of Harvard students graduate having had sex - double the 35% entering this year who have done so. Put a different way, around 575 Harvard freshmen virgins will have had sex by the time graduation arrives.
Additionally, these numbers show that 25% of Harvard students will have sex with only one person in college, while 30% of Harvard men and 20% of Harvard women will have sex with more than five people during their years in Cambridge.
However, for those non-virgins in the class, the Crimson reports, "Men were more likely than women, private school students more likely than public school students, and Jews more likely than any other religious group to report having had sex before they arrived on campus."
The groups that were least likely to have had sex before Harvard included Mormons, home-schooled students, and incoming freshmen questioning their sexuality.
Males, on average, reportedly had more sexual partners than females did-1.95 for the former and 1.70 for the latter. However, the Crimson seems to apply some healthy skepticism to the new class' sex lives, as, "Seven men claimed to have had sex with 10 or more people, but were excluded from the averages of sexual partners."
For the most adventurous in Cambridge, around 13% of the Class of 2017 will have sex in Harvard's Widener library - one part of the "Big Three" trifecta of illicit tasks to complete before graduation.