New Aid Initiative May Lower Admission Rate

There’s good and bad news for Harvard applicants this year.

While Harvard has unveiled a financial aid program that will extend support to all families with yearly incomes up to $180,000, the change could cut into the number of acceptance letters Harvard sends out in April.

Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said that since the new program could boost Harvard’s yield—the number of admitted students who matriculate—the admissions office may accept a smaller class this year.

“We will be conservative—we haven’t been over [expected enrollment] in the freshman class for 30 years,” Fitzsimmons said. “We’ll err on the low side and take more off the waiting list.”

The University said this week that families who earn between $120,000 and $180,000—“middle-income” families—will only have to pay 10 percent of their income as tuition starting next year. Loan expectations for all students will be eliminated as well.

These changes make Harvard’s tuition fees competitive even with in-state rates for flagship public universities, Fitzsimmons said.

The announcement, made Monday, likely comes too close to Harvard’s Jan. 1 application deadline to affect the number of applicants to the Class of 2012, Fitzsimoons said. But given Harvard’s decision to eliminate early action, this year’s yield may be hard to predict.

Fitzsimmons said the fact that Harvard doesn’t have early action could depress the yield, though he added that the effect could be the opposite if Harvard ends up being students’ least expensive option.

Fitzsimmons explained that other schools have several months remaining in which to adjust their own plans for financial aid, so it is “impossible to know” what the total effect on Harvard’s yield might be. The recruiting efforts of other schools are also an important factor, he said.

Hours after Harvard announced its financial aid plan, Yale made public its intention to make “a major announcement” regarding their financial aid program at the beginning of the spring semester, the Yale Daily News reported.

Decisions for schools that maintained their early admissions programs are to be sent to students this week, though Fitzsimmons said this had “zero” impact on the timing of the announcement.

According to Sana Raoof, a senior at a Long Island, N.Y. public high school, Harvard’s announcement has made waves among her peers.

“It made some people think they might as well apply to Harvard,” Raoof said. “They said if they got in, it wouldn’t be completely inaccessible.”

Though some current Harvard seniors have expressed their regret that they won’t be affected by the new financial aid plan, the move has been largely popular among students.

“I think that the new initiative is a good reflection of the school,” said Florence On ’11. “The playing field is never as level as it should be...this allows people from different financial backgrounds to get a Harvard education.”

—Staff writer Aditi Balakrishna can be reached at balakris@fas.harvard.edu.