Early Action Admissions Hit Highest Number Ever

The admissions office will send out a record-breaking 659 early acceptance notices today, giving good news to more than one-third of Harvard's largest early application pool ever.

If matriculation rates remain consistent with last year's. Harvard can expect 90 percent of the 396 men and 263 women to accept places in the Class of 1989.

Up 15 percent from last year, this year's 1808 early action applicants represent a "a strong group." Dean of Admissions and Financial Aids L. Fred Jewett '57 said yesterday. "We're very pleased," he said.

Harvard admitted a greater percentage of applicants than three other Ivy League schools reached yesterday offering 25 more admissions than last year.

Fewer Rejections

The figures represent an overall decrease in rejections just 4 per cent and increase in deferrals up to 56 per cent of the high school seniors who met the November 1 deadline according to Jewett.

He added that the selection process remained the same as last year's denying speculation that Ivy League schools had began to weigh achievement test scores more heavily than SATs.

Average SAT scores for this year's early applicants "were at least as high, if not higher than last year," Jewett said, although no specific data has been compiled.

The rise in early action applications up 175 from last year is part of a general rise in applications, Jewett said earlier this fall.

"There is no foolproof explanation for the decision by students and families to enroll in expense schools--perhaps because of the economic turnaround people who would like to come can," he added.

Elsewhere in the Ivy League, Yale admitted 34 percent of its 1488 applicants--roughly equal to the number in last year's pool--despite the paralyzing clerical and technical workers' strike it suffered this fall. Officials in New Haven said they deferred just under to percent and rejected the same number.

Princeton applications fell slightly, down 20 from last year. Out of this year's 1448 applicants, the university accepted a little more than 25 percent, deferred 69 percent and rejected 4 percent, said Assistant Dean of Admissions Spencer I Reynolds.

Brown accepted 20 percent of its 2008 applicants, rejected the same number and deferred about hall of the total pool, admissions officers said.

Minority Increase

Jewett said that Southern applicants to Harvard were stronger this year than in years past. He added that the College had admitted 11 Mexican Americans, higher than last year, and 22 Blacks, roughly equal to last year's total despite the increase in all applicants.

The number of Asian students admitted early--83 this year--also rose from last year.

Students admitted this month will have the opportunity to visit the College during an admissions office-sponsored. Early Action weekend in late February.

By that time, Jewett said he hopes to name a new director of admissions to replace William R. Fitzsimmons '67. Fitzsimmons left Byerly Hall last spring to become chairman of the Harvard College Fund, the annual alumni campaign. Fitzsimmons's duties were divided among other members of the admissions staff during the early action process.