Admissions Racket Gets New Scrutiny

Thomas E. Holsworth, a psychology professor and member of the admissions board at St. Meinrad College, has a special problem.

St. Meinrad, a small Roman Catholic seminary in Indiana, is having trouble attracting students. Holsworth says in the past it has annually matriculated between 100 and 125 students--mostly from surrounding dioceses--but enrollment is now declining and the institution is having some difficulty convincing young men to entertain the priesthood.

"Right now, there is some question of whether college seminaries are worth it," says Holsworth. "We've never had to recruit before. We are starting to change our admission procedures and need some direction on how to do it."

That's exactly why Holsworth is at Harvard this week. Along with 127 other college admissions officers and high school guidance counselors. Holsworth is attending Harvard's Summer Institute on College Admissions. Their goal getting a crash course on the ins and outs of the college admissions process Boston, Hartford, New York, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh--have committed themselves to showing the Ivy League Game of the Week, but Frank said he was confident all of the stations would sign on by the fall.

Frank added that his company was hoping to show the games on closed circuit television at Ivy League Clubs in cities not offering the telecasts.

Transworld International, which represented the Ivy League, is a recognized leader in the sports television industry. It represented the city of Calgary, Alberta in negotiations for rights to broadcast the 1968 Winter Olympics. The $309 million contract with ABC was the largest television sports contract ever signed. Transworld is currently representing Seoul, South Korea, which will host the 1968 Summer Olympics in similar negotiations.

Frank said that Trans world began working for the league about 18 months ago and considered a variety of network, local, cable, and pay-per-view options but chose the one which will show the games on public television "as the best for the interests of Ivy League football."

Since there are no commercials on public television the stations must secure corporate sponsors to air the telecasts. Project organizers say none have formally agreed to underwrite the telecasts, but said they expected to have the programs fully funded within a month.

The contract announced yesterday is for only one year but Frank said he hoped Ivy League games would continue to be televised indefinitely. "The idea was not to do it for one year and then pull out, that was never our intent," he said.

The Supreme Court ruling was on the appeal of a suit first filed in 1981 when the University of Georgia and University of Oklahoma sued the NCAA for the right to negotiate their own television agreements Lower courts had ruled in favor of the colleges twice but the NCAA had appeared the decision each time