Some historians assert that Harvard maintained quotas for Jewish students during this period. In the 1950s, then-Dean of Admissions William Bender developed an active outreach program to attract applicants from diverse geographic backgrounds.

A number of scholars, among them Professor of Law Alan M. Dershowitz, contend that the movement towards geographic diversity began as a means of limiting the number of Jewish students, most of whom came from New York and other Northeastern states.

But even the shift in geographic representation was significant at a time when the notion of diversity was considerably narrower. Ford Professor of Social Sciences David Riesman '31 recalls a friend from Butte, Montana, as seeming "strikingly different" from his classmates.

Another graduate from 1958 recounts how students from California and the Midwest were jokingly referred to as "GDs" or geographical distributions.

Later, in the 1960s, University administrators began to seek out members of previously untapped minority communities, Black students in particular.

The admissions office started using the national achievement scholarship program to target talented Black high school student. A need-blind admissions policy was implemented. Nevertheless, Fitzsimmons estimates that minorities accounted for less than three percent of his class, which graduated in 1967. (No numbers for minority enrollment were recorded at the time.)

It took the tumult which followed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968 for the admissions office to take measures that achieved significant results.

In 1969, the College committed itself to an affirmative action admissions policy. The number of Black students admitted in that year jumped to 121, from 48 the previous year.

The number of Black students coming to Harvard each year since then has remained roughly the same, dipping below 100 only in 1986 and 1987 and once again this year.

Ninety-five Black students--the lowest since Harvard's affirmative action policy was implemented--will join the Class of 1996. OnltTy 27 of these students are male.

According to Fitzsimmons, many other potential students were lured away by lucrative non-need based financial aid packages from schools like Duke University and Washington University.

In the 1970s, Harvard expanded its recruitment of minorities to include Hispanic students, Chicanos and finally Asian-Americans. In 1980s, with the advent of planned internationalization at the University, the admissions office began recruiting worldwide.

The number of women undergraduates has steadily increased since the Harvard and Radcliffe admissions committees combined in 1976.

Originally Radcliffe was allocated a ratio of one student to every four Harvard students. In 1972, former President Derek C. Bok lowered the ratio to 2.5:1, a level that has steadily been moving up to parity. Currently the ratio is 1.34 men to one woman.

The admissions office has a long term goal of achieving equal proportions of men and woman at Harvard. Both have roughly the same acceptance rate, so the task seems to be one of attracting more qualified female applicants.