Bok on Klitgaard Report

To the Editors of the Crimson:

I deeply regret the anguish and misunderstanding caused in the Harvard community by the unauthorized release and subsequent publication in the Crimson of excerpts from a preliminary outline prepared by Professor Robert Klitgaard on the subject of admissions. I would urge members of the Harvard community not to place any weight on isolated quotations from an unofficial draft of an outline prepared for the purpose of soliciting informed comment and additional data.

Mr. Klitgaard's draft was only a summary of observations compiled before his own research and writing were finished. Moreover, it did not have the benefit of any criticism or evaluation by others in the University experienced in admissions, which Mr. Klitgaard was in the process of obtaining. As the Crimson well knew, the document involved was leaked without Mr. Klitgaard's knowledge and neither represented his own completed work nor the views of my office.

Because of the misapprehensions and justified distress created by this premature disclosure, I should like to make clear why the report was commissioned and what it was intended to achieve. In recent years, there have been mounting criticisms of the methods employed by selective insitutions in choosing students. These concerns are typified by the Truth in Testing bills introduced in several legislatures during the past two years. In view of these criticisms, I thought it desirable to conduct a review of the existing literature and experience covering the following points: (1) a summary of the methods and criteria used by each of the several Faculties at Harvard in admitting students; (2) a discussion of the goals that admissions committees might ideally seek to achieve in selecting applicants; (3) a review of the literature concerning the most common criteria for admission--prior grades and standardized test scores--to ascertain what these criteria purport to measure and how well they succeed; (4) a review of what is known about the effectiveness of other methods of evaluating applicants--personal interviews, letters of recommendation, and any other techniques in use at Harvard or elsewhere; and (5) a list of questions or topics for further research which admissions officers might consider in light of the existing data. As has been the case with other work that I have asked my colleagues to undertake, I communicated these objectives to Mr. Klitgaard in the course of discussions with him and asked him to do a study.

I did not ask Mr. Klitgaard to investigate the abilities or performance of particular groups of students--either by sex, race, or religion. Nor was the study initiated to make recommendations or to secure specific changes in admissions policy. In particular, the study was not commissioned to question our policy of recruiting significant numbers of minority students--a policy which I helped to initiate at the Law School more than fifteen years ago, which I have publicly defended on numerous occasions, and which I continue firmly to support. Instead, the study was designed to review the literature and the data on the various methods, such as testing and interviewing, used to evaluate all students in order to inform interested persons at Harvard about what is known concerning the reliability of these methods and to communicate any useful insights and innovations developed through research and experience here and elsewhere. The draft in fact concerns itself only in small part with the material the Crimson published.

I hope that these remarks help to clarify the origins and purposes of the Klitgaard study. The unauthorized release of a preliminary draft and the publication of selected portions were most unfortunate. These acts offended me and many other men and women in the Harvard community and needlessly raised many doubts and concerns. I am truly sorry about any hurt that has resulted from this unhappy episode. Derek C. Bok   President, Harvard University