The Pressure Can Get To You

The mystery surrounding why more Harvard undergraduates than ever are taking leaves of absence at a time when college students across the country are taking fewer leaves is not about to be solved immediately.

But a composite description of the average student on leave, compiled from interviews with House tutors, reveals that a frustrated junior, most likely one who declared interest in a profession--particularly medicine--in freshman year, is most prone to fleeing the campus before his term is up.

Apparently that junior has become disillusioned by the excessive competition for medical or law school admission, grown tired of it, and taken some time off to reflect on his weary academic rat-race.

John Harwell, senior tutor in Mather House and director of the Student Employment Office, said yesterday he has seen many students who fit that description take leaves this year.

Although Harwell admitted that it is difficult to explain why more than 230 students have taken leaves during 1975, he will suggest that there is more to the mystery than simply students who want to "stop, pause and focus on what they are doing."

Harwell said, "There are a number of people in Mather and other places I've seen who have left because of academic panic," possibly after receiving "the devastating results of an hour exam."

They are "uptight," Harwell speculated, "because they haven't been able to get into gear. It's a phenomenon that I just haven't seen in the past."

It all springs from tremendous pressure to get into schools, Harwell said, adding that Harvard students want to go "not just to any med schools, but the most prestigious ones. People are voting with their feet and I've seen a lot of it."

Whatever the reasons, housing administrators are breathing sighs of relief about the increase in leaves. For the first time in a long time, administrators can give every student that wanted housing space a room. And when they finished there were 12 beds to spare.

But that's bad news for the budget administrators, who view the empty beds as lost tuition, room and board revenue. How much the absent students are costing the Faculty is unclear, but University Treasurer George F. Putnam '49 said this week he thinks the impact could be "definite and negative."

The difficult thing for most Harvard administrators to fathom is that while Harvard can't fill its beds, other colleges have had to turn away students in droves.

Such is the case at Yale, where administrators are puzzled at the alarmingly high rate of students declining to take leaves.

One housing administrator there said this week that despite the inauguration of a summer term to try to relieve fall overcrowding, more people are back than they can handle, including many of those who opted for the summer session.