Fewer Apply to GSAS; Minority Pool Decreases

The total number of applications to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (GSAS) this spring decreased slightly from last year's total, while the number of minority students applying to the graduate school dropped by over 17 per cent, GSAS officials said yesterday.

Suzanne M. Lipsky, assistant to the GSAS dean in charge of minority recruitment and admissions said yesterday the number of applications from minority students dropped from 360 applications last year to 300 this year.

Lipsky attributed the drop to the tightening job market for people with doctorates. "Large numbers of black undergraduates who might have considered doctoral programs in the Arts and Sciences are now going to professional schools," she added.

"There is a strong service ethic and desire to serve the minority communities, and medicine and law are two lucrative ways to do that," Lipsky said.

Last year, minority recruitment and admissions emerged as a source of controversy at the GSAS, as members of a minority graduate student task force pressed for reorganization of recruitment and admissions policies at the school.

Three months of student meetings with the Faculty Council culminated in Dean Rosovsky's announcement of the creation of a new minority admissions post at the graduate school, the opening up of more financial aid funds for minority students, and the formation of a faculty committee to periodically review minority admissions policy.

Richard A. Kraus, director of admissions and financial aid, said the total number of applications to the school will approach 4600 compared to 4648 a year ago. Kraus added the projection came from an incomplete list of applicants.

Peter S. McKinney, administrative dean of GSAS, said, "What we think we see over the last few years is that the quality of the people who apply at the top of the list has still remained quite high, while some of the people in the bottom have dropped off."

McKinney said the number of applicants is still so high, "that we will probably only register one out of ten students from the applicant pool." He added the applicant pool will remain strong.

Bruce Collier, assistant to the dean of the Faculty, said that the rise in the number of applications in the late '60s resulted from students trying to avoid the draft. "Any male who didn't want to go to Vietnam went to graduate school. It became the normal thing to do."

He said that the trend had a "residual" effect which is only now beginning to wear off.