Spirit Beyond Mind

In a gesture enlightened enough to ask for more enlightenment, the Ford Foundation has granted $125,000 for a ten-year study that may measurably alter admissions policy of the nation's colleges. Under the grant Williams College will examine students admitted "with less-than-outstanding grades and test scores but with promising qualities that defy scientific measurement" such as "flair, forte, strength of character."

Deans of Admissions at institutions as influential as Amherst, Columbia, and (of course), Harvard have long cried for autheritative evidence to test their view that those who achieve high grades in high school are not always the most productive or most creative members of society. The Ford study is just what they want; long-range, capable of tracing the grades and early careers of a large number of students.

Perhaps the most impressive part of the project is that Williams will select as much as ten per cent of its entering freshmen from the kind of applicants the study has in mind. Clearly its new President, Mr. John Sawyer, has a sense of adventure and a fine will to experiment. In a field so touchy as admissions has come to be, these are uncommon qualities. It would be a pity if institutions such as Harvard did not soon begin to share them.