Applause, Everybody

Except for the 10,000 applicants who were just rejected from the Class of 1981, perhaps, the Harvard-Radcliffe Admissions Office seems to be drawing praise from everyone recently.

Earlier this month a review committee reported that in the past two years the Colleges have merged admissions staffs and implemented equal access admissions with little difficulty.

And this week the Task Force on the Composition of the Student Body reported that it found no need "to suggest sweeping criticism" of present admissions procedures, which have successfully attracted students who are both academically excellent and personally diverse.

In addition to reviewing and affirming the status quo--which has been the general practice of most of Dean Rosovsky's investigative groups that have released reports--the task force's report discussed several challenges to the present system.

These challenges included the drop in the enrollment of students from middle-income families because of insufficient financial aid, the need to continue to increase the number of minority group members admitted, and the problem of maintaining the level of alumni support of the Colleges.

One administrator this week called the task force's report "weak" because it failed to offer any potential solutions to such challenges.

The report said efforts to attract minority group members have achieved mixed results. Overall, the numbers have slowly increased (minority acceptances are up 15 per cent this year), but Harvard still attracts only small numbers of certain minorities.