Yale Daily News

Updated: Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 5:06am

The News will resume publication in August. Check back for online updates.

Brief: Harvard adopts two-year moratorium on accepting transfer students

  • Print
  • Write the Editor
Staff Reporter
Published Monday, March 24, 2008
Harvard University will not accept transfer students for the next two academic years in an effort to ease a residential housing crunch, the university announced last week.
#1 By Seth H 4:19am on March 24, 2008

What an absolute fiasco. This is the biggest mistake Harvard has made in a long time. Encouraging 1200 transfer applicants to apply and then rejecting their applications based on a housing mistake is no small matter. What reason does Harvard have in singling out the transfers? The best solution would be to select the best transfer applicants and the best freshmen applicants--and give admission (and housing) to whoever is on top overall out of both the categories. Isn't that the way college admissions is supposed to work? Harvard may refund the transfer applicants application fees, but it will never be able to return all of the time and effort and other fees such as SAT retakes etc for the transfer applications. What was Harvard thinking by making this decision? It is absolutely preposterous. Transfers deserve to have their applications considered for acceptance based on their merit, and Harvard is setting a terrible example of using this housing issue--or any issue whatsoever, as an excuse to deny admission to applicants instead of basing the decision for admittance off of the quality of the applications. This decision should be reversed for the transfer applicants to have justice.

#2 By Seth H 5:31am on March 24, 2008

Call and complain:

HARVARD COLLEGE (Transfer Admissions) Contact Details:

Phone: 617-495-1551

Dean of Harvard College: Dean David Pilbeam, 617-495-1560; pilbeam@fas.harvard.edu

Associate Dean of Harvard College: Bob Doyle, 617-384-5980; rdoyle@fas.harvard.edu

Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid: William R. Fitzsimmons, 617 495-1557

Dean of Admissions for Harvard College: Marlyn McGrath Lewis, (617) 495-1551

#3 By (Anonymous) 7:25am on March 24, 2008

Relax, Seth. Having to stay at Yale won't be the worst of fates.

#4 By Seth H 1:42pm on March 24, 2008

I'm not at Yale.

#5 By (Anonymous) 5:41pm on March 24, 2008

Though I am breathing a bit easier knowing that Yale is not reconsidering their acceptance of transfer students, it still makes me a bit wary will it be that much harder for me this year applying to Yale as a transfer student...

#6 By (Anonymous) 1:29am on March 29, 2008

What an idiot move, Transfer students add so much to campus!!!!!!!

Harvard continues to suck

#7 By Xuan N (Unregistered User) 12:20pm on March 30, 2008

one of my buddies applied to transfer here and got a letter stating we weren't accepting any transfer students this year bc of the influx of freshmen. someone's a liar, i think.

Add Comment

You are not logged in. We do allow posting without registration, but we encourage you to register or log in to enjoy full access to our comments features!