Veritas Has No 'Z'

It is reasonably common knowledge that Harvard admits a certain number of students each year on the condition that they take a year off before enrolling. What many people don’t know, though, is that this group of deferred admits is a very, shall we say, special set of students.

The admissions office refers to this group as the “Z-list,” and there are approximately 20 Z-listed students per year. What the Z-list does is enable the admissions office to admit students whose credentials coming out of high school are not quite up to snuff. Because Harvard considers taking a year off to be beneficial, it follows that these 20 students, having spent a year studying or traveling, will as a result have somewhat more impressive curricula vitae when they enter school than otherwise.

The practice of annually making 20 people take a year off is rather peculiar, and immediately raises several questions, among which are: what is so special about Z-listed students? Why not instead just admit 20 more students every year who are qualified to enter immediately?

I can think of at least two very legitimate uses for the Z-list. First, it could be used for students whose high school records show signs of improvement that seem likely to continue. The year off would allow such students to continue to improve, so that by the time they arrive at Harvard they are working at their full potential. A second very sensible use for the Z-list would be for academically sound but socially immature students, for whom a year of traveling or working might help them to meet the non-academic challenges of college life.

Now, how is the Z-list really used?

A story in the Crimson this past commencement, “The Back Door to the Yard,” sheds some light on the issue. In this article, Crimson reporter Dan Rosenheck ascertained the legacy status (i.e. whether or not one or both parents attended Harvard) of 36 of the approximately 80 Z-listed students enrolled at the college. Of the 36, Rosenheck reported, 26 were legacies—72 percent, compared with approximately 12-14 percent of the general College population.

And there you have it—numbers tell the truth. Unfortunately, it appears that the same cannot be said of the practitioners of this policy in the admissions office. In the same story, Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath Lewis ’70-’73 is quoted as saying that the Z-list is “not a legacy list” and that “there’s no formula to this and there’s not much in common [between Z-list students].”

Along with these prevarications, McGrath Lewis also gave a highly intriguing account of why the admissions office does not keeps tabs on such statistics as the number of legacies among Z-listed students: “It’s not something that’s in our interest to do...we’d have to pull up the folders and it would be work. We try to devote our work to questions that are interesting.”

There are 20 reasons—per year—why it might be worth it for an admissions office that prides itself on equity and meritocracy to “pull up the folders.”

Simple reasoning dictates that the Z-list does not simply help legacy students, but also hurts others—the competition for spots at a place like Harvard is a zero-sum game, and for every under-qualified legacy that is allowed in via the Z-list, another student’s chance to come here is eliminated.

I do not mean to imply, by any means, that the issue of legacy advantage is a simple or black-and-white one. Whether or not it is “fair” or “right,” Harvard does have an important financial stake in admitting legacy students; alumni are more apt to give money when they think that their children have a bit of an edge in the admissions game, and it is this very money that, to take one example, enables the college to have a need-blind financial aid system.

Still, a distinction can, and I believe should, be drawn between giving legacy students a leg up in the regular admissions process and, on the other hand, having a de facto special admissions program for them. The former practice is in consonance with the conventions of more or less all colleges and universities, while the Z-list is a Harvard specialty—and, given its venality and elitism, not one to be very proud of. On this latter point, at least, the admissions office seems to agree with me, as they maintain purposeful ignorance of the Z-list’s percentage of legacies.

In any case, whatever one’s opinion on the Z-list, one thing is beyond doubt: the powers that be do have a responsibility to be transparent, or at least honest, about their practices.

With this elementary ethical principle in mind, I challenge the admissions office to come forward with statistics that refute the fact that the Z-list is composed almost entirely of wealthy legacy students—and if they do not, I challenge them either to disband this elitist money-funnel, or at the very least to be upfront about its true raison d’etre.

Zachary S. Podolsky ’04, a Crimson editor, is a classics concentrator in Currier House. His column appears on alternate Thursdays.