Graduate Schools Seek Women

The Law School and the Business School have started making special efforts to attract women applicants, and the results of their efforts are beginning to show this Fall.

At the Law School, a special recruiting fund was set up last year so that women law students could visit and recruit applicants from women's colleges. Nine per cent of this year's entering class of 502 students are women-the highest percentage in the school's history.

The admissions committee does not take an applicant's sex into consideration in making admission decisions, Russell A. Simpson, director of admissions at the Law School, said yesterday.

"It's simple," he said, "More and more women are applying, so more are being accepted." This year the Law School admitted 17 per cent of its male applicants and 17 per cent of its female applicants.

Twenty-two women and 595 men registered as first year students at the Business School this Fall. According to Barbara Quill, appointment secretary for the MBA program, the Business School is making a big effort to attract female applicants.

The school admitted a higher percentage of female than male applicants this year.

"I'm sure the admissions committee takes a second look at a woman applicant because it's so difficult to get women interested in business school," Quill said.

Although the Medical School has made no particular effort to recruit women, this year's entering class set an all-time record with 24 women registering. The school accepted 12 per cent of its female applicants and only eight per cent of its male applicants.

As at the other schools, the increase in the number of women students is the natural result of the increasing number of women applicants.

According to Mrs. Tania Molner, secretary to the committee on admissions, "Word has gotten around that we treat girls equally, so more are applying."

The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Education have always had higher female-male ratios than the professional schools and are not making any attempts at present to recruit women. Last year 29 per cent of first year GSAS students were women.

GSAS accepted 31 per cent of its male applicants and 29 per cent of its female applicants for last year's entering class Figures for this year are not available yet.

"We're not doing any recruitment of women," Mrs. Nina P. Hillgarth, head of the GSAS admissions office, said. "They ought to know we're here."

Ann Michelini, graduate student in Classics and co-chairman of the Graduate Women's Organization, says shethinks recruitment of women for graduate schools and university faculties will be necessary for some time to come.

"When few members of a minority group apply to a school, people say, 'We must go out and recruit them.'" Michelini said. "When few women apply, they just say. 'Well, that's the way women are.'"

The Ed School has the least to worry about in terms of male-female ratio problems. In this year's entering class, there was a nearly equal number of male and female applicants, acceptances, and final registrants.

During the '50's, there were more women than men at the Ed School, but in recent years the numbers have become more equal.