Admission Letters Sent To the Class of '94

A Nigerian from Hong Kong and a Kenyan from Singapore will be among the 2201 students admitted to Harvard in the class of 1994.

In the wake of President Derek C. Bok's call to internationalize Harvard, citizens of other nations will comprise nearly six percent of the class of '94, according to a report from the Harvard and Radcliffe Undergraduate Admissions Office. The admissions office called the group the most international ever to attend Harvard.

"We tried to get more interviewers and recruiters abroad," William R. Fitzsimmons, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid said.

International students present different problems to the admissions process because they often lack extracurricular activities and have difficulty providing the breadth of information required for applications, Fitzsimmons said.

However, he attributed the increased numbers of international students admitted largely to alumni abroad who reacted favorably to the idea of internationalization.

Admission officials also said the class of '94 will include more minorities than previous classes.

"The Class will have unprecedented ethnic diversity," said Fitzsimmons, refering to the increased number of minorities admitted this year.

A record number of Asian Americans, 394, and Native Americans, 13, were chosen out of this year's 12,188 applications to receive acceptance letters this week. Blacks will make up 9.3percent of accepted students; Chicano and Hispanicstudents, 5.2 percent.

An increase in the number of students admittedfrom the U.S. West and South reflected ademographic shift in the proportion ofeighteen-year olds away from the East,Mid-Atlantic, and Mid-West.

The decrease in the number ofeighteen-year-olds also accounts for the drop inthe number of applications from last year's14,520.

All acceptance letters were mailed at 12:01a.m. on Wednesday, April 4th, a week earlier thanin past years in order to give students the sameamount of time given by many other competitiveschools, including all those in the Ivy League.Accepted students have until May 1st to accept ordecline admission.

"The academic quality of the class wasremarkable even by the standards of recentclasses," said Fitzsimmons adding that over 51percent of those accepted had average SAT scoresabove 1400.

Students indicating interest in concentratingin natural science, mathmatics, engineering, orcomputer science fields comprise almost half ofthose admitted.

Every year the admissions committee receivesinnovative applications from music tapes topersonal diaries. "We had one person write hisessay with his foot and had his girlfriend takepictures of it," Fitzsimmons said.

One hopeful applicant expressed nervousnessover the imminent decision.

"I got Stanford today," said Karen Pang ofSouth Hills High School in Southern California,anticipating letters from several other highlycompetitive schools, but "Harvard, I'm reallyscared about.