But this is no solution. Although Harvard will not release statistics on the records of various schools, an example from Yale can illustrate the point. When the freshman class at New Haven numbered 850, Andover used to send down 85 boys, according to Admissions Director Arthur Howe, Jr. Now the freshman class totals 1,000, and Andover is sending only 53 boys. Howe sadly notes that this cut is occurring at the very time when the "kind of boy Harvard and Yale want is trying to go to private schools so he will stand a better chance for admission."
The headmaster of one small Connecticut prep school is particularly aware of this problem. Formerly his school used to specialize in giving individual attention to students, offering a well-balanced program of academic work and extra-curricular activities. Now he finds this is impossible, if not undesirable. A few years ago, he had trouble filling the school; now he has too many applicants. With the resulting selection, he has found that the curriculum of the school has become progressively harder. The well-balanced program and the individual attention are vanishing. In short, the school is no longer any good for a broad range of abilities; it is "specializing to the danger point."
This fall the headmaster had to tell one mother that he could not accept her son because his aptitude was not high enough. After hearing his decision, she asked him, "What's the matter with you people nowadays? Won't you accept a challenge any more? This is the fourth school which has rejected my child."
The headmaster had no reply. Emphasis in the school has shifted toward intellectually challenging the top half of the class. The others have to follow along the best they can--and must have a certain IQ not to flunk out. This situation disturbs the headmaster. His graduates have a very successful record in gaining admittance to college, but he has no idea where the school itself is heading. He fears that if the current emphasis on intellectual capabilities continues, the institution cannot survive in competition with large schools which can attract more easily first-rate students with their better facilities and faculties.
The plight of this school stems from its inability to cope successfully with the increased demand for entrance to it. Without any set purpose, the headmaster does not really know how to choose students. Nor does he know what qualities the colleges want in applicants. Many schools and colleges, including Harvard, have this same type of problem.
Mens . . . In Corpore
The Admission's Office solution--if it may be called that--is to treat each case individually without any set formula for selecting applicants. It is this policy which College officials and alumni are trying to distribute throughout the country. The results have been gratifying. More applicants are applying each year, to be sure, but more and more of these are qualified applicants--students who have received good guidance and know that Harvard would be a good college for them. Significantly, the school mentioned above has lost almost all contact with Harvard and sends few applicants up here. Many of those who do apply are turned down.
Another small prep school--Groton--has met the challenge of selection more successfully, largely because the headmaster, the Rev. John Crocker '22 has maintained the traditional purpose of the school. He does not believe in selecting students solely on their intellect. 'Groton's purpose, according to him, is "to develop boys in body, mind, and spirit." Many average boys are "awfully happy here," he notes. The large number of boys who regularly gain admission to Harvard--usually about 15 from a class of 40--would seem to indicate that he has discovered a satisfactory way to run a school and to get boys into their first-choice colleges.
If better guidance leads to a more intelligent choice of colleges, however, the work of such Admissions offices as Harvard's will become increasingly more difficult. Dean Bender estimates that in another ten years about 5,000 students will be seeking admission to Harvard--and most of these will know just why they want to come here and will have certain qualities with which to contribute to the community.
Justifiers Are Fools
Better guidance, then may lead to an almost impossible task of selection. Amherst's Eugene S. Wilson, one of the most colorful admissions directors in New England, definitely thinks so. The one fact which saves admissions officers their jobs, he maintains, is that no one checks up on what happens to those candidates who are turned down. Wilson had to refuse admission to twice as many applicants as he accepted for the class of 1959, and almost all those who applied were good scholastically. The selection was based on the "past achievement and future promise of the individual." But in the final analysis he admits that "any man who tries to justify his selections today is a fool."
One of the problems facing admissions officers, Wilson notes, is the accurate evaluation of the academic standards of various schools. This, of course, is closely connected with the grading system. In last year's freshman class at Amherst he says there were 40 students who received C in English, although all of these had maintained a straight A average through high school. Likewise, 19 got D and one, E.
Wilson once wrote a story about the way in which a mythical college selected its students. Each candidate was ushered into a room with a portrait of the University's first president on the wall and a ten-dollar bill on the floor. The admissions director, stationed behind the portrait, could observe the candidate's actions through the hollow eyes of the first president. If the applicant pocketed the bill, he was refused admission. If, on the other hand, he gave it over when the admissions director finally entered, he was accepted.
Thumbs Down on Confidential
A slight variation of this procedure, Wilson suggests, would be to have the same set-up, but instead of a ten-dollar bill a table with all sorts of magazines on it. If the candidate picked up Harper's or the N. Y. Times Book Review, he was accepted. A choice of Playboy or Confidential would reject him, however.
These methods, ridiculous as they sound, are only slightly more arbitrary than the selection process used at many colleges. Judging from scholastic record will be futile in the future, Wilson believes, because all candidates will be so nearly equal. The solution lies in better distribution of secondary school students. "Men in the past have proved that it is possible to be successful without going to such colleges as Harvard or Amherst," Wilson claims. "No place gives away an education; the student has to earn it."
Better diversification of students particularly concerns some of the big-