Housemasters To Bar More First Choices

Housemasters will turn down ten percent more freshmen first-choice House applications this fall than in recent years.

By a joint decision if the House-masters and Dean's Office, Houses may accept only a maximum 70 percent of their first choice applications from the class of '56, Associate Dean Robert B. Watson '37, Secretary of the Committee on Houses, announced yesterday.

The Committee on Houses meets Tuesday to begin discussing first-choice applications. The processing will be finished May 7 and assignments delivered to the freshmen two days later.

This new rule in the latest step in the plan to integrate Claverly Hall into the House system and remove the stigma of assignments to the so-called "Outhouse" by dividing the Hall into official House "entries."

No Previous Limitation

Previously there was no limitation on the number of first choices a Housemaster could accept, so the more popular Houses often filled their quota of vacancies with all first choice men. The overall figure for Yardling acceptances was about 80 percent first-choices.

Since all House must now also accommodate their share of the overflow that normally would be in Claverly--205 men this spring--a popular house might get a disproportionate number of first-choices, Watson explained. For example, Lowell has 136 vacancies, but with the added share of overflow, 29 men, its total would be 165.

In applying the 70 percent rule, Watson cautioned, Housemasters may not alter the current cross-section distribution in the Houses. "We feel that it would be unfair to let some houses take over and above their normal number of first choices and thus throw the system further out of focus," Watson said.