Masters Turn Down Recommendation To Change House Assignment System

The Masters have rejected a Faculty Committee's report recommending sweeping changes in the procedure by which freshmen are assigned to the Houses.

Aimed at simplifying the present system, the Committee's proposals would have severely curtailed the choice of the Masters in the selection process and would also have reduced the influence of the students' preferences, informed sources said yesterday.

In effect the Masters' rejection of the broad recommendations of the Committee ends the possibility of any significant change in the selection procedure for the next few years. It also seems to indicate a strong distaste on the part of the Masters for even a modified version of Yale's IBM assignment process.

Some Revisions Possible

The report may, however, produce some revisions of the present system in accordance with the Committee's attempt to simplify the procedure. One possible reform, which the Masters are reportedly considering, would greatly reduce the importance currently attached to interviews of the freshman applicants.

Serious concern about the application and selection process apparently originated last spring because of the continuing disparity in the numbers of applications received by different Houses.

Following a request by the Masters, Dean Ford appointed the end hoc Faculty Committee, chaired by J. Peterson Elder, dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, early last fall.

The Committee confined itself to investigating the practical problems involved in the present system, such as the disproportionate influence which a House's physical plant exerts on the choices of many freshmen. It reportedly did not concern itself with possible solutions for equalizing facilities in the various Houses, or with any broader investigation of the House system.

Members of the Elder Committee included Walter Jackson Bate, Abbott Lawrence Lowell Professor of the Humanities; Frederick B. Deknatel, William Dorr Boardman Professor of Fine Arts; Hershel C. Baker, professor of English; Oscar Handlin, Winthrop Professor of History; Laurence Wylie, C. Douglas Dillon Professor of the Civilization of France; and Elder.