CEP to Conduct Study Of Admissions Policies

A newly-formed sub-committee of the powerful Committee on Educational Policy has been set up to study the general problem of admissions to Harvard College. Chaired by Franklin L. Ford, associate professor of History, the committee will, in the words of Dean Bender, "look at the terrible problems of future admission policy."

According to Bender, the sub-committee will be a general study group which "may come up with some recommendations for consideration by the faculty Committee on Admissions and Scholarships and possibly by the Faculty as a whole."

Ford told the CRIMSON last night that the formation of this new committee in "no way reflects on the present operations of the Admissions office, but is rather a reflection of the belief that the College ought to survey its own composition from time to time" in a way that the Admissions office cannot do because of its necessary preoccupation with day-to-day admissions matters.

Bender and Dean Monro are the only two members of the Committee who are not professors, and thus the committee will probably be concerned with academic aspects of admissions policy to a very considerable degree. This part of the admissions problem has become increasingly prominent in recent years with the advent of the advanced standing program and was emphasized by the CEP sub-committee on the Teaching of Natural Sciences in its recently approved report.

In the report, the Committee suggested that in conjunction with a stiffening of the contents of the Natural Science program the College might consider setting a definite level of competency in mathematics as a prerequisite for admission.

Presumably, questions such as this, as well as ones of class size, distribution, and others which have arisen in recent years will be considered. However, Ford pointed out that the Committee had not yet begun its investigations and that it would be well over a year before it had any recommendations to deliver.