To Consider and Act

It is both interesting and upsetting to travel about this large country to ask what they think a Harvard man really is. Around the corner from the House an outspoken teenager from East Boston will utter a few expletives and say that all Harvard men are, to put it mildly, snobs who wear vests and have ridiculous accents. And in the Midwest a mild fellow will strongly declare that Harvard is filled with shabbily dressed men who have wild ideas and long hair. While these interpretations are oversimplifications, these two types do represent the spectrum of Harvard College. Both the Harvard man with the vest and the one with the long hair are an important part of the College. And while both Beacon Hill and Greenwich Village have their advantages it would be extremely unfortunate for the College to represent only one of these types.

While the advantages of social and geographical distribution are generally obvious to the present generation of the College, it was not so very long ago that Harvard men proudly boasted that the College was dedicated to the intelligent son of the rich father who also had gone to Harvard. Lest this attitude appear to be an almost forgotten relic of the Gold Coast days, it should be realized that at the present time Harvard College is very definitely moving in the direction of becoming, as the Admissions office speculated a month ago, "the intelligent rich man's college."

Public School Decline

To support this contention, the Admissions office cites the following figures: the Class of '57 was 53.3%, public school graduates, '58 was 53.9%, '59 was 52.6%, '60 was 51.4%, and the present freshman class is 50%. Taken out of context, the statistic that there are nearly 4% fewer public school graduates in the freshman class than there were three years ago is significant, but not alarming. But the figure takes on additional significance when it is realized that it reverses a post-war trend that was expected to continue. The new trend shows every sign of continuing unless the Board of Admissions makes a conscious attempt to regulate admissions from public and private schools.

There are many who look at the figures and say, even if they are correct they will make no difference in the makeup and attitudes of the college. They note that a school like Exeter has a scholarship program for better than 25% of its students. Such prep school students are by no means the sons of rich men, and thus have a more than ample desire to prove themselves. They also note that more and more students attend preparatory schools nowadays. The graduates of many preparatory schools are by no means "preppie". Today even middle class parents have enough money to send their sons to private school if they want them to get a good education, or if they lack the money, there are scholarships.

There is some merit in all these arguments in favor of the present trend, but basically the arguments are fallacious. They are based upon misconceptions about preparatory schools, Harvard's reputation, and the nation's financial condition. Although some preparatory schools have scholarship programs, the student who goes into an exclusive New England prep school is quite different from the one who leaves it. There also seems to be the assumption that everybody would like to go to a preparatory school and that everyone wants to go to Harvard. There are several million public school students in this nation, most of whom have never heard of Exeter and many of whom never even think about Harvard. It is a ridiculous defense mechanism to believe that the only people worth a Harvard education are those who are actively seeking it. The fact that a high school student has never thought of applying to Harvard is no reason to believe that Harvard has nothing to gain by seeking him out and admitting him.

Equally naive and equally dangerous is the belief that this country is so prosperous and dynamic that anyone who really wants to can get to a private school and thus into a better college. The average family in this nation cannot afford to send a son to preparatory school.

With a family of four, the man making $5,500 a year (well above the average) just does not consider spending $2,000 to send his son to a private school nor for that matter having his son apply for a scholarship.

The most legitimate argument in favor of more preparatory school students at Harvard is that these students are better prepared than graduates of this nation's public school system. Except for a few exceptional public schools, the better private schools produce students that can run academic circles around the "diamond in the rough" from a small town in New Jersey. It is true that in the first year at Harvard the prep school graduate does better work with less effort than someone from a public school. After the first year, however, the public school student usually does more work and gets the better grades.

But even if the preparatory school student got the better grades for all four years, it would be unfortunate to ignore that the high school student, while not better prepared academically, does offer social and intellectual views that this College should not be without. It is already accepted that although New Yorkers and Bostonians could fill the College, geographical distribution, even at the expense of some academic improvement, is necessary. This is most assuredly true on a social level.

Planning Needed

From Harvard's point of view, and from the nation's there is a very definite need for conscious planning by the Admissions Committee in this situation. Unfortunately, up to now they admit, "This decline does not indicate any conscious planning." There is a need for awareness, and a need for action. If the Admissions Committee cannot find enough able high school students with the present staff, then more Admissions officers would certainly be a worthwhile investment. The Alumni groups, moreover, must be given further encouragement to look for talent in their areas. While application fees are a method of gaining revenue and discouraging multiple applications, it would seem advisable to reduce if not remove entirely this fee insofar as scholarship students are concerned.

If Harvard evidences a concern for the graduate of the high school, then these schools will try to prepare their students for Harvard. If not, then Harvard will be cutting itself off from much of the nation, which would hurt the nation--and Harvard.