RAW MATERIAL

The news that the Scholastic Aptitude Test will shortly be required of all applicants for admission to the College, is the first outward sign that Harvard's entrance requirements are up for revision. This particular test, although still in the experimental stage, has been widely adopted by other colleges. In particular cases, no doubt, it is sometimes erratic; but over a wide field, it has proved surprisingly accurate in forecasting students' college records.

Harvard has remained notably aloof from the experimentation with entrance requirements which has been going on among most first-class American colleges. It continues to place heavy reliance on the College Board examinations, and to demand Latin or Greek as a prerequisite for the A.B. degree. This does not mean, however, that Harvard has had any greater success with the old admissions criteria than have other colleges. Recent surveys have revealed a disquieting discrepancy between grades on entrance examinations and subsequent records. No admissions criteria can be wholly successful which allow an opportunity for intensive cramming by schools whose curricula are devised for the sole purpose of shoving dull students past the artificial barrier between the preparatory school and the college.

President Conant's program is postulated on the idea that Harvard's first concern should be to get the best students, rather than to develop more effective means for education those it gets. In such a program the problem of admissions requirements must take on primary importance.