GSAS Refuses Aid to Late Applicants

The scholarship applications of more than 40 students have been rejected by the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences because they were filed late -- in some cases only one day after the deadline. Several of these students may drop out next year for lack of money.

Most of the students whose applications were rejected complained that the 5 p.m., Jan. 10, deadline was not well enough publicized. They expected the GSAS to notify them by mail, as it did last year.

Graduate students also complained that the practice was too inflexible to accommodate special cases.

Reginald H. Phelps '30, acting dean of the GSAS defended the inflexible deadline as the only workable way to handle over 5000 applications. The Committee on Scholarships and Other Aids to Graduate Students, he said, must have all the applications at the same time in order to compare them fairly.

Phelps explained that the notification letters were mailed last year because the date was being changed from Feb. 1 to Jan. 10. He said that roughly the same number of late applications are rejected each year.

This year's deadline was listed in the GSAS Register, in a calendar which was given to each graduate student at registration, on posters which were placed in each departmental office, and in the notice column of the CRIMSON for six days before the deadline.

Jobs, teaching fellowships, and loans will see most of the students through next year. Several plan to drop out for a year or more to earn enough money to complete their education.

One student commented, "I'll probably have to cancel my trip to Europe this summer." Another said, "I'll probably quit school."