For months now, Harvard has been allowing its brand to be tarnished by instances of outrageous antisemitism and a plagiarism scandal that forced out former president Claudine Gay.
Now the school is reaping the predictable outcome of all this by seeing a drop in applications.
FOX News reports:
Harvard sees dip in applications following antisemitism, plagiarism controversiesHarvard University suffered a 5% drop in admission applications following its highly publicized antisemitism and plagiarism controversies.The Ivy League school published data on its incoming Class of 2028 on Thursday, announcing the acceptance of 1,937 students from an application pool of 54,008.This marks a small downward tick in applications from last year — approximately 3,000 fewer.In December of last year, the Harvard early application pool saw a 17% decline from the year before, receiving 7,921 early applications, compared to 9,553 applications in 2022.The November 1, 2023, application deadline came before Harvard’s then-President Claudine Gay’s congressional testimony that ignited discussions about institutional leaders’ reluctance to adequately condemn antisemitism.The scandal only got worse after Gay was accused of plagiarism in her academic work.
Caroline Downey of National Review breaks down the numbers:
For the class of 2028, Harvard received 54,008 applicants, representing a 5 percent decrease from the 56,937 who sent in applications the year before. The 3.59 percent acceptance rate was the highest in four years for the school, according to the Harvard Crimson. The drop in prospective students comes on the heels of President Claudine Gay’s removal following mounting pressure from Jewish donors and students. Gay received intense condemnation for her alleged mismanagement of exploding antisemitism at Harvard following Hamas’s invasion of Israel on October 7.The drama snowballed after over 30 Harvard University student organizations issued a joint letter holding Israel “entirely responsible” for the brutal violence perpetrated by the terrorists. Prominent alumni such as businessman Bill Ackman and others denounced the students’ conduct as well as the school’s refusal to strongly condemn it.
Will Harvard course correct on this?
Alarm bells should be going off in various Harvard offices right now, particularly admissions and development.
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