“The more we diversify and spin people out of the recruiting program into self-directing searches, because it is student-managed searches rather than corporate-managed searches, the more there’s a delay,” he said.

Wright-Swadel also attributes the rise in undecided seniors to an increasing tendency among graduate schools to encourage students to take several years off between their undergraduate and professional educations.

This year, the preliminary data shows that roughly 79 percent of graduating seniors “definitely” or “probably” plan to go to graduate school at some point in the future. At the same time, only 26 percent are going on to graduate school next year. In the mid-1990s, that number was closer to 30 percent.

“Students tend to respond to systems,” Wright-Swadel said. “If the graduate schools and the professional schools are saying, ‘Go away for two or three years, confirm what you want to do,’…that two-year window is different from really being undecided.”

Some other potential explanations for the increasing number of undecided students include a rise in the number of students writing theses—which means a rise in the number of students whose winters cannot be wholly devoted to looking for post-graduate opportunities—and the current emphasis at Harvard and beyond about the importance of having a significant international experience.

TEACH FOR HARVARD

Teaching is the fourth most popular employment option for 2004 graduates who plan to work next year. As of last week, about 8 percent of the senior class said they would be employed in primary and secondary education.

Though this figure has hovered at around 6 percent since at least 1999, teaching seems to be an option that more students are considering.

The proportion of students who say they are interested in someday pursuing graduate study in the field of education is also up—by more than 2 percentage points—to 4.4 percent of the graduating class.

Wright-Swadel says he sees the increasing organization and stepped-up recruiting efforts of certain post-graduate teaching programs as a major reason for this surge of interest in the profession.

Teach for America made 39 offers to Harvard students this year, according to Director of National Recruitment Laura Cover. The organization will not release a final count of how many Harvard graduates accepted its positions until after new recruits show up for this summer’s training session.

This number has climbed steadily since 2001, when Teach for America accepted 16 graduates of the College.

Cover attributes part of the rise to a more aggressive recruiting campaign at schools like Harvard.

“Certainly our strategy has been getting more and more focused,” she says. “At Harvard this year we met with tons of seniors on campus in one-on-one meetings. We’ve also been doing research in [The Crimson] and on the website looking for students who have already shown strong achievement. We’ve also been networking with faculty members.”

According to Wright-Swadel, extending 39 offers puts Teach for America’s recruiting efforts up there with those of the big financial houses like Goldman Sachs.