The Admissions Process: Target Figures, Profiles, Political Admits...

"Admissions is a terribly intangible process, very unscientific. We do it on feel as much as anything else...I have nightmares about people we haven't admitted. I've had a nightmare about one girl three nights in a row now. I'll have to do something about her."

Mary Anne Schwalbe '55, director of Radcliffe admissions, had difficulty trying to pin down exactly what it was she looked for in applicants. The admissions officers have no hard and fast rule or method they use in evaluating prospective Harvard and Radcliffe students. The final decision is made in committees where the staff members spend long hours debating candidates qualifications. But before reaching that stage, the application has undergone a process that began months earlier...

The Interview: At the Boardroom of U.S. Steel

The scene is the board room of the United States Steel Corp. in Pittsburgh, Pa., a few years ago. Seated at the table that usually accommodates the directors of the nation's 13th-largest corporation are four or five Harvard alumni. Seated way down at the other end is a high school senior, seeking admission to the College, about to begin his interview, a half-hour question-and-answer session that would leave almost any applicant a bit shaken.

But Harvard and Radcliffe admission officials do not believe that an interview should be a highstress situation and John P. Reardon '60, director of Harvard admissions, has ended the grilling of students at U.S. Steel. Both Schwalbe and Reardon said last week that they favor interviews with a friendly atmosphere that will give applicants a favorable impression of the school. The interview, they noted, may be the applicant's only personal contact with the College, and he should be allowed to come across as something more than a few pieces of paper and test scores.

An interview that allows a candidate to "come to life" can help him get in, but occasionally interviews also serve to reveal serious personal problems that destroy a candidate's chances for admission. Reardon told of a recent interview with an applicant who had "a lot of wacky things to say-I don't know what he was high on, but he was just spaced." Reardon followed up on the interview and discovered the candidate had problems that "the guys in the school were not going to say in writing."

If an interview report differs substantially from the other information in a student's file, the admissions committee may disregard it. If the candidate was nervous or too quiet and reserved to come across well, Reardon said, "there is no way we are going to put a lot of concern on a 20-minute talk."

Radcliffe places much less importance on the interview, primarily because it lacks the network of 2000 alumni who assist the Harvard admissions office. Unlike at Harvard, the Radcliffe admissions staff enters the interview "cold turkey," completely unfamiliar with the applicant's record. As one interviewer. Kathy Kleeman '74, said, "We try to get to know her as a person, what she is interested in and what she wants....We don't look at their grades and board scores and often don't know them at the end of the interview. That might bias our impressions." Radcliffe also sets a standard half-hour time for each interview, intended to prevent the applicant from guessing at how interested the interviewer is in the candidate by the length of the interview.

Alumni interviewers have more influence in the admissions process at Harvard than at Radcliffe; they are better organized, have more information on the applicants, can set their own interview style and even submit a list ranking all the applicants in their area.

Some alumni, Reardon said, hold some "quite unusual" interview sessions. An alumnus, an auto company president, once complained to him about an interviewer in his area: "Do you know what this fellow does? He calls kids up at 9 o'clock and tells them to come over and doesn't let them out until 3 in the morning. When this one particular kid got home, his mother asked. 'What in the world happened?' and the kid replied. 'I can't tell you. I am sworn to secrecy.'"

When they encounter an alumni interviewer who is sending back inaccurate reports or damaging the school's reputation. Reardon and Jewett said they work subtly to have him switched to another kind of admission work. They can't "fire" anyone, since the alumni are all volunteers, but they can offer suggestions to the local alumni officials. Though they acknowledged that the committee must frequently compensate for the personal biases of an alumnus (i.e., a retired army colonel who can't stand anyone with more that 1:4 of an inch of hair), they said "bad" interviewers were fairly rare.

The interviewees vary in style as much as interviewers. Some come across quiet and withdrawn while others, such as Boston City Councilor Larry DiCara, make an unforgettable impression Reardon recalled his interview with DiCara at Boston Latin. "I said My name is Jack Reardon and he said [in a deep voice while giving a firm handshake] 'My name is Larry DiCara' and sat down One hour later I had not opened my mouth and I had to physically put him out the door. We both knew he was going to come here, but I couldn't believe he was for real."

After conducting an interview, an alumnus or staff member rates the candidates on the academic, extra curricular, athletic and personal qualities that form his admissions profile. He also writes a summary of his impression of the candidate. The summary, which may range in length from a paragraph to several pages, usually includes a physical description of the candidate, an evaluation of how well he thinks and articulates, and an assessment of how the candidate will do at Harvard. An excerpt from a typical interview drawn from an actual case read: "Robert Edwards [pseudonym] is one of the most likeable people I have ever met. He is a slow talking, relaxed young man with a tremendous grin...he is a warm, natural guy and should get along well here...he's a hard worker who has done reasonably well through hustle and determination...I think we would be crazy to pass him by and, by the way, I almost forgot, he's a Harvard son." The candidate was admitted.

The Process: The Big Committee

The processing of an application for admission begins when a secretary in Byerly Hall goes through a set of elaborate procedures to prevent the application's misfiling and possible loss. The admissions office rarely loses a file, but occasionally a clerical error will result in a mistake that, if undetected, could have cost a candidate admission. "I can think of a couple of people who got reject letters who were admitted." Reardon said in an interview last week. "I would think that if we admitted a guy by mistake, we would have to live with it."

While the admissions officials say they rarely make clerical errors, they make no bones about admitting they may make mistakes in their decisions. It's a subjective process that works without any formal criteria, making decisions by the majority vote of a committee composed of administrators and faculty. The process of evaluation of an applicant, however, has been thoroughly systemized and computerized over the last few years.

Once an application is complete in all respects (i.e. teacher reports, test scores, etc. are in), it is removed from the office's "dead file" and released to be read by admission officials. An application generally gets two, sometimes three preliminary readings. An official is put in charge of applications from each area of the country and is responsible for reading all the cases from that section.

Each reader fills out a sheet containing a few comments on the applicant and perhaps more importantly, a set of one-to-six ratings on the basis of his academic, extracurricular, athletic and personal qualities. It is four numbers that constitute the applicant's "profile" and provide a handy numerical system which can be used to compare even the most diverse pair of candidates.

Reardon described what some of the figures mean: In the extracurricular field, for example, "a one means you're really super. Bob Portney '74 is a 'I' violinist; a '2' and you're student body president or a newspaper editor; '3' means you're pretty involved; '4' means you go home in the afternoon and watch TV; a '5' or a '6' and you never move."

A 'one' academic rating goes to fewer than one in a hundred candidates and, according to the department's forms, indicates someone with "true creative intellect. Summa potential," and unusual accomplishments, top grades and mid-00 or above test scores." Most students at Harvard received a 'one', 'two' or 'three' academic rating.

The scale for personal qualities ranges from a 'one' for "outstanding character and personality. Tops in all respects" to a 'six' for a "Poor impression, unstable or offensive."

Despite the written detailed interview report and thoughtful comments by guidance counselors and teachers, admission officials have been able to reduce each case to one line of ratings and numbers. Every person who reads an application or submits recommendation is asked to supply some kind of ratings. The interviewers and readers use the one-to-six profile and school officials now rate each applicant "for academic, promise" and "character and personal promise" on one-to-five scales.

Dean K. Whitla, associate director of admissions, codes this information computer use and spins out a computerized "docket" listing each candidate's name, his ranking from readers and school officials, test scores, race and alumni connections. When each case is considered in committee, only the official presenting it will have the file, but every one has the docket in front of him, supplying him with hard numerical information about the applicant.

But before the committees consider the cases, admission officials at both Radcliffe and Harvard draw up "target figures" indicating the number of applicants they expect to take from each geographic region of the country.

At Harvard, the admission pool is divided up into 26 areas; some regions cover several states, others include only a few private schools like Andover and Exeter. Basing their decision on the quality and number of the applications from each area, and upon the action they have taken in the past there, top admissions officers at Harvard and Radcliffe get together with Whitla to set a target number of admits from each region. Though Reardon declined to release the targets because of the disputes they might cause with alumni, and only allowed a quick look at this year's figures, they reveal that while admissions from the Boston and Cambridge areas have remained high, the quality of the applications has fallen off drastically. Reardon acknowledged that if you come out of the Boston public schools, it's easier to get into Harvard, hard though he pointed out that Boston Latin is really the only city school Harvard is drawing students from.

The admissions committee then meets to consider and approve the targets before breaking up into regional subcommittees. At these meetings, which usually start around March 1, the group of administrators and faculty considers every case in the region, trying to come in on target. Reardon stressed that the targets aren't hard and fast if a subcommittee decides it just can't get its group down to target without throwing out some good candidates, it may insist on raising its target. But if an area is going to try to get more applicants in, it must lower the targets elsewhere and this could be a real sorespot when the entire committee meets again.

After this initial round of subcommittee meetings, the entire staff will meet for the second rung of the process: the targets are thrown out and each case is presented by the chairman of the applicant's regional group. The committee may spend any where from a few seconds on a case with a 'six' profile to an hour and forty-five minutes on a toughone Occassionally, Reardon said, tempers get out of hand in the committee. "I've seen one person take a poke at another person. It doesn't happen very often...When you're dealing with that kind of stress over a number of days, there are some disagreements that get sort of personalized."

The committee even discusses the occupation and education of the candidates' parents. As Missy Holland '73, a member of the staff, said "We don't want to fault a kid because of the family background she has had. Different kinds of support at home are taken into consideration along with what they've accomplished. We will take a ship-fitter's daughter who has done less in extra-curricular activities but has also held down a 20 hour a week job, before a corporation's lawyer's daughter who didn't do anything with her time."

In the committee, everyone has an equal vote, from the director of admissions to the most recent addition to the group. A recent graduate who works for the staff might concede on some points to another member of the committee with more experience. But having been a member of the Harvard-Radcliffe community only last year, Hollond's voice carries a lot more clout than the other members' on some issues.

Admission to the College requires only a simple majority vote of the full committee. A student who didn't get accepted in the regional group might get in if someone else on the committee really felt strongly about him. And if the committee rebuffs an area man on a case, he can continue to bring this case back to the committee over and over again until the letters go out.

When a case is presented to the committee, everyone has the docket in front of him; the area man presents a summary, reading from school and teacher reports, the student's essay and the interview sheet.

The essay is usally a neutral factor in a admission, written carefully and on a safe subject, often the activities the applicant has participated in or about his life in his hometown. "But in about 10 per cent of the cases it's really interesting and well done," Reardon said. "It brings to life what may not have not come out in the application itself and in about 10 per cent of the cases, it's a disaster."

The full committee will meet for about ten days, from March 20 to April 1, holding sessions which last until 10:30 p.m. Reardon described the sessions as a careful balancing of viewpoints on what would be the best class. "One thinks there aren't enough mathematicians, another thinks we don't have enough all-around kids, and another thinks musicians really get the shaft."

When the committees finished their deliberations this year. Harvard and Racliffe admitted roughly one out of every five applicants and put a few on a waiting list for consideration in May. Unlike at other schools, nearly 80 per cent of the students accepted come to Harvard, so they'll see a class that looks roughly like the one they've deliberated so long and hard over. If the College had a 30 per cent yield like most college's do, the work of the admissions committee would be more mechanical and less interesting, Reardon said. "You'd just admit any body."

Recruiting: A Network of Over 2000

The recruiting department of the admissions offices have been the focus of controversial attention this spring. Minority applications have dropped 25 per cent this year, and the administration is taking a long look at recruiting methods, in an attempt to find the reason.

Both offices are smarting from this development in minority applications, but each point to different reasons for it. Harvard works mainly through alumni and students. Admissions officials travel around the country, running up a tab of from $30 to $50,000, to add momentum to the local alumni organizations that do the actual fieldwork.

"We try to make sure the machinery is working," Jewett said, "reaching key schools, working on special projects, such as minority recruiting or visiting certain areas."

The success of this program depends on the individual people in the area, and as a result varies regionally. When one recruiter stopped working, his absence was felt. Reardon said. "When he was there we were getting some amazing kids from Washington D.C. area. When he left no one really took his place.

"I find that unless there are one, two, or three people who are really interested, they don't do too much. It takes a really intense effort on the part of someone."

The localized structure of Harvard's recruiting leads to some problems that contribute to the drop in the minority pool. According to Jewett, "they tend to be better organized in the better parts of the city than they are in the slums too life inner city." Reardon described a weak pool of Puerto Rican applicants from New York. "We ought to do better there, but I'm unable to get alumni to give it the time. Somebody's got to go visit some pretty tough schools." Another group this to the distance separating Cambridge from the Mexican-American pool. Reardon attributes this to the distance separating Cambridge from the homes of Mexican-Americans, which are mainly in California.

Up until three years ago Radcliffe did not recruting. With a tiny staff and no money for travelling, the staff stayed close to home. Radcliffe lacks the extensive network that enables Harvard to reach almost any school in the country. The purpose of their visit is to talk to students and answer questions about Radcliffe. They also like to get a feel for the kind of school the candidates attend.

Minority recruiting works throughout the some channels as the general campaign to achieve a geographic balance Certain staff members at Radcliffe whose expertise is minority recruiting will be assigned to areas designated because of the concentration of minority students there. As Wardell Robinson, minority recruiter for Radcliffe, said "I plan my trips around the country so I can talk to minority students."

Recruiters for both offices operate in the same way when visiting schools. They ask to see any students interested in coming to Harvard, and not to see only a particular group. "If the school is predominately black," according to Robinson, "I expect to see mainly black students. If they don't show up then I might ask the guidance counselor to see black students."

Neither Harvard or Radcliffe actually scouts for athletes. Harvard, but not Radcliffe, will look for musicians, scientists, or students with some other special talent. But Harvard doesn't allow its coaches to go visit athletes at their schools. As Reardon described it, they keep a tight reign on athletic recruiting efforts so that they "don't take a guy with 350 scores and get him all excited about Harvard. We want to be realistic about his coming here first."

Harvard-Radcliffe recruiting can look to their successes when the criticism gets tough to take. Reardon described the case of an applicant he found in Oakland. His high school "was the worst, toughest, most unpleasant place I ever went into, with every window blocked out. I felt I would be more comfortable with a policeman. The kid ran the school. He was first in his class, president of the school, captain of a team, but with 450 scores. We decided to take him and give him some real help. His Expos teacher had him write a paper every day. By junior and senior year his grades were no lower than a B. He's at law school now. He had it but I could've been wrong. The question is do you take a chance. We believe when you find someone, you do."

Minorities: Can't Always Tell from the Application

Massachusetts law prohibits the admissions office from asking candidates to specify their race, but federal laws require the college to break down its applications by the minority status of the applicant. To comply with these somewhat contradictory laws. Harvard has adopted a middle path; culling the candidate's race from the hints he drops in his applications and from the reports of interviewers.

Daniel Steiner '54, General Counsel to the University, said Monday that he "isn't 100 per cent sum" but thought that an interviewer "probably shouldn't" indicate an applicant's race on his report. He said that there is a "grey area" in the law on this point, but added that he thought it permissible for a student to volunteer information on his race.

William Bowen, an official of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, said yesterday, however, that unless the University has filed an affirmative action program with the commission, it cannot request the candidate to state his race on the application or allow an interviewer to note the applicant's race on the report. He said the agency could take action by itself on a case like this or could wait for a complaint.

Steiner replied yesterday that the University has not filed such a program with the MCAD. "To be frank, I didn't know they had such a procedure," he said.

Jewett said that Harvard was not violating the spirit of the Massachusetts law, since it was enacted to prevent discrimination against minorities, not to stop programs of affirmative action. He added that he "guesses that the Massachusetts law would not be held applicable" and that the "doesn't think it will ever be enforced."

Admissions officials explained that the first reader of each file classifies the applicant as either white, black, Oriental, Indian or Latin on the basis of a student's participation in a scholarship program for minorities, the kinds of books he reads (i.e., Langston Hughes is a giveaway) and his high school background. Jewett said that sometimes the interviewer uses phrases like "Despite his being a minority student..."

Jewett and Reardon acknowledged that the system is imprecise and that each year they make a few classifying mistakes, admitting blacks they thought were white and vice versa. Jewett also agreed it would be possible for a candidate to pose as a minority student by dropping a few hints on his application, but an interview would greatly reduce his chances for success at this ploy.

Though one of the two black admission officers at Harvard generally read all the folders on minority applicants, Reardon said they should not be regarded as "black admissions officers," but as just black members of the admissions committee. "Sometimes they can be a lot tougher on minority candidates than other, more liberal committee members," he added.

Radcliffe, however, does have special minority recruiters who specialize in handling the difficulties surrounding minority admissions, but when it comes down to the actual consideration of cases, neither department makes any specific, special provision for minorities. They are considered against everyone else in their class and reported to the full committee by the area man, not a minority recruiter.

Reardon said that although Harvard recruited 25 per cent fewer blacks this year, the group "we took this year are probably better in an academic sense than any other group we have admitted so far...There are some alumni, though, who think we've admitted some kids who are bright, who are black and very reserved, but not as pizazzy as some other kids who had 480 scores."

Admissions officials, however, often can't treat minority applications in exactly the way one from a highly competitive school is treated; the kinds of statistics are different. "A candidate can come out of DeWitt Clinton, a tough school in the Bronx, New York, and be first in his class and have a 290 verbal," one admissions officer said, "so rank in class generally doesn't tell you anything out of ghetto schools."

Reardon said Harvard tries to "come to grips" with a minority student's background. If a candidate has what he called "a lot of drive and energy" the committee would look at him even though his board scores may be in the 500s, and probably would debate the case "the head off a pin." But if a minority student has gone to a prep school all his life, he'll get no special consideration.

Admissions officials at both Harvard and Radcliffe denied they had any "target" figures or quotas based on race, but acknowledged they keep an eye on the number of minority students they admit. "We don't set any specific target or quota, though we look back at what we've done so that if we thought we hadn't done enough, we'd probably go back and look again and be sure we were right." Reardon said.

Reardon said he often thinks that Harvard is doing a lot more for people if it takes them from an underpriviledged background and really improves their life than if it takes someone who's already pretty well along academically. Leaving the topic of minority admissions to take a general view of the process, Reardon said "What we are guessing in admissions it seems anyway is what people are going to be like in 25 years...I don't think we're Gods, we're just trying to put together a class of people for which Harvard will make a difference in their lives and helping them along to make a difference in society."

Special Groups: Alumni Kids Get the Nod

All things being equal, the son or daughter of an alumnus has a better chance of getting into Harvard or Radcliffe than any other candidate. The child of a Faculty member has an even greater advantage. Admission officials don't deny these preferences; they are University policy.

The figures show that while 19 per cent of all applicants are admitted, 34 per cent of alumni children get in. But the advantages have decreased over the last two decades, when-90 per cent of all Harvard sons were admitted. Most alumni children are strong candidates but, Reardon said, for 35-40 applicants this year, "the fact of being a Harvard son helped."

Schwalbe also said that some students enter each year as "political admits." These are candidates "who come from a strong Harvard-Radcliffe family; strong in that they support the school by working in alumni organizations or helping with the interviewing, and not necessarily financially."

Both Reardon and Schwalbe expressed concern over the faculty policy giving their children so much preference in the admissions process. There are some faculty children, they said, who would have better off somewhere else.

"Faculty members have some pretty strong feelings about getting their children to come." Reardon said. "Some people are pretty objective in other ways, but not so when it comes to their children."

The admissions officers are often under a lot of pressure, especially at Harvard, to admit alumni sons and daughters and often compare their job to that of congressmen who have to balance the interests of a great many constituencies: the alumni, faculty, and administration.

Sometimes the actions of Yale and Princeton will put Harvard at a disadvantage. Two years ago, a tenth generation Harvard son who was a good athlete but an academic disaster received a rejection letter from the College. The boy got into Yale and Princeton and admission officials were unable to explain to the persistent grandfather that his alma mater had not deserted him, and was working in the best interests of his grandson. The boy, however, has dropped out of Princeton and the grandfather now understands the position of the Harvard admission officials.

After the Letters of Acceptance Go Out

The work of admissions officers doesn't end when the decisions are made and the answers mailed out. "The toughest part of the business," according to Reardon, "is dealing with the people who are disappointed. For some rejection is water off the back. For others it's the end of the world."

Some of those who receive rejection letters make the staff at admissions office acutely aware of their disappointment. The mother of one applicant turned down by the committee arrived at the office without an appointment. As Reardon described the incident. "She told my secretary that she was sure I wouldn't see her, but that she was going to sit all summer or until they admitted her son." As a matter of policy, the admissions offices never reconsider a case unless information in the file is proved false. The woman kept her promise for a while, and the admissions office kept theirs.

Radcliffe took Caroline Kennedy this year, but turned down kin of Katherine Hepburn. Harvard also turned a cold shoulder to the lights of show biz when it turned down Gregory Peck's son. Peck, following in a long line of disappointed fathers, called the admissions office to find out why. "My answer to these people," Reardon said, "is this is a fallible committee. We're not like the Pope. It could be wrong, but this is the decision of the committee."

A SAMPLE CASE

It Could Have Gone Either Way

Arvin had lineage from a Harvard President reading in his favor, among outstanding character references. His application reveals a person of high motivation and incredible industriousness. His father died while he was in Junior High School, and he had to work hard to help support his family. He received no grades below an A, except for one B in Chemistry. His teachers and all those who met him were impressed with his achievements and said so emphatically.

But the admissions committee had reservations about his ability to do the work here and keep up his involvement in athletics. As he admitted in the interview. "I'm not too bright. I was kind of doubtful if I should go to Harvard."

The interviewer gave him a strong recommendation--except he "wished he was a little quicker mentally." Described as "not a scholar" and with low verbal board scores, the committee finally decided, after considerable haggling, to send a special letter of rejection. "Everyone on the committee thought he was a terrific kid. But we had doubts if could do the work here and still be active athletically."

The admissions office conducted a follow up on "Arvin" to see what had happened to him after getting turned down. They found he had gone to a state university and was doing well. He managed to continue to be active in athletics and get good grades. They were happy with their decision, but it could've easily have gone the other way.