Harvard Alums Most Qualified

Students should avoid pre-professionalism if they want to pursue postgraduate study, a panel of University graduate school officials told 40 freshman last night in the Science Center.

But the panel members, representing the Law, Business, Medical, and Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, also said that they accept a higher number of students from Harvard College than from any other school during the career information program sponsored by the Office of Career Services.

The Law School encourages students to seek a broad liberal arts education, said David Smith, vice-dean of the Harvard Law School, who recommended that future lawyers should watch "Hill Street Blues."

"It's more important to have read John Updike and Norman Mailer than to have taken a course in constitutional law," Smith said.

Harvard students have a 12 percent chance of being accepted into Harvard Medical School, compared to 8 to 9 percent for other competitive colleges and 6 to 7 percent for non-competitive schools, said Gerald Foster, director of admissions at the Medical School.

This advantage is not by any design of the admissions committee, but because Harvard students are "just awfully good," Foster said.

Laura G. Fisher, director of admissions at the Business school said that the school's admissions policy is very similar to undergraduate admissions, and so Harvard graduates make up the largest representative group in the accepted pool. Although six college seniors were accepted last year, the B School encourages most applicants to seek experience out of academia after graduation.

Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Sally Falk Moore said that one-third of Harvard's professors will retire in the next 10 years and open the doors wide for today's students aspiring to academia. These opportunities are prompting many students in the school's 48 programs to study quickly, she said.