In adopting the report of the committee appointed to consider principles and methods for more effective sifting of candidates for admission, Harvard has accepted the most important change in admission requirements since she introduced the "New Plan" more than a decade ago. For one of the recommendations is that boys from approved schools who rank among the highest seventh scholastically in the graduating class may, if recommended by the school, be admitted without examination. . . . At the same time certain restrictive changes will go into effect which will tend to reduce the number of men admitted under the old system with conditions or low grades on their entrance examinations.

While Yale, for the present at least, has set a limit to the size of the entering class, at 850 men, Harvard has not placed a definite restriction on numbers. It is evident, nevertheless, that she is meeting the same problem in a not so very different way. Yale, having set a certain number as the maximum, can choose from among the best candidates. Harvard, apparently, will set standards which will prevent more than the desired number from entering and thus be assured also of a high type of undergraduates. There is a difference of method, but the aim is the same. Along with this there is apparent an intention to enable boys to enter Harvard from schools whose curriculum is not specifically adapted to preparation for college entrance examinations. There are many such, throughout the country, and boys graduating from them have had either to go through an additional period of training solely for these examinations or enter colleges which admit on certificate. Now Harvard proposes to admit without examination those who attain a certain scholastic rank. It is a radical departure from the traditional Harvard method.

Yale has for some years realized the need for meeting half way the boys who want to enter the University but who are unable, because of their particular preparation to pass the entrance examinations, and in 1920 the plan was adopted whereby a boy from an approved school, recommended by his principal or headmaster, is examined in English and four other subjects of his senior school year, and admitted or rejected on the basis of what he had studied rather than on the arbitrary requirements which the University might set up and with which he could not comply. . . . The plan has worked out well, and each year sees a more thoroughly national representation among the Freshman Class and an increasing attendance of desirable boys from the smaller or more distant schools. It is doubtless the same end which Harvard has in view, and there will be much interest in the success of her plan. Yale Alumni Weekly