Undergraduate and GSAS Admissions Offices To Withdraw from Byerly Hall Digs next September

Next September, Byerly Hall—the building that is the focus of every prospective student’s attention—will be housed in three different locations: the Agassiz House, the Cronkhite Center, and the Holyoke Center.

Starting next year, undergraduate admissions will use the Aggasiz House’s first floor as its principle reception and greeting area, while moving its administrative and financial aid offices to the Cronkhite Center at 86 Brattle Street. The actual undergraduate admissions administration will occupy the ground and first floors of the Cronkhite Center, while the upper floors will continue to house graduate students.

The administrative, admissions, and financial aid offices for the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences will now occupy the third floor of the Holyoke Center.

This move will be the first time in over a quarter of a century that the admissions office has moved.

The undergraduate admissions offices have occupied Byerly Hall since 1974 when the offices were still split in half between Harvard and Radcliffe College. Two years later, the Colleges admitted the Class of 1980—the first joint class of men and women, according to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67.

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has been renting Byerly Hall from the Radcliffe Institute since its 1974 move. The lease agreement will expire in December 2006.

The move will give undergraduate admissions much needed space to accommodate increasing numbers of applicants and larger information sessions, Fitzsimmons said.

He added that the move also allows the Radcliffe Institute to consolidate all its buildings to the Radcliffe Yard. In addition, the Institute will move its Fellowship Program to its new Byerly space.

The move and small renovation of Aggasiz House will be managed by FAS Associate Executive Dean for Physical Resources and Planning Linda Snyder.