Rise Noted in Non-Science Med. Students

The number of undergraduate non-science concentrators entering Harvard Medical School has been increasing steadily, Kendall Emerson, Jr., Dean of Admissions, said Saturday.

He attributed the rise to an increase in the number of non-science majors applying to medical schools, plus Harvard's policy of "taking the best men, regardless of their field of concentration." A near-record twenty per cent of this year's entering class were not science majors.

The academic records of non-science concentrators, many of whom studied little more than the required inorganic and organic chemistry, biology and physics, have been exactly the same as those who took more science courses in college, Emerson noted. He added that the standards of first year courses remained unchanged.

Emerson gave three reasons why students desiring admission to Harvard Medical School might concentrate in a non-scientific field. In the first place, he said, "the governing factors in deciding any field of concentration should be whether or not that field interests him." Secondly, he felt that the practice of medicine is far more than science alone, and the student should achieve as broad a liberal education as possble. Third, a student's field of concentration "has nothing to do with" his getting into medical school, provided, of course, that he satisfies the basic requirements.

Because he does not discriminate between science and non-science concentrators, Emerson predicted that the Medical School will continue to admit an equal percentage of the applicants from each group. An increase in the number of non-science majors will also produce a similar increase in the makeup of the first year class.