Harvard Club Chiefs Attack $10 Fee Plan

D. Donald Peddie '41, chairman of the Minneapolis Harvard Club Schools Committee, and perhaps the College's leading Mid-Western recruiter, yesterday joined other Harvard Club officials in the Far West and South in warning that the imposition of a $10 student application fee would greatly handicap recruiting work.

Peddle said Dean Bender had already warned him that such a fee might go into effect for 1956, but that he hoped it would be possible to obtain waivers from the ruling for special students.

The fact that Dean Bender has mentioned the plan to several Harvard Club officials seemed to indicates the College is definitely planning to join Yale and Princeton in requiring the fee. Yale's Admissions Committee has already recommended this move to its Corporation.

"Unless we can get waivers, I shall put up a strong protest," Peddle continued. "we shall be seriously hurt because our strength has been in attracting boys from the small towns. We handle them almost entirely by mail, and a $10 fee would be quite a handicap in attracting them."

"Sounds Fantastic"

In Denver, James A. More Jr. '26 chairman of the schools committee the Rocky Mountain Harvard Clubs and the plan "sounds fantastic. I'm against it. If a student has get to pay a $10 fee, it will look as though Harvard is saying, 'We'll rather you did not apply'." He estimated such a plan would cut applications from the Denver area by 40 percent.

He further ruled out the possibility of a waiver for special students. "There are so many applications, it would be impossible to tell who are the best boys."

The Whole Idea"

At Birmingham, Alabama, Herbert M. Warren '13, former vice-president for the Associated Harvard Clubs of the South, also warned that a fee "will hurt us in the long run. The whole idea of Harvard's program is to get people from all parts of the country. It is not going to help a bit by charging $10 to apply."

Francis P. Locke '33, chairman of the Dayton, Ohio Club's School Committee, warned that if the new program is implemented, "Harvard is going to lose good boys at the first hurdle. The Harvard idea requires a good deal of cultivation. We persuade students to apply and then later persuade them to come."