All the eastern colleges--Harvard especially--soon discovered that expanding westward and also increasing scholarships resulted in multiplying by three of four the number of schools contributing applicants. Harvard was no longer dealing with schools like Exeter, Groton, and Boston Latin, whose headmasters and principals knew well which men the College was looking for. As a result, the Admissions Committee could no longer count so heavily on school recommendations, and it began to see the need for much more personal interviewing.
During the war, Harvard's drive for a national college was mothballed. Then, right after the war, the other Ivy colleges greatly intensified their efforts over anything they had ever done, but Harvard, meanwhile, seemed still to be suffering from its war-time stagnation. Conant himself believes that the movement for "Balance in the College," nationally and otherwise, lost some momentum right about that time.
2. Buck Notes Danger
Whatever the reasons, Harvard simply had not geared itself to the surge of alumni activity by other colleges, and it even found itself facing possible loss of its pre-war balance. The Provost 1946-47 Bulletin articles pointed to the fact that many, many applications were "running to type," and he warned:
"... We should take measures to increase the flow of good students who have other qualities that are needed to reach our ideal balance.... I believe there are many boys of the kind we want in the second quarter of classes that now send up only top men.
"... (But) let me make it clear that I do not propose that we should take any action to stop the flow to Harvard of the studious or sensitive type of boys. This should be obvious. What is not obvious ... is the paucity of applicants of the kind we desire.
"... We need at Harvard an extended organization for making contacts with the 500 to 1,000 schools which now send us students, often only occasionally.... And we must more effectively carry our message of what Harvard is and what it offers to the country at large."
Since 1946-47 six things have happened to put Harvard on a virtual par with Princeton. Dartmouth, and Yale in at least its physical capacity to spread its name and admissions data:
(1). The night before the 1949 Princeton football game, University administrators met Harvard Club delegates at the Harvard Club of Boston. Alumni agreed to revitalize and to man Schools Committees. The administrators on their part agreed to take appropriate steps in Cambridge to implement the program. Over 90 such Harvard Club committees are now in operation, although only half of these can currently be classified as truly "active."
(2). In early 1950 John U. Monro '34 was named to head a Financial Aid Center, which now integrates scholarship, employment, and loan aid to the men who have been admitted.
(3). Director of Scholarships F. Skiddy von Stade '38 compiled financial aid information into a 54-page "Alumni Handbook" which he sent out to all interested alumni. The book also lists criteria for selection, suggested interview techniques, and a system for evaluating and reporting data to the Admissions and Scholarships Committees. It is constantly being kept up-to-date.
3. Changes in Cambridge
(4). The Admissions Office added Graham R. Taylor '48 as Gummere's first full-time assistant, and Dana M. Cotton also began helping the office on part-time basis. In addition other officials like Bender, von Stade, Monro, Dean Leighton, and professor Den Leet have aided Gummere by making special trips to admissions "problem areas."
(5). Francis P. Kinnicutt '30 became the first full-time secretary to the president of the Associated Harvard Clubs. His was to be a roving liasion between Cambridge and the Schools and Scholarships Committee.
(6). Other groups joined the program, too. A reorganized and more compact Overseers' Visiting Committee on Athletics and the Varsity Club, both eyeing the "athlete" problem, pledged their aid. Even the Crimson Key formed a group of 85 undergraduates, who have already begun acting as contact men for the alumni Schools Committees. Read more in News
