Minorities Nix Harvard As Admission Yield Dips

A signifigant decline in the percentage of minorities who accepted Harvard's offer of a slot in the Class of 1990 has helped fuel a slump in Harvard's overall admissions yield rate, admissions officers said yesterday.

While Harvard offered more minorities a slot in the Class of 1990, the number of minorities in the incoming freshman class will stay about the same as previous classes because fewer of them accepted Harvard's offer.

The overall percentage of those high school students admitted to Harvard who actually come to Cambridge dropped from last year's 73 percent to a 70 percent admissions yield, said Director of Admissions Laura G. Fisher yesterday.

While last year 113, or 64 percent, of the 176 Blacks matriculated at Harvard, this year only 55 percent, or 111, of 201 accepted Blacks decided to enroll. The yield rate for Puerto Ricans fell from 73 to 64 percent, and the rate for Hispanics, from 100 percent (16 out of 16) to 70 percent (14 out of 20).

Fisher said that increased offers of merit-based scholarships for minority students by non-Ivy colleges, a Westward geographical shift in Harvard's applicant pool, and the decreased number of successful early action candidates all combined to depress this year's admissions yield.

The yield rate of Asians also fell slightly, while those of Americans Indians and Chicanos both rose.

Fisher cited increased efforts by non-Ivy schools to attract top minority students as the chief reason for the drop in minority matriculation.

Admissions officials at other Ivy League schools said they also felt pressured by other institutions' offers of merit-based scholarships to talented minority students.

Because of these merit scholarships, "We've suddenly found ourselves competing [for minority students] with schools we weren't competing against eight years ago," said Leslie K. Lane-Epps, coordinator of minority recruitment at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

"We have had that problem both for minoritystudents and for our good, non-minority students.It does happen, and it is disturbing," said DavidA. Gibbons, associate dean of admission atPrinceton University in Princeton, N.J.

A geographical shift in the applicant pool alsocontributed to the decline in acceptances ofHarvard's offer.

"The farther a student lives from a school, theless likely he is to go there," Fisher said of theincreased number of applications from the Westernpart of the country. Byerly Hall officialspredicted the effect on the yield from this shifttwo months ago.

Another reason for the lower yield was thesmaller number of early action applicants acceptedthis year by Harvard, Fisher said. Studentsaccepted early have a more than 90 percent yieldrate.

Fisher said that 40 students originally on thewaiting list had been offered admission--many morethan in recent years--to make up for the decline.

"We've been making a lot of people very happylately," Fisher said