Black Admissions Steady While Applications Drop

The number of blacks who will receive acceptances to the College for the Class of 1979 is substantially the same as last year, despite about a 25-per-cent decline in the number of black applicants.

About 35 per cent of all black applicants will receive letters informing them of their acceptance Monday, while slightly less than 19 per cent of the total number of applicants will be offered place in the class, admissions officials said yesterday.

John P. Reardon '60, director of Harvard admissions, said yesterday that Harvard expects 1135 of the 1440 students admitted to enroll next year. Ninety-seven of those offered places are black a decrease of two from last year.

Reardon and Mary Ann Schwalbe, director of Radcliffe admissions, said yesterday that the total number of applications to both schools remained about the same as last year with about 7660 people applying to Harvard and 3375 applying to Radcliffe.

Schwalbe said she expects the Radcliffe Class of 1979 to number about 475 women--substantially the same number as last year--and that those admitted include 80 minority students.

Reardon said yesterday that about 26 Hispanic Americans were admitted to Harvard class, constituting a decrease from last year, although Reardon said he was not sure by how much.

Reardon attributed the increase in the percentage of black applicants admitted to the improved quality of the black applicant pool and to the desire among alumni recruiters and Harvard admissions officials to attract only the most qualified black candidates.

Although the number of blacks admitted did not fall this year, the planned review of the College's minority recruiting methods must go forward as a result of the sizeable drop in minority applicants, Readon said.

"The effort we made this year was greater than ever before and we came up short [in the number of black applicants]." Reardon said. "Although we did well this year [in black admissions], it is important for us to reassess the means we're going about recruiting."

Reardon said he did not know if the acceptance rate among blacks would be lower than that among whites, adding that his staff will make "a tremendous at tempt" to recruit the accepted minority students to come here. Referring to scholarship money offered to blacks as an incentive to come here. Reardon said that "If a black kid's parents are making $50,000 a year, we're not going to offer him money to come here as some schools would."

About 40 per cent of those who accept admission will receive financial aid, and nobody who qualifies will be denied any part of the approximately $1.3 million to be allotted to incoming freshmen. Reardon said. Schwalbe said financial aid statistics would not be available until next week.

The College and Radcliffe both reported admitting an abundance of students who are pre-professionally oriented, students who said in their applications that they intended to go to law school or medical school.