Harvard University

Harvard University is the Bae family’s Best School, a name that carries both prestige and pressure. Charlie Bae’s required withdrawal from the university becomes a family crisis, while Daniel Jae Ho Bae refuses to follow his older brother there; later, Charlie’s academic troubles help set in motion the chain of events that brings Daniel to Natasha Kingsley.

Family Prestige and Charlie’s Withdrawal

The news that Charlie Bae has been required to withdraw from Harvard University turns the summer into a run of absurd headlines for his younger brother. Charlie is the firstborn son of a firstborn son, and his acceptance had once been celebrated by his mother as entry to Best School. Now the same institution represents a public reversal: the Korean community in Flushing, New York, is gossiping, while his mother struggles to believe and understand what has happened.

The family’s language registers the shock. Charlie’s mother asks why his grades were so poor and why the university would not let him stay and study more. His father corrects the blunt description that Charlie was kicked out, insisting that he was required to withdraw and that this is not the same thing. The distinction does not erase the consequence, but it shows the family trying to name a setback that has disturbed its expectations.

Daniel’s Refusal to Follow

When Daniel Jae Ho Bae prepares for a college admission interview with a Yale University alumnus, he has already refused to apply to Harvard University. Yale University is described in the family’s ranking as Second-Best School, but Daniel’s choice is not simply a lesser version of Charlie’s path. He cannot bear the prospect of being known as Charlie’s younger brother at another school, and he wonders whether Harvard University would admit him now that Charlie has been suspended.

Harvard University therefore shapes Daniel’s plans even though he does not apply. Its prestige makes the comparison with his older brother difficult to escape, while his refusal marks an effort to establish a course of his own. The university is both an academic destination and a family measure against which Daniel is trying not to be defined.

A Setback in the Chain of Events

Charlie’s academic trouble also becomes part of Daniel’s later interpretation of his meeting with Natasha Kingsley. Looking back on the day, Daniel treats Charlie’s Harvard University probation as one link in a sequence: without Charlie’s trouble, Daniel’s mother would not have said what she did that morning; without that conversation, he would not have left early for a haircut he never got or boarded the 7 train.

That retrospective connection gives Harvard University a role beyond the family’s college hierarchy. Charlie’s institutional setback becomes an accidental cause in Daniel’s romantic story: what first appears as a source of shame and disruption is folded into the chain of contingencies that leads him toward Natasha. The university does not determine the outcome, but the narrative makes its consequences part of the day Daniel comes to understand as consequential.