New Committee on House Applications Based on Yale Plan Which Provides For Distribution, Declares Elliott Smith

"Yale has just completed the distribution of students among its seven residential colleges," said Professor Elliott Smith '13, Master of Saybrook College at Yale to a CRIMSON reporter yesterday, while discussing the new plan at Yale which goes into effect in September. "Men were allowed to indicate their choice of a College and, as far as possible, their choices were respected," he continued.

"The applications did not go to the Individual Masters, however, but to a small committee which was responsible for distributing the students among the Colleges. The new Harvard procedure is thus following the steps of Yale in this respect.

"When students could not be admitted to the College of their first choice, groups of eight or less that desired to go together were kept intact. The excess number of men who had applied for a single College were distributed in such a way as to balance the groups in the different Colleges. No list of the applications were published, only the final group of assignments.

"In spite of starting this ambitious project in a depression year, we received more applications than could possibly be filled. The two upper classes were able to gain admittance but only about 20 per cent of the Sophomore Class, could be taken.

"We planned the staffs for the nine contemplated Colleges before they were even started. As a result of this and distribution we hope to keep the first houses from getting too much of a head-start on the later ones. We cannot tell today in what intellectual fields the different Colleges will develop.

"One of the most interesting aspects of Yale today is its attitude towards student employment. I think it is probably ahead of any other college in this respect. Yale controls the laundries ticket agencies, and pressing shops which all employ undergraduates. When a student has to work, he is given every opportunity to do it and knows whether he has a job before he comes to College."