Low Admissions Yield Allows Housing for Forced Commuters

The admissions office has offered housing to the incoming freshmen it had originally admitted as "forced commuters," after they requested boarding accommodations, William R. Fitzsimmons '67, acting director of admissions and financial aid, said last week.

When an unusually low admissions yield necessitated accepting as many as 60 wait-listed applicants to bring the class of '86 to its projected size of 1600 freshmen, the 17 students who had agreed to come to Harvard as commuters "naturally took on a high priority in our minds," Fitzsimmons said.

Of the 41 incoming freshmen accepted as commuters--the largest number in recent years--only 23 subsequently accepted Harvard's offer of admission.

Fitzsimmons said the admissions office would not seek out students who presumably turned down admission because of the forced commuter option, but that if such students asked the College to reconsider their applications, "we would look at the problem in contest."

Two of the students who turned down Harvard aid last week they would not ask for reconsideration. "I got my hopes up enough times to get very angry at Harvard and then not to care," said Marcie Greenberg, a Brookline resident who will attend the University of Pennsylvania.

Saying she had called and visited Harvard several times to try and get housing before she finally decided to reject admission. Greenberg said she "couldn't just sit around all summer without some kind of security."

Jocelyn Field, another Brookline resident who turned down the forced commuter option, said she was angry at Harvard for "taking my application for one form of admission and converting it to another which hadn't been discussed." She accused Harvard of using the "forced commuter" plan for children of alumni and cited the examples of four alumni children accepted as forced commuters from Brookline--two of whom accepted the option.

Fitzsimmons said the admissions office has not abandoned the forced commuter option on philosophical terms, and in fact plans to offer the same option to a group of students at the end of those accepted from the wait list.