Early Applications to Harvard Down 17 Percent From Last Year Amid Anti-Semitism Scandal
“The drop in applications comes as Harvard has become embroiled in a national row over how US colleges are handling incidents of antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel”
Harvard is not going to emerge from its current wave of scandals unscathed. The blowback is already beginning.
Business Insider reports:
Harvard early applications are down 17% from last year amid antisemitism row
High school seniors have made 17% fewer early admission applications to Harvard this year, bringing the level of early interest to a four-year low, according to figures released Thursday.
Overall, 692 from a pool of 7,921 applicants were admitted under the Early Action Program, which accepts applications up to November 1, the university said.
Last year, 9,553 early-action applications were submitted.
The drop in applications comes as Harvard has become embroiled in a national row over how US colleges are handling incidents of antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel and Israel’s subsequent military action in Gaza.
By the November 1 deadline, Harvard had drawn national criticism for a controversial letter signed by 30 student groups on the campus that claimed Israel was “entirely responsible” for the violence.
In the following weeks, some alumni expressed anger at the university’s response to the letter and a rise in antisemitic incidents, with more than 1,600 threatening to stop donations.
While it’s unclear how directly the antisemitism row affected prospective students’ decision to apply for early admission, a college coaching professional, Aly Beaumont, told CNN that two of her students dropped Harvard as an option after seeing the school’s response to events on campus following October 7.
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Comments
IIRC, Adam Smith said that there is a lot of ruin in a country. Similarly with Harvard. Harvard’s class of 2027 had a 3.4% admissions rate. Harvard Admissions Statistics
Applications could be down 50% and Harvard could still have a very elite class where it admitted only 7% of its applicants.
For all the brouhaha the admissions committee at Harvard gives out in justification for its highly curated admittees, Harvard could probably have as good a class if chosen by lottery,
Nonetheless, fewer applications to Harvard is a step in the right direction.
True dat.
But progressives put a big premium on popularity, acceptance, prestige.
Harvard is noticing cracks in the plaster.
Crows feet are starting to appear on the whore of Babylon.
Not being America’s top choice would be the kiss of death.
I wish this were clearly blowback to Harvard for its craven position on anti-Semitism. But early apps were still up from 2019, and many are attributing some of the falloff to the perception that race can no longer be taken into account in admissions (it will, of course, regardless of court rulings). There was a surge in Ivy applications when they stopped requiring test scores in the past couple of years, but then people realized that it wasn’t really getting “easier” to get into Harvard.
Has claudine gay publicly announced her gender re-assignment surgery yet?