Harvard Admissions 'Yield' Rises As Class of 1975 Fills Up Quickly

If your little brother is planning to join the Class of '75 via the waiting list, you can tell him to kiss the Harvard experience goodbye.

Less than a month after letters were mailed out to 1507 successful applicants, the class is full. Twelve hundred fourteen students have told Harvard they intend to come here next fall, according to Pohn P. Reardon Jr. '60. associate dean of Admissions and Financial Aids.

Applications to Harvard were down 12 per cent from last year, and the admissions staff figured that the "yield," or percentage of those admitted who accept, would also be off.

So they admitted about 70 more applicants this year than last. But the yield turned out to be about the same this year, or even slightly higher-around 80 per cent.

That compares to yields of approximately 50 per cent for Stanford and 50 to 60 per cent for Yale and Princeton. The latter two schools, Reardon said yesterday, "have gone to the wait list, and heavily."

But it is extremely unlikely that any of the 100 Harvard applicants who were wait-listed will now be offered a spot in the class. Last year 80 students on the waiting list were eventually offered admission. Thirty-seven of them came to Harvard to join a class totaling 1207 men.

Reardon speculated that Yale's continued low yield might indicate that "for scholarship kids, Yale's [deferred tuition] plan didn't work as well."

Harvard's expected yield is calculated scientifically each winter by Dean K. Whitla '52, director of the Office of Tests who has a Ph.D. in statistics.