Big Three May Impose $10 Fee on Applicants

The College is seriously considering a plan to require a $10 fee from all students who wish to apply for admission, Dean Bundy said yesterday.

Reports from Yale and Princeton yesterday indicated that all Big Three schools would adopt such a plan for 1956 in an effort to meet the rising costs of admissions administration.

Imposition of a $10 fee would mean that any prospective Harvard, Yale, or Princeton student would have to pay at least $22 and as much as $29 to apply to one college. Secondary school students already pay $12 to take the College Boards Examination, and are required to pay another $6 to take a practice exam in the junior year. Added to this expense, the College Scholarship Service, instituted this year, is charging $1 to handle each application for financial assistance.

Yale's Committee on Admissions has already recommended the move to its Corporation, and expects it to be adopted, Dean of Admissions Arthur Howe, Jr. said yesterday. At Princeton, Dean of Admissions William Edwards said such a move is also now "under consideration."

To Cut Multiple Applications

Howe stated that Yale's plan is specifically designed to cut down multiple applications, as well as to force the applicant to share the costs of processing. "We hope that in this way we can get people to be serious when they apply," he said.

Both Bundy and Wilbur J. Bender '27, Dean of Admissions, insisted, however, that, if adopted, the fee would be used only to meet budgetary needs. Among the Big Three Harvard, led by Dean Bender, has long been the strongest opponent of any such plans to place restrictions upon applicants.

At Yale, Howe estimated, "It cost $20 every time someone decides to send in an application. We can't afford to take on the whole burden and have got to ask the applicant to share half the burden." Yale, with a 60-40 ratio of prep school students to high school students, has been noted as the strongest advocate of the plan.

"I definitely object to the imposition of such a fee," Bender stated. "It would cut down our applications just where we don't want it to. It would tend to discourage the boy in the lower income bracket from applying. But we have to balance this consideration against the need of saving say $40,000 a year which could be plowed into other worthwhile needs."

At Princeton Edwards stated, "We feel as does Bender. We would adopt such a measure with reluctance. But with the tremendous increase in applications, it may have to come as a means of paying our own way. We certainly would not adopt such a move just to cut down on the number of applicants.