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<p>Yes. It’s fine to talk about what proportion of Harvard’s undergraduate enrollment ought to be made up by students from what economic stratum, but the students still have to apply to be admitted. There has been a lot of back and forth here about my statement that I think William Fitzsimmons is making an honest effort to increase the number of enrolled students at Harvard from less-typical backgrounds, and poorer backgrounds. (I didn’t say it in quite those words upthread.) Nothing that has been said in response to my earlier statement proves it wrong, and indeed the recently redoubled efforts by Fitzsimmons to publicize the Harvard financial aid initiative would suggest that he agrees that more needs to be done, which is what he explicitly said in the article cited in the thread-opening post. So I’m not sure what there is to debate here. For a blue-collar kid (however defined) to become part of Harvard’s class, the blue-collar kid has to apply. I read Fitzsimmons’s statements as saying that he would give careful consideration to applications from such students.</p>