Harvard Admissions Dean on Socioeconomic Diversity

Parents Forum
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<p><a href="http://www.harvardindependent.com/media/paper369/news/2005/05/05/News/Dean-Pushes.For.Socioeconomic.Diversity-950253.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.harvardindependent.com/media/paper369/news/2005/05/05/News/Dean-Pushes.For.Socioeconomic.Diversity-950253.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Harvard Independent
Dean Pushes for Socioeconomic Diversity</p>

<p>Fitzsimmons discusses finanical aid initiative.
By Steve Lee
Published: Thursday, May 5, 2005 </p>

<p>"Dean Fitzsimmons ´67 reclines, discusses financial aid Harvard has come a long way since spring 1964, when nuns at a Catholic high school told the graduating senior William Fitzsimmons to avoid Harvard, a school of "communists, atheists, and rich snobs" where he would "lose [his] soul."</p>

<p>Those descriptions were probably true, quipped Fitzsimmons '67, Harvard College's Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, as he spoke last Tuesday in Pforzheimer House to a small crowd of about fifteen. Titled "Socioeconomic Diversity at Harvard: The Financial Aid Initiative" and organized by the Pforzheimer House Committee of the Race, Culture and Diversity Initiative, the event offered students the chance to discuss both the financial aid initiative as well as other concerns they had concerning admissions.</p>

<p>Reflecting upon his experiences as an undergraduate coming from a blue-collar Massachusetts background, and later as a member of the admissions staff since 1972, Fitzsimmons marveled at how far Harvard has come in four decades.</p>

<p>"When I started, the ratio of males to females was four to one," Fitzsimmons said. Although no records of ethnic minority status were kept at the time, he cited a classmate's figure of eight total "students of color" within his class.</p>

<p>"We had a terrific faculty, but the student body wasn't up to it," he noted.</p>

<p>Even as an admissions officer in 1974, Fitzsimmons recalled a clear lack of diversity within the Harvard institution.</p>

<p>"There were the Harvard admissions committee and the Radcliffe admissions committee," he said. "We couldn't pick them out of a police lineup."</p>

<p>Today's admissions staff faces a slightly different challenge - convincing minorities and students from all socioeconomic backgrounds to choose Harvard in a wildly competitive college admissions world.</p>

<p>"'If you build it, they will come' - that's rubbish," Fitzsimmons said, explaining that serious work must be done in light of the fact that 90 percent of students choose a school within 500 miles of home.
Nationally, only ten percent of students at the most competitive American universities come from the bottom half - that's under $60,000 annual income - of the wealth spectrum. Harvard does a bit better at sixteen percent, but Fitzsimmons dismissed its consideration as a success figure.</p>

<p>"The dumbest rich students go to college at exactly the same rate as the poorest bright students," he said. "Sixteen percent, that's not so bloody hot."</p>

<p>A conscious effort in combating socioeconomic stratification at Harvard is especially significant as such separation is actually getting worse nationally.</p>

<p>"We are resegregating into have and have-nots," Fitzsimmons said. "It's sure as hell harder if you're at the bottom...."</p>

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<p>Thanks for posting that article link over here on the Parents Forum, NorthStarMom. </p>

<p>I think I have related before that back in the Stone Age one of several reasons that I didn't even apply to any school but State U was my impression that schools like Harvard were for rich people. Even today I see that my family's income, squarely at the United States median, is at about the 16th percentile of families of Harvard students. It's a serious national policy concern to me that "The dumbest rich students go to college at exactly the same rate as the poorest bright students," and I hope that Harvard's recent financial aid initiative, and efforts by the other most-endowed schools to increase their socioeconomic diversity, will at least allow all of the bright offspring of poor families to maximize their talent development and ability to solve society's problems. The Harvard admissions officer who just visited our town Sunday made clear that Harvard's message to all applicants is that Harvard will make itself affordable if the applicant is admitted, but I don't know how many would-be applicants believe that message.</p>

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<p>northstarmom, you beat byerly in posting that article here</p>

<p>perhaps a bit of alum competition eh?</p>

<p>"It's sure as hell harder if you're at the bottom....""</p>

<p>amen to that!</p>

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<p>"northstarmom, you beat byerly in posting that article here</p>

<p>perhaps a bit of alum competition eh?"</p>

<p>Yeah! Somebody noticed! :)</p>

<p>Yes, what goes on between byerly and me is the kind of fun, intense competition that Harvard folks do when they are passionately pursuing their interests. It's nice to be seen as the most well informed on a subject that one cares about.</p>

<p>This is the type of thing that would drive more laid back people up a tree. When prospective applicants are turned off by this sort of thing, that's a sign that Harvard is not the place for them while a place like Stanford that has wonderful academics and a more laid back student body might be a good fit.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, my ethics compel me to admit that byerly posted the article first on the Harvard board. Another point for him. :)</p>

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<p>Northstarmom:</p>

<p>"The dumbest rich students go to college at exactly the same rate as the poorest bright students," he said. "Sixteen percent, that's not so bloody hot."</p>

<p>Well that number may be even way higher in other top schools for the dumbest rich kids if I am not mistaken.</p>