Transfer Rejection Has Long History

Each year, University Hall gives the Admissions Office a number, representing the slots available for new transfer students. This year, for the first time in over three decades, that number was zero.

Two weeks ago, the admissions office told 1,308 unlucky transfer applicants via e-mail that none of them would be accepted for the next two years. While the College has told the applicants that it will refund the $60 application fee, many applicants are still upset with the decision.

But while the decision may have come as a surprise, it is only the latest episode in a decades-long conflict between overcrowded undergraduate housing and an ever-growing number of transfer applicants.

A similar transfer moratorium was announced in 1974, with mixed results.

Housing was so tight that year that Winthrop House had to convert its senior common room and guest suite into undergraduate housing, while Dunster House had to convert tutors’ offices into sophomore suites.

But despite the new policy, the College admitted three transfer students in 1974, accepting three fewer freshmen to accommodate them.

An admissions official at the time cited the applicants’ “incredible academic credentials,” but Director of Admissions Marlyn McGrath ’70 said she does not expect to be able to make such exceptions this time around.

“I don’t see any likelihood that the number will be changed,” said McGrath, who herself transfered to Radcliffe College from Wellesley in 1967. “It’s not a question of exception.”

Historically, the College has tried to ease the tension by limiting housing options for transfers.

In 1977, facing another housing crunch, the College announced that transfer students could only live in the relatively less-crowded Quad Houses.

And the unlucky students who transferred in 1983 were told during their orientation that they would not be able to live on campus for their entire undergraduate career.

Due to a severe backlash among students, the College announced the next year that all transfer students would have the opportunity for on-campus housing. But in 1986, the College again refused to guarantee housing for transfer students.

This year’s decision to eliminate transfer admissions altogether is motivated in part by an unwillingness to admit transfer students on a non-residential basis.

“In important respects, undergraduate education at Harvard College is residential in character,” the admissions office said in its announcement. “Students learn a great deal from the residential experience and contact with one another, complementing the experience of classrooms and laboratories.”

More recent trends point to a transfer admissions squeeze as well, though College officials never indicated that the program would be suspended entirely.

Starting in 1998, Harvard saw a five-year decline in the number of accepted transfer students that culminated with no transfers accepted in the spring of 2003.

And after 75 transfer students were admitted two years ago, University Hall cut the number in half last year.

But then-Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 told The Crimson at the time that he did not expect the number of transfer students to decrease further.

“We always want to have space for some exceptional transfer students,” Gross said.

—Staff writer Arianna Markel can be reached at amarkel@fas.harvard.edu.