Class of '88 Yield Up, But Includes Few Blacks

Although the Harvard Admissions Office can boast a slightly higher acceptance rate by its successful applicants this year, the minority representation in the Class of 1988 will remain low.

"Almost everybody is coming in droves." Associate Director of Admissions Marcia H. Connolly said yesterday, adding that in some states, such as Alabama, with nine students admitted, no one has turned down a chance to come to Cambridge.

One thousand, six hundred and twenty-eight high school students--up from 1530 last year--have boosted Harvard's yield to 73 percent, up one or two points.

No to New Haven

The Yale University admissions office did not share this success. Margit A. Dahl, Yale director of admissions, said yesterday that more than 40 students will be pulled from the Yale waiting list.

Princeton Admissions Officer Anthony M. Cummings reported a yield of 53.2 percent. He added that the admissions office there will need to take only a few wait-listed students to fill a class of 1140.

But, as in the past few years, Harvard was not as popular with Black students as with whites. Next year's freshman class will include only about 102 of the 183 admitted Blacks, a 55 percent yield, said David L. Evans, a senior admissions officer.

He added that last year, when Harvard admitted a record 186 Blacks, only 99 accepted Harvard's offer, two years before, the number of incoming Black students had been about 25 percent higher.

Black Students Association President Alan C. Shaw '85 said yesterday that Black students are turned off by Harvard's "insensitivity" to minority concerns, pointing to the lack of an Afro-American cultural center.

"Brown, Yale and Princeton all want the same Black students that Harvard does, but their recruiters can say, 'We have a Black house' or 'We have a cultural center,' but Harvard demonstrates no real interest in minority consumes," he added.

Show said that at Harvard pulls more minority students from private schools and affluent families, many inner-city students may be overloaded.

But Connolly said that Harvard's offer has been well-received among other minority groups.

"We did exceptionally well in the Puerto Rican community, very well with Asians and with Chicano groups in California," said Connolly.

According to Ari Q. Fitzgerald '84, head of the Black student recruitment program, this record can be attributed to aggressive nation-wide minority recruitment by Harvard students and the Admissions Office.

The yield for all students was higher in some parts of the country than in others. The figure dropped in some parts of the Midwest but increased by 11 percent in Washington, D.C