Council to Conduct A.B.-S.B. Poll Today; Alternatives Summarized

Ballots to determine student feeling on the A.B.-S.B., degree controversy will be placed at dining hall entrances this noon in the Houses, the union, and Dudley. They project is sponsored by the Student Council.

Although the poll will be distributed at lunch time, the ballots will not be called in until 7 o'clock, giving students a chance to read background materials in recent CRIMSONS, copies of which will be on hand in the respective libraries.

Of all the colleges in the country, Harvard has one of the most unique methods for distinguishing between the A.B. and S.B. degrees.

While such diverse institutions as Bowdoin, Dartmouth, William and May, and Wisconsin have no specific entrance requirements, allowing students to pass off all required courses as a part of regular college work, other ask entering students to show as much as three years of mathematics and three of languages, ancient or modern.

Language usually Required

Most colleges--including Harvard-require at least a reading knowledge of one ancient or modern language, while Bowdoin makes mathematics an alternative Yale and Bates allow the substitution for Latin of a "classical civilization" survey course, and Lafayette goes as far as to prescribe two years each of a modern language, Latin and math.

Uniform A.B. degree have been found to be the rule in one sampling of U.S. colleges, although the B.S. for concentrators in the natural sciences is not uncommon, the typical form being "B.S. in Chemistry, B.S. in Mathematics," and so forth. Wisconsin and Chicago, at least, add a third, Bachelor of Philosophy, for social scientists.

Harvard's present official policy on admissions requires the knowledge f some language and proficiency in English. Unofficially, either an outstanding school record under the Upper Seventh plan or some "solid" course of preparation are the most significant considerations.

Most Have Had Math

But figures taken from a cross-section of new men taking College Board examinations last April showed that about 90 percent had had three or more years of math, while preparation in Latin ranged from a large number who had none whatever to the substantial majority with two years or less.

In cases of a single A.B. degree being urged, the choice of a preparatory "discipline" would therefore tend strongly toward mathematics: while two degrees, requiring Latin for the A.B. and Math for the S.B., would continue to apply pressure for the classics on pre-college school curriculums--an effect desired by many classic its.

Discretion to be exercised by the Committee on Admissions for exceptional students has been traditional in the past and will probably exist in the future regardless of formal requirements.

Inconsistencies in the awarding of the Bachelor degrees show up in the perusal of a random group of honors graduates. In June, 1943, twice as many received the A.B. as the S.B.

Of the A.B.'s cum laude, 25 percent were in the Natural Sciences, 58 percent in the Social Sciences, and 17 percent in the Humanities. Of the S.B.'s, 7 percent were in the Humanities, 35 percent in the Social Sciences, and 53 percent in the Natural Sciences