Committee and House Masters Will Act on 1937 Assignments to Houses

Replying to questions raised by the Crimson regarding the procedure to be followed by the Central Committee in the distribution of members of the Class of 1937 in the Houses, the Dean's office made the following explanation.

The assignment of members of the Class of 1937 to the various Houses will be under the supervision of a Central Committee consisting of the President of the University, the Dean of Harvard College, and the Dean of Freshmen. The final admission of a student to a House rests, however, with the Master.

The procedure which the Central Committee will follow will be, with a few modifications, that followed last year. Before any assignments are made, the Master of each House will be given the application blanks of all men who set, forth special claims for his House. After indicating the men whom they would like especially to have assigned to them, the Masters will return the applications to the Central Committee which will then proceed to group all applicants according to price and type of suite applied for. These applications will be set against the number of suites available in all seven Houses at the respective prices in order to determine in what price ranges there is an excess of applicants. In each price range in which there is an over-application it will be necessary to determine which men are to be accepted, and, in general, scholastic standing will play a large part in the process of selection. This selection will be made before any assignments to particular Houses will be made.

Having reduced the number of applicants for the Houses as a whole to the number of suites of each type available, the Committee will then proceed to apportion the successful applicants among the seven Houses. In accordance with the suggestion made in the "Report on the House Plan," by the Student Council in June 1933, first consideration in distributing men among Houses will be given to the tutorial staffs of each House. Through the cooperation of the Masters and of Head Tutors in each field of concentration, the Committee will be provided with the number of next year's Sophomores who can be given Tutors next year in each House, and it is believed that this information will make it possible to distribute men in such a way as to increase the number of men who may be assigned to Tutors within their own House.

In addition to tutorial considerations, the Central Committee will be guided by a desire to place as many men as possible in the House of their choice, and a desire to make each House as representative as possible of the College as a whole. Groups of men who apply together will be considered as a unit, and, if admitted, will be assigned to one House and in no case split among the Houses.

The list of assignments as made by the Central Committee will be sent to the respective Masters for final review; whether or not a man so assigned shall be accepted rests entirely with the Master.