Applications Still Rise Despite McCarthy Slur

Admissions applications to next fall's freshman class are once again approaching an all-time high, despite a year of continuous unfavorable publicity for the College, Dean Bender revealed yesterday.

"At the moment we are running about 250 ahead of last year," the dean of admissions stated. "We cannot tell definitely yet, but expect to come out 200 or so ahead of last year's record 3400 applications."

The admissions office has already received approximately 3,000 forms. Although the deadline for filling applications was Feb. 15, Bender expects the present rate of 100 to 150 new applications a day to taper off only gradually,

"Our office has been so busy opening envelopes and filing completed forms that we have not yet had a chance to accumulate general statistics on the Class of 1958," he said. The admissions office has until May 11 to pare the group down to the desired 1100 students. On that date acceptance notices will be mailed out.

Pre-War Number Tripled

Bender did not expect to reach a decision on scholarship amounts and numbers for the group until after March 1.

In 1940 there were little over 1200 applicants. These had risen to 2700 for the Class of '55, 3100 for the Class of '56, and 3400 for this year's freshman group.

It had previously believed that the number might fall off, after Senator McCarthy's attacks upon Harvard, in the past year.

He credited the University's stand in the face of McCarthy-inspired attacks in the past year as one likely explanation for the continued high number of applicants. "Bad publicity undoubtedly affected primarily those who would not have sent their sons here anyway," he explained.

Bender added he had talked to schools and Harvard Clubs and had emphasized he wanted "quality, not quantity."