Looking at Asian Admissions

The break-down of early action admissions for the Class of 1993 reveals a curious statistic: in a year when the number of applicants declined slightly overall, Harvard admitted 22 percent more Asian-Americans than it did in last year's record-breakingly large early pool of Asian-Americans.

As a group, the pre-frosh visiting the College this week seemed to look like any other. But of the 657 admitted as part of the early action program, 138 were Asian-American, an increase of 25 from last year, according to Admissions Office figures.

The sharp jump comes nine months after the U.S. Department of Education began a "compliance review" of Harvard admissions practices to see whether the University discriminates against Asian-Americans.

Critics have charged that under Harvard admissions policies, Asian-Americans must be academically better qualified to gain admission, and that the University has employed conscious or unconscious bias in limiting the number of Asian-American undergraduates.

Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons '67 denies any correlation between the federal review and the jump in admission rates, and says admissions policy has not changed.

"We simply go one by one, it turned out that way," Fitzsimmons says. "There wasn't any policy one way or another."

Admissions officials give several explanations for the rise in Asian-American admits.

"Asians compromise a larger percentage of the [early] applicants [this year]," Fitzsimmons says, but adds that the Admissions Office has not compiled figures on how many Asian-Americans applied early.

Also, according to admissions data, Asian-Americans typically gain higher representation in the early admission pool than in the regular pool. Last year, for example, Asian-Americans made up 17 percent of students admitted early, while they accounted for about 13 percent of the Class of 1992 as a whole.

Asian-Americans who are admitted also tend to enroll at a higher rate than their white counterparts at Harvard, officials have said.