Transfers: Do Not Go Gentle

One year ago, on the Thursday before spring break, the College announced that it would suspend its transfer admissions program. The 1,308 applications vying for an estimated 40 spots were returned uninspected. The student body briefly broke out in protest over the move to eliminate the program, which had allowed approximately 20 students per semester last year and greater numbers in the preceding years, to join the Harvard community. In the short time since the program’s suspension, the outrage over this substantial loss has all too quickly evaporated. With most of the remaining transfers graduating this year and the rest slated to graduate in 2010, the entire institutional memory of the program will soon be lost. A small but important portion of our population will be forgotten.

The transfer admission program has been an important part of the College’s history, allowing notable graduates like John F. Kennedy ’40, Henry Kissinger ’50, and W.E.B. DuBois, Class of 1890, to attend Harvard after doing time at other institutions. The talented pool of transfers that Harvard would admit had already proven themselves exceedingly capable elsewhere before recognizing that they would be best able to learn and contribute here. Yet, despite the March 2007 statement by then-Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 that we “always want to have space for some exceptional transfer students,” this option has been closed indefinitely.

Transfer students have brought to the student body a special kind of the diversity that Harvard prizes. In addition to simply generating exceptional candidates who belonged at Harvard, transfer admissions also brought in students from very distinct institutions. Deep Springs, a two-year, all-male college and ranch in the California desert, is considered one of the most selective and intellectually engaged undergraduate institutions in the country. Formerly, significant numbers of its graduates finished their undergraduate careers at Harvard. Moreover, typical transfer classes included students from all of the military academies who had distinguished themselves in particularly difficult environments and then realized that Harvard, not the military, would provide them with the best chance to give back to their communities and their country. These students, with their highly diverse perspectives, have been locked out.

Although the suspension, as originally announced, was intended to last for only two years until the housing crisis—the supposed reason for the halt—was fixed, the College has since changed its position and “suspended indefinitely” the program. The admissions website now states that, “Instead, the College has embarked on a planning process for substantial capital investment to renovate and revitalize its residential spaces.” It is deeply troubling that the College has reneged on its promise to bring back the transfer program and has no real plan to do so.

The financial situation should not be cause for objection to the reinstatement of the transfer program. New transfer students will pay tuition while adding a very limited marginal cost to the College’s budget, requiring no new professors and being placed into existing advising programs. Although the addition of a few transfer students might require better selectivity in freshman admissions or a slightly greater burden on the House system, the benefits that they bring to the community far outweigh the costs. Harvard must reopen the option of accepting gifted transfer students, whether one, five, 20, or more. Divided among 12 Houses, the burden would be so small, and the gain so great, that the continuation of the suspension is a detriment to the College.