The College announced yesterday that the Class of 2007 faced a record-low admissions rate of 9.8 percent—and that a record-high percent of the 2,056 applicants admitted to the Class of 2007 are black.
10.2 percent of admitted students are black, up from 8.9 percent last year.
The news came a mere day after the Supreme Court heard a landmark case that could rule admissions systems like Harvard’s—which takes race into account as one factor in decisions—unconstitutional.
It also comes after a year in which some worried that a high-profile standoff between University President Lawrence H. Summers and Fletcher University Professor Cornel West would taint Harvard’s image among prospective black students.
But Dean of Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 said that the Admissions Committee did not actively seek this year to admit more black students than ever before.
Fitzsimmons attributed the increase to the talent of the black candidate pool.
“The numbers will go up and down every year,” he said. “We’re pleased with the percentage [of black admittees] and hope that we will be able to continue to yield high percentages.”
Aside from this increase, ethnic representation remained fairly consistent with previous years.
Asian-Americans comprised 16.2 percent of admitted students. Mexican-Americans comprised 3.6 percent, Puerto Ricans comprised 1.5 percent and Hispanic-Americans from other countries in Latin American and South America comprised 3.7 percent. American Indians comprised 1 percent of the admitted pool.
Women comprised slightly more than 48 percent of admitted applicants.
Former President of the Black Students Association Brandon Gayle ’03, said that after a couple of years in which news out of Cambridge pointed to tense race relations, word of record-high admittance rate was “phenomenal.”
Gayle attributed the shift in part to Harvard’s recent reiteration of its support for affirmative action, in the form of a friend of a court brief in the Michigan case.
“I definitely feel that President Summers has put himself out there in support of affirmative action,” Gayle said.
According to Fitzsimmons, the aftermath of the Summers-West dispute gave the University a chance to reiterate its commitment to the field of Afro-American studies as well.
“[Henry Louis] ‘Skip’ Gates and other remaining [Af-Am] department members, as well as President Summers, have spoken out about how important Afro-American Studies is to Harvard,” Fitzsimmons said. “There would be questions that would come up [on admissions recruitment trips], but those gave us another opportunity to talk about what a great place Harvard is.”
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