How Selective Is Too Selective?

Each year, tens of thousands of high school seniors around the world await an email from Harvard College. Over the last five years, the number of students receiving bad news has been increasing. And those receiving good news have become rarer and rarer, as acceptance rates for the College drop lower with each passing cycle, dipping below 6 percent this spring.

As Harvard’s admission rate tumbles into the low single digits, some are wondering when—or if—the trend might reverse.

Some question whether by becoming too exclusive, Harvard and other ultra-selective colleges might eventually discourage qualified applicants from even bothering to apply. When the odds of admission are so low, the chance of seeing a “yes” in that long-awaited email might sometimes seem as likely as winning the lottery.

MORE APPLICATIONS WELCOME

As the admissions office tries to cast its net wide to attract ever-more-qualified applicants, its outreach efforts encourage a vastly higher number of students to apply to Harvard than can ever be accepted.

The fastidious employees at 86 Brattle Street who must evaluate all these hopeful students’ files say that their intention is not to drive up the number of applicants when they send students and admissions officers on recruiting trips, send mailings to high school students, and make phone calls to targeted prospective applicants.

“We are not looking for more applicants. We are not looking for a lower admission rate,” said Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67. “But we are trying to get the best people we can get from every economic [and] every ethnic background, and as you do that, more people will be interested in applying.”

But some say that universities have an interest in convincing as many students as possible to apply, even if there are no spots in the freshman class for them.

Sandra J. Eller, a college admissions consultant in Rochester, N.Y., points out that national rankings often use lower acceptance rates and higher yields as criteria in their evaluations. Colleges that turn more applicants away rank higher in magazine listings.

“Many talented students will receive letters encouraging them to apply to schools like Yale, Stanford, Harvard, and Dartmouth,” Eller said. “This can raise students’ hopes of admission, but with so many qualified applicants, the admissions decisions can be really disappointing. I sometimes find myself reminding students that schools have their own priorities. The more applications they receive, the more selective they appear.”

According to Eller, studies have shown that maintaining a high ranking in publications such as U.S. News and World Report influences alumni giving.

Fitzsimmons said the Office of Admissions tries to “hone the message” in order to keep students who are clearly unqualified from applying. But Harvard admissions, for the most part, has maintained at least one tradition. “Harvard has been hard to get into for a very long time,” Fitzsimmons said.

AGAINST THE ODDS

Admission rates have been dropping at Harvard for seven consecutive years; this year’s overall acceptance rate was just 5.9 percent.

For the first time since 2007, this year’s high school seniors had the option of applying to Harvard through an early action round. With 772 spots already filled in December, the regular decision applicants competing for the remaining acceptances in the spring faced an even lower number: a stunning 3.8 percent acceptance rate.

Though record-setting acceptance rates have become the norm at Harvard and several of its peer institutions, this year’s new low was surprising. For the first time in five years, the College had received fewer applicants than it had the previous year—and yet it still accepted a smaller portion of them.

The caution in the admissions office was the result of the revived early action policy, and it paid off—the 81 percent yield this year was the best turnout Harvard has seen since 1971. But regardless of the reason behind the paucity of acceptance letters, the seemingly ceaseless plummet in the admission rate may be alarming to would-be applicants.

Pundits have cried out about the frustration and seeming arbitrariness of the process. This year, just after Ivy League schools announced their acceptance rates, a professor penned an editorial in the Chronicle of Higher Education called “Harvard by Lottery,” stating that a truly random system would cause less stress for students and indeed be more fair.

Others worry that talented prospective students might decide not to risk the $75 application fee if they believe their chances of acceptance are too minuscule.

But Susan Case, a former faculty member at the Harvard Summer Institute on College Admissions, a program organized annually by the College Board and Harvard, said that she has not seen low admissions rates deter her clients in her educational consulting business.

“They see it a bit like buying a lottery ticket. It is worth a try,” she wrote in an email. “But I serve, for the most part, a fairly sophisticated population who can afford to take a risk. I worry that those students Harvard is trying to attract from different parts of this country and from the larger world will be put off by the odds and not even consider applying.”

Eller agreed that even in light of extremely low acceptance rates, the chance to attend a top-ranked university will always appeal to high-achieving students. “Very small admission rates will not deter such students. Low rates of admission to Harvard and other top schools are here to stay,” she said.

BEHIND THE NUMBERS

Fitzsimmons attributes the perenially falling admission rate to several factors, starting with Harvard’s focus on recruiting talent from communities around the world.

“Students coming into Harvard today come from a much wider range of economic backgrounds,” Fitzsimmons said. “Harvard is much more of a national institution and much more of an international institution. The Harvard I attended had very few students of color and very few international students.”

The Class of 2016, drawn from a pool of 34,302 applicants, indeed reflects Harvard’s commitment to diversity. In the incoming freshman class, 10.2 percent of the students are black and 11.2 percent are Latino. Ten percent come from outside the United States.

Fitzsimmons emphasized Harvard’s very generous financial aid as a factor driving students from all backgrounds to apply.

“There may be some people who are discouraged by the lower admissions rate, but the reality is that the reason for the lower admission rate is that people all over America and all over the world now see Harvard as accessible and affordable,” he said.

Increased use of the Common Application, which allows students to apply to multiple schools from one website, has also contributed to lower admission rates at schools nationwide over the past several years, Eller added.

“With the push of a button, students can apply to additional schools. This can dramatically account for the surge in applications year after year,” she said.

Though dauntingly low acceptance rates may worry students, the admissions office is focused on the bigger picture—the fact that students are applying at all.

“People now see Harvard as possible, and people are applying, and this is a very, very good thing,” Fitzsimmons said.

—Staff writer Quinn D. Hatoff can be reached at quinnhatoff@college.harvard.edu.