The article talks about the resignation of the president and antisemitism, but that's actually not the only recent trouble at Harvard: there were multiple independent cases of suspected academic fraud: in the business school [0], the Dana-Farber cancer institute [1] and against the now-former president [2]. The latter charges might have been more political, but the other two look pretty serious. Truly not a great year for Harvard.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/4/11/harvard-business-gino-plagarism-allegations/" rel="nofollow">https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/4/11/harvard-busines...</a>
[1] <a href="https://forbetterscience.com/2024/01/02/dana-farberications-at-harvard-university/" rel="nofollow">https://forbetterscience.com/2024/01/02/dana-farberications-...</a>
[2] <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/1/3/plagiarism-allegations-gay-resigns/" rel="nofollow">https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/1/3/plagiarism-alleg...</a>
Without knowing a few basic facts it’s impossible to do more than speculate.<p>What is the base level of variance in college applications? How often do applicant counts decrease y/y? Was last year’s especially high, and thus a drop is just a return to mean?<p>What were the demographics of the applicant pool this year compared with prior years? Is it related to the Supreme Court decision? The school’s response to Hamas attacks?<p>If the latter is true we should expect similar drops at MIT and UPenn which gave similarly unpopular answers to Congress.
When I attended Caltech in the 70s, I asked about riots and demonstrations on campus during the Vietnam war era. They said that outside agitators had come on campus, and attempted to recruit students to form a protest.<p>The usual response was: "I can't join a protest, because I'd miss Physics class!" and the organizers failed.<p>It made perfect sense to me, because missing even a single physics lecture was a very, very bad idea. I was hanging on by my fingernails.<p>RIP Prof Goodstein, my physics prof, who recently passed away. You were an awesome professor. He was also the prime mover behind "The Mechanical Universe"<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtMmeAjQTXc&list=PL8_xPU5epJddRABXqJ5h5G0dk-XGtA5cZ" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtMmeAjQTXc&list=PL8_xPU5epJ...</a>
> <i>Some wealthy families are now paying consultants as much as $750,000 to prepare their children for college admissions, hoping that the extra expense will pay off with an acceptance letter to a top-ranked university.</i><p>For $750K, that had better be all-inclusive -- don't come back to me and say you need more money for random staff bribes.
Lol, this is probably because FAFSA was complicated this year. You'll find that applications to good schools are more affected by "can we afford this" than any perceived estimate of value (which is always high enough).
You can probably read too much into a small drop in applications which is doubtless a Hail Mary to get into a prestigious institution for many/most applicants. That a few figured this maybe isn’t such a big deal after all to basically waste their money and time applying maybe isn’t that surprising.<p>Or it could be a blip for some reason.
It is going to be difficult proving the causation.<p>Intuitively, the turmoil likely causes the decrease.<p>Let's say we have 3 groups:<p>1. Support Palestine
2. No strong opinion
3. Support Israel.<p>Before the Hamas massacre, the 3 groups already apply to Harvard.<p>Now that Harvard showed to support Palestine borderline Hamas. It alienates Number 3 and partly Number 2.<p>Number 1 already applies to Harvard therefore doesn't increase in size.
I wonder if this has something to do with the SAT requirements…<p><a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/4/11/harvard-sat-act-admissions-requirement/" rel="nofollow">https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/4/11/harvard-sat-act...</a><p>Harvard stopped requiring the SATs, and then started again.
Sounds like a good thing:<p>> The Cambridge, Massachusetts-based school received 54,008 applications for the class of 2028, according to the Harvard Crimson, the campus newspaper. The undergraduate college at Harvard University accepted 1,245 of those applicants, giving the incoming freshman class an acceptance rate of 3.59% — the highest admission rate in four years, the publication noted.
I would expect most Ivy's to follow.
What parent is going to sit there and watch the chaos and violence on those campuses and think "thats where I should send my kids"<p>There are schools like UF, FSU, Purdue, Auburn, etc that offer great educations with good name recognition. Obviously not the same recognition as a Harvard or similar but kids are not assaulted and brain washed into getting kicked out or arrested
I feel like elite universities are on a downward slide. Things just aren't what they once were, as far as prestige goes.<p>I suspect Harvard, Yale, etc. will always carry some cachet. But the days of the elite, universally recognized golden ticket are probably gone forever.
Of note is that the applications drop from Jewish students is likely higher than 5%. Jewish students are generally among the highest performing students on the campus.