Number of Waiting List Admits Continue to Drop

The Harvard Admissions committee will take fewer than 10 people off of the waiting list for the class of 2003, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons '67 said yesterday.

"I think technically...it's around five people," Fitzsimmons said. "Probably [including] three May cases, somebody for whom we needed late information such as late test or additional grades."

Last year the admissions office admitted between 20 and 30 students off the waiting list, and Fitzsimmons said both the years' wait list decisions involved admitting fewer students off the list than expected.

"In a normal year we'd expect 50 people...Typically you'll build it in that 50 to 100 people come off the waiting list," said Fitzsimmons, who held the final meeting of the admissions committee this year two days ago.

"There have been years we've taken over 100 off the waiting lists," he added. "Most institutions want to build a little bit of room into the process.

The low number of wait list acceptances this year is in part a product of this year's record high yield rate. While Fitzsimmons said final figures have not been determined since some accepted students may defer admission, the yield is likely to be almost 80 percent.

Fitzsimmons said Harvard is usually conservative in determining the number of students to admit because of its traditionally high yield.

"What you don't want to have occur is overcrowding," Fitzsimmons said. "We have not had an overcrowding situation for many, many years. It's probably not since the 1970s that we came in over."

Still, a record yield this year led to a lower waiting list acceptance rate than expected.

Some other schools reported similarly low numbers of waiting list acceptances. Dartmouth College accepted 13 people from their wait-list, and in the last two years has accepted none. This year they were also to admit a smaller class of 1050 students, according to Dartmouth admissions officials, because of the large numbers that have accepted admissions in recent years.

Fitzsimmons said that at Harvard, unlike at Dartmouth, each waiting list case is reviewed individually during the final consideration period. Dartmouth, in contrast, typically asks each regional admissions officer to recommend three to five students to their joint committee.

In considering wait list applicants, Harvard also considers material sent to them by students in the second half of the year, such as second semester grades and other achievements.

Since the early 1970s, the University has also offered acceptances to between 20 and 30 students on the condition that they defer their admission for a year before enrolling.

"Every year, we identify an additional number of students whom we would love to have, and we simply don't have the room for them that year," Fitzsimmons said.