House Selection System Brings Fair Distribution

The Housemasters will continue their new "barter system" for admitting freshmen to the Houses in the future. Dean Watson announced yesterday, because the Class of 1958 has been distributed more equitably than any other freshman class.

Almost 66 percent of the class have been admitted to the House of their first choice, and a total of 88 percent will enter one of their top three choices. Freshmen will receive their assignments tomorrow morning via the University Mail Service.

"We have attained the best distribution of scholastic rank and school background yet," Elliott Perkins '23, Secretary of the Housemaster's Council and Master of Lowell House, said last night.

In an effort to remedy the unequal distribution of previous years, the Housemasters placed no limit on the number of freshmen who could be accepted into the House of their first choice. The Masters this year "bartered" among themselves in order to produce an equal distribution according to rank group, field of concentration, and extra-curricular activities.

"This year we came out with seven Houses really equal as far as talent is concerned--with no Houses on the bottom," reported Dean Watson.

Perkins, however, said that he hoped all those admitted to Lowell House would become scholars if they were not already, and those entering Winthrop would go on to become members of varsity teams. "I'm in favor of a House having character, and the undergraduates make this character," he said.

Under last year's system, which permitted each House to take no more than 70 percent of its first choice applicants, 65 percent of the Class of 1957 were admitted to the House of their first choice, while 90 percent went to one of their top three choices. This method, however, worked well only for the two or three most popular Houses, and brought about a distribution criticized as inequitable by residents in unpopular Houses.