Equal Access Report Praises New Policy

Harvard and Radcliffe have merged their admissions offices and implemented equal access admissions policies with relatively little difficulty, the Committee to Review Equal Access said in a report released last week.

Although the committee identifies several problems that have emerged in the year and a half since the equal access admissions policy was implemented, it reports that the policy "seems to have been the necessary final step in the full inclusion of women into every aspect of university undergraduate life."

The review, stipulated when the Faculty voted to adopt a sex-blind admissions policy in 1975, is generally favorable, and the committee reports it found no instances of discrimination against any applicants in the admission process.

The pool of women applicants has grown steadily, and the ratio of males to females in entering classes has become smaller since the Faculty adopted the equal access policy.

Although the review committee commends the admissions office for its efforts to recruit qualified women, it does not predict how long it will take the College to achieve a one-to-one ratio.

"Things went more smoothly 'than anyone expected," Alberta Arthurs, acting dean of freshmen and chairman of the review committee, said yesterday.

Most of the problems the committee identifies in its report lie in the mechanics of merging the two admissions offices, such as having too many high-level admissions officers with overly vague responsibilities and a time-consuming method of reviewing applications.

In each case, the committee makes specific recommendations to the admissions office for overcoming these problems.

Mary Anne Schwalbe '55, director of admissions for the Colleges and former director of Radcliffe's admissions office, said yesterday the admissions office has already begun to implement several of the recommended changes in procedure.

O.K.

The admissions office has "no quarrels at all" with the review committee's report, Schwalbe said.

Both Arthurs and Schwalbe said the problems of merger are not serious, and will be worked out as the admissions offices work together.

The committee also identifies several more deep-seated problems in the equal access program, including shortages of women applicants interested in science or athletics.

Fair, But Late

However, the committee found that the admissions office has coped with these problems by increasing recruitment efforts for female science students and by giving extra weight to extracurricular activities outside athletics so that women are not treated unfairly.

The committee told the Faculty last spring it would report back last fall, but took longer than expected to complete its review.

"My feeling is that equal access is no longer news--and that's the way it should be," Arthurs said.