Linda Smith Wilson, a University of Michigan vice president, will be named the seventh Radcliffe president this afternoon.

Members of the Radcliffe Board of Trustees, which holds final say on the appointment, said last night they will almost certainly confirm Wilson at a noon meeting today.

After a 16-month search during which at least four top candidates removed their names from consideration, a search committee--composed of trustees--selected Wilson little more than a month before outgoing President Matina S. Horner will end her 17-year tenure.

Horner announced her decision to step down from the presidency in February, 1988, saying she wanted to return to her scholarly work.

"[Wilson] has said she will accept if the Board of Trustees approves her, but decisions are never final until the Board takes its oath," Horner said last night. Horner--Radcliffe's youngest president when she was selected in 1972--said the 53-year-old Michigan administrator has worked with her in the past and is unlikely to face opposition from the Board.

"She's a wonderfully talented, imaginative person who I think will do just terrific things," Horner said. "I have so much respect for everything she could contribute."

Wilson, a chemist who has been at Michigan for the past four years, has served on several national research committees, including the National Science Foundation advisory committee, where she worked with Horner.

Wilson came highly recommended for the post by Princeton University President Harold Shapiro, who appointed her vice president for research while he was at Michigan, sources said.

Although Horner's plans for next year have not yet been announced, she said last night she would be available to help Wilson make the transition to the Radcliffe job. Horner added that she has already been in contact with her successor, and will work with her over the next several months.

"We've already been talking, and we will continue to work in transition over the next two months," Horner said. "I will of course always be available if she needs my advice."

Nancy-Beth Sheerr '71, who chaired the search committee, said yesterday that the decision to call a Board of Trustees meeting was made two weeks ago.

"We don't anticipate that there will be any conflict [in the meeting]," Sheerr said, adding she could not "confirm or deny" the decision.

And Board of Trustees Chair Amey A. DeFriez '49 said there would be a press conference today at 2 p.m. She refused further comment on the appointment, however, saying, "I would rather get into it after the Trustees have acted on it."

Earlier this spring the post was unofficially offered to Yale Professor of Psychology Judith Rodin, who later declined it. In addition, several other candidates--including Harvard Law School Professor Martha L. Minow and Duke University Professor Anne F. Scott--were seriously considered for the post until they removed themselves from consideration.

When the search committee offered the presidency to Rodin they had narrowed their search from a field of more than 300 to a short list of about six candidates, according to Radcliffe sources. But after Rodin, Scott and Minow removed their names from the list, college administrators said the remaining three top candidates would not be offered the post.