As an ivy league grad (Brown), 30-year volunteer alumni interviewer of top tier high school students, and former vice president of a university at the other end of the spectrum from Harvard, will you grant that I am at least somewhat qualified to add my two cents?

The editorial writer on this website is trying to turn this into a “liberal” issue.  That’s nonesense!  But that’s to be expected—remember what liberals are—folks who stand on their heads and tell the world that it is upside down.  In fact, Harvard’s decision is self-serving, not magnanimous.  This is not about leveling the playing field for the poor and down-trodden.  It’s about image.

First,  Harvard probably figured out that it would lose nothing by doing away with this Early Action process.  So why not guise it as a feel-good gesture?  Harvard has one of the highest (if not the highest) matriculation rate among all universities.  No matter when Harvard acceptes you, you are likely to matriculate.  It is so competitive (admissions-wise), it really doesn’t need to lock in anyone early.  This is true of all of the ivies, except Cornell and possibly Penn. 

Second, there are relatively few “economically disadvantaged”  (in the sense that this website uses the term “economically disadvantaged”)applying to ivies.  While there are certainly some exceptions to the following (they are still few and far between), there is a direct relationship (and might I add high correlation) between academic success and affluence.  One needs academic success, above all else, to get into ivies.  When you consider the total ANNUAL cost of an attending an ivy—$45-$50K, (times 4 plus say, 8% inflationa annually), a white couple earning ONLY $70,000 per year and whose kid will get no special help (because they are white and have 2 working parents) gets CLOBBERED.  They get no breaks and pay full fare.  They (not the minorities or economically oppressed by this website’s definition) are actually the REAL economically disadvantaged at ivies.  But I digress. 

Harvard’s decision inconveniences the overwhelming majority of applicants, in order   for Harvard to identify and grab a few more representatives from “disadvantaged” groups. Remember, few of such folks apply to schools like Harvard, because few are academically qualified (again, there are exceptions—but not many relative to the application base).  And Harvard wants those few.  So doing allows Harvard to pick up a few more “disadvantaged,” so that its stats look better when it touts its inclusivity.  All school’s take pride in their diversity and publish stats—% minority (black, Asian, Latino), % foreign; % out-of-state, and % in the math and sciences (as opposed to the easier liberal arts).  While Harvard’s overall acceptance rate is 9%, a black, female athlete with 1050 college boards who wants to major in engineering probably has a 90% chance of being admitted.  The reality today is that the disadvantaged (as far is getting into Harvard, Brown, Princeton, Yale, etc. is concerned) is the white, liberal arts, non-athlete, female.  Her chance of getting in is probably more like 3%.

The editorial comment that other schools will follow suit is absurd.  Some of the top tiers (the ivies and other exclusives) might, because they compete with Harvard and each other.  Harvard, for example, accepts only 9% of all who apply.  BUT (what most miss), 85% of all ivy applicants are academically capable of suceeding at the ivy school.  In other words, the applicant pool to ivies is VERY different from the typical college applicant pool.  Imagine a pool of students with average SAT’s approaching 1400, all of whom are the best of the best academically from their high schools, and all of whom have done something highly unusual outside of academics.  Then think in terms of Harvard accepting only 9% (Brown=15%) of them!! 

But Harvard, Brown, Yale are the exceptions.  The typical college (the ivies and other elites aside) is fighting for students.  Eliminating Early Decision or even Early Action, is not in their best interest.  They will do anything to attract students.  Taking away such an applicant-friendly convenience is not in their best interest.  They do not have 9% acceptance rates.  They have 70-80-90% acceptance rates.  They struggle to fill their classes. 

Bottom line:  this will not become a trend.  Only those actually competing with Hravard will follow suit.  It does not affect enough students to make it worth the disadvantage to the overwhelming majority of college applicants who are not minority or disadvantaged.  Finally, Harvard is doing it not to help disadvantaged, but to help itself—bettering its diversity numbers.

Paul White
In the Right

Okay, the very idea that Jews run Harvard and Yale is funnier than anything in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. All that old New England whaling and slaving money that infuses both institutions can just barely stand to be in the same room as such nouveau riche as the Hamptons crowd like the Vanderbilts and Roosevelts. They are quite willing to employ Jewish teachers for their children, but when it all comes down, it`s all about breeding to those folks. And the Jews, well, they can be quite clever, but they`re just so, well, middle eastern, aren`t they dear? Oh, remember when Jimmy Tifton, yes those Tiftons, he was completely smitten with this little Jewish actress, actually brought her to the country club for a dance. Oh, his mother could have died. Of course, his father put his foot down and made Jimmy end it. He married well and went into the firm. Still, they do make wonderful accountants, don`t they? That is the way the people who control Harvard and Yale think about Jews.

harvard is doing this because the american/israeli establishment realizes it needs to indoctrinate minorities, considering how they fail to respond when the establishment presses its hot buttons

for instance, american minorities don’t see why palestinians ought to live like dogs in a kennel or why israel was right to bomb lebanon to smithereens, leaving clouds of poisonous pollutants hanging in the air the lebanese breathe

we also have the example of nyc schools, which now must teach courses on zionism

yale, which is more blindly parochial than harvard, if that’s possible, recently blackballed Prof Juan Cole because he knows too much about what’s going on in the middle east—he even has the gall to be fluent in several middle eastern languages, something that’s just not fitting for a school that gave george w bush a degree