From the Harvard Independent:
"Harvard has come a long way since spring 1964, when nuns at a Catholic high school told the graduating senior William Fitzsimmons to avoid Harvard, a school of "communists, atheists, and rich snobs" where he would "lose [his] soul."
Those descriptions were probably true, quipped Fitzsimmons '67, Harvard College's Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, as he spoke last Tuesday ...
Reflecting upon his experiences as an undergraduate coming from a blue-collar Massachusetts background, and later as a member of the admissions staff since 1972, Fitzsimmons marveled at how far Harvard has come in four decades.
When I started, the ratio of males to females was four to one," Fitzsimmons said. Although no records of ethnic minority status were kept at the time, he cited a classmate's figure of eight total "students of color" within his class.
"We had a terrific faculty, but the student body wasn't up to it," he noted.
Even as an admissions officer in 1974, Fitzsimmons recalled a clear lack of diversity within the Harvard institution.
"There were the Harvard admissions committee and the Radcliffe admissions committee," he said. "We couldn't pick them out of a police lineup."
Today's admissions staff faces a slightly different challenge - convincing minorities and students from all socioeconomic backgrounds to choose Harvard in a wildly competitive college admissions world.
"'If you build it, they will come' - that's rubbish," Fitzsimmons said, explaining that serious work must be done in light of the fact that 90 percent of students choose a school within 500 miles of home.
Nationally, only ten percent of students at the most competitive American universities come from the bottom half - that's under $60,000 annual income - of the wealth spectrum. Harvard does a bit better at sixteen percent, but Fitzsimmons dismissed its consideration as a success figure.
"The dumbest rich students go to college at exactly the same rate as the poorest bright students," he said. "Sixteen percent, that's not so bloody hot."
A conscious effort in combating socioeconomic stratification at Harvard is especially significant as such separation is actually getting worse nationally.
"We are resegregating into have and have-nots," Fitzsimmons said. "It's sure as hell harder if you're at the bottom...."
http://www.harvardindependent.com/Vi...ArticleID=9455 
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