Ask the Gatekeeper!

To the millions of pre-admits, pre-admit families, and kindergarten hopefuls, Dean of Admissions William R Fitzsimmons’ word is gold—gold that will be gracing the pages of The New York Times college admissions blog, The Choice, from September 10-15. Readers are invited to post questions for Fitzsimmons of which (and mind you the posts will likely hit 1,000 before Flyby finishes writing this post) he will answer 2-3 per day.

Fitzsimmons said he immediately agreed when his long time acquaintance at the NYT, Jacques Steinberg, proposed the idea two weeks ago.

“It is an opportunity to reach out, what you want to do as an admissions officer is serve the public interest…it also would allow us to answer some of the questions most on people’s minds and try to demystify and demythologize so many urban legends about admissions,” Fitzsimmons told Flyby.

In our own attempt to help the dean sift through the pages and pages and pages of questions, Flyby chose a few we found most relevant or all-encompassing.

Read after the jump for a little preview.

FlyBy: Here’s a good one, one guy asked why the cost of higher education now outpaces the standard of living…

William R. Fitzsimmons: The average household doesn’t have to conduct cutting edge research in labs that cost millions of dollars to run…[for one thing]… there are lots of reasons, that’s one [question] we will take some time to answer.

FB: This one’s more straightforward: Will Harvard ever reinstate transfer admissions?

WRF: Your guess is as good as mine on that one.

FB: Hmm, this one seems relevant. This person asks about your thoughts on the “industry of admissions consultants.”

WRF: This is an industry that has been growing over the past 5-10 years in part because there are less resources available to students in high schools…there are schools in which there are ratios of nearly 1000 to 1 counselees to counselor…in this crisis situation there has certainly been an industry that has grown to meet this unmet need… (WRF noted that many consultants, finding themselves in situations where they are disproportionately helping already advantaged students, have begun to do pro-bono work as well.)

FB: Okay you’re probably not going to love this one, “Can you comment on the admissions preference given to legacy students, athletes, and minorities?”Flyby broke this question down a bit… (We were specifically interested in how Harvard has been nabbing so many all-star athletes lately…)

WRF: We prize excellence of all kinds… part of the American college experience is athletics; it’s a form of excellence. In many communities students can’t afford a cello [for example] but have sports programs… We have the largest number of intercollegiate sports – it has been a way to reach out to students who would not have been able to come to Harvard otherwise, if you look at student athletes later in life it’s amazing what they have done.

Case in point: WRF played goalie for Harvard’s Men’s Hockey from ’64-’67.

Photo: The Harvard Crimson/Alan C. Chiu