The College has just about reached the point where it could fill the freshman class entirely with students whose SAT scores were 700 or better, but it chooses deliberately not to do so. In fact, an examination of the test scores for the Class of '66 reveals little numerical difference between those admitted and those rejected. The median math and verbal scores for the applicant group as a whole were 657 and 641 respectively; for the admitted group the figures were 701 and 677.

To those secondary school teachers and parents who see only the figures, the decisions made by the Admissions Committee seem completely arbitrary. Each year after the rejection notices go out, the Admissions Office gets return letters from these people, or from the students themselves.

Some of the letters are bitter or reproachful, but many are just puzzled. They want to know why a candidate was rejected--and the College has no answer. Except for applicants with serious intellectual or personal deficiencies, there is no reason for rejecting any of them. The only reply the Admissions Office can give is: "We're very sorry, but we thought we had someone better. We could be wrong."

Decisions Are Not Impersonal

The knowledge on the part of admissions officers that "we could be wrong" prevents the admissions process from becoming simply a giant lottery; the letters of reproach remind the College that it is dealing not with lists of activities and ranks-in-class, but with the feelings and futures of individuals.

But painful as the decisions may be, there is no escaping them. The question then becomes: on what basis are the decisions made?

For better or for worse, the College today is committed to an admissions policy which puts heavy stress on such non-objective factors as personality, initiative, intellectual and extracurricular interests, and geographic or family background. The second article in this series will describe these criteria in more detail, and explain how the College goes about getting students who meet them.