Study Examines Dow Protestors

The Harvard Office of Tests has conducted an unpublished study comparing the scholastic achievement of student demonstrators and their less radical college classmates.

The study, conducted by Dean K. Whitla, director of the Harvard Office of Tests, concluded that the 255 students who were identified as participants in the 1967 Dow sit-in held a higher than average position on the Harvard rank list.

These results stem from a "small, insignificant test," according to Whitla. "This office is always running tests on every kind of group, trying to find any sort of relationship between grades and students," he explained. "This is the result of one set of data we just happened to run off."

Whitla said that he did not wish to go into the details of the tests. "If it were a good study with highly significant results, I would have released it," he added. "But it just wasn't anything much."

Whitla, who is also an associate director of Admissions, stressed that there was no connection between the tests and the admissions office. "There would be all kinds of overtones if the results were applied to the College's admissions policy," he said. "In admissions, we are not concerned with a student's political views."