"The talent is everywhere. The important thing for us is to keep this place open to people of talent and people of talent and people of character," Fitzsimmons said.

Then and Now

Panelists also discussed the great changes between the entering classes of 1946 and 2000.

Fitzsimmons said that the Class of 1946, at 1,400 students, was the largest ever. There had been 2,185 applicants and 1,900 admissions.

This year, a record 18,000 high school seniors applied to the Class of 2000.

Two thousand were admitted.

Fitzsimmons said, though, that the criteria for admissions haven't changed much in the last 50 years.

"We will spend two or three hours, if we have to, debating a single case," the dean said. "One of the things you might ask is, 'Would I be admitted if I applied today?' I make the argument that we would be".

Fitzsimmons also noted that the Class of 1946 was evenly split between regular September entrance and June entrance for accelerated degrees. Many members of the class finished in less than three years.

Moderator Osborn Elliott '46-'44, former CEO of Newsweek, recalled the search for gut courses under the accelerated degree program.

He described a class titled "The History of Ancient Science".

"The beauty of that was that there wasn't much science back then," Elliott said.

Elliott complained about the reading load that some professors assigned. In particular, he recalled a class titled "Criminology and Penology".

"We were all taking this as a sixth course, we didn't have time to read," he said.

Another class with a mammoth reading load, according to Elliott, was "The History of Modern Italy." Before the exam, one hardworking student asked the professor which books the students should concentrate on.

"One of the books, two of the books, none of the books--makes no difference," Elliott recalled the professor responding in a heavy Italian accent