Study Claims Grad Loss Of 70% to Draft

The National Council of Graduate Schools predicted Thursday that total U.S. graduate enrollment will drop 70 per cent next year because of the draft. But Thomas K. Sisson '46, assistant dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, said that "Harvard's losses should be no greater than 40 per cent."

According to the Council's formula, the Harvard GSAS will have a first-year male enrollment of 130 in 1968-1969.

Using different criteria, the graduate school admissions office predicts a first-year male enrollment of more than 300, down from this year's 686.

The Council's survey of 122 schools is misleading in Harvard's case, Sisson explained, because the Council used the total number of graduating seniors in each college who plan to attend graduate school as the basis for the estimate of that college's first-year graduate enrollment.

But more than 27 per cent of Harvard graduate students come from other colleges. The Council's study did not take this into account.

The Council assumed that everyone who is eligible will be drafted next year, which GSAS did not. It arrived at its estimate by subtracting the number of veterans, fathers, and physically ineligible students from the total male membership of the senior class that plans to attend a graduate school next year.

The Council report indicated that GSAS's second-year enrollment will also drop next year. According to its formula, there will be 339 male second-year students next year.

The graduate school admissions office expects 532 second-year students next year. This would be a 28 per cent drop below the usual attrition rate between first and second-year graduate enrollment.