Medical School Dean Denies Charge Of Bias Against Harvard Applicants

Stephen J. Miller, an associate dean of the Medical School, denied yesterday a charge that the system for assigning applications from Harvard and Radcliffe to the admissions committees is discriminatory.

Under the admissions system, Harvard and Radcliffe applications are assigned to the committees according to their House affiliation. Applicants from other colleges are considered on a college basis.

The admissions committees pass decision on each applicant, and their decisions on either admitting or rejecting an applicant are usually supported by the entire committee.

Charges Discrimination

The charge that assigning Harvard-Radcliffe applications by House instead of as a college unit discriminates against residents of some Houses was made by an Eliot House senior in a letter sent to The Crimson last week. The student asked not to be identified.

In that letter, he said that the relatively small number of persons admitted to the Med School from Eliot House was not the result of "any differences between the applicants of the various Houses," but rather because of the method of considering the applications.

The senior said that he felt Eliot House applicants had been assigned to what he termed a "tough pool"--a committee which had a larger than average number of applications to consider, including applicants from more than one Ivy League school.

Applicants from other Houses were assigned to committees with light work loads or to committees considering only one other Ivy school, he said.

"One's chances for admission," the letter said, "depended, at least in part, on one's House affiliation."

Disputes Charges

Miller disputed those charges, however. He said that Harvard and Radcliffe students have a better chance of getting into Med School now that they are compared with other students across the country, instead of assigning Harvard and Radcliffe applications to a separate committee.

Miller said yesterday that it might be more equitable, and more random, to assign applications to admissions committees by home address instead of by college or House affiliation. But he said that the present system is "a lot easier for us."

"We try to be as equitable as possible," he said. "But there are all kinds of things we just don't have control over."

One House might have a better pre-med advisor than another, but so could one college when compared to another," Miller said.

Doesn't Remember

"More than one Ivy school could, theoretically, be assigned to one committee, but I don't recall just how the assignments go," Miller said.

This year twelve Radcliffe and 34 Harvard students were admitted to the Med School, compared with 7 from Radcliffe and 34 from Harvard last year.

Miller did not have any figures on successful applicants from each House, but he said the data would be available within a week.

Tanya Friedman of the Med School admissions office said yesterday that it was not unusual for one House to have more successful applicants than another.

She said "it's been like that for years."