In another sub, some people were discussing why kids can't just sign up for college classes, but instead must go through the admissions process. That got me thinking what admissions were like historically.
Anyone with insight into other time periods or countries is welcome to chime in.
Harvard:
"When any Scholar is able to read Tully or such like classical Latin author...and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose...and decline perfectly the paradigms of nounes and verbes in [the] Greek tongue, then may he be admitted into [the] College, nor shall any claim admission before such qualifications."
In other words, you needed to be proficient in Latin and Greek in order to be admitted to Harvard. These requirements were first laid out in 1642, and were included again in exactly the same words in updated codes of Harvard in 1686 and 1702. (Source.)
In 1734, the wording was altered, but the only requirements remained Greek and Latin until 1745, when a basic arithmetic exam was added.
Author Edwin C. Broome goes on to say:
"It was the custom at Harvard, and, in fact, in other colleges in the early colonial period, for the student at entrance to transcribe a copy of the college rules and regulations for his personal guidance."
The Latin/Greek requirement would have been pretty strict at that time, since most settlers were functionally illiterate. Latin and Greek would have probably meant you had a private tutor growing up. Harvard's website says that 12 of Harvard's first graduating class of 20 students left Massachusetts and spent their working lives in Europe, if that's any indication of the social standing of the attendees of Harvard at the time.
Further reading: