After weeks in which Harvard University was vilified as the nation’s poster child for anti-Semitism on campus, students looking for a college have decided to look somewhere else.
Harvard said it accepted 692 students from a pool of 7,921 students who applied under its Early Action Program.
The application pool was down 17 percent from the fall of 2022, according to the New York Post, when 9,553 students applied for the Early Action Program. The Post said the number was a four-year low and the smallest since the start of the pandemic.
Harvard College Early Applications Drop 17% From Last Year
It takes 400 years to build a reputation and only a few months to destroy it. https://t.co/AHOyYzrRKz
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 16, 2023
At Yale University 7,856 early applications came in this year, up 1.4 percent and the second-highest ever for the college, according to a news release.
Harvard’s early admission deadline was Nov. 1, which came after weeks of controversy over Harvard’s response to anti-Semitic incidents on campus.
Since then, the outcry against Harvard increased when Harvard President Claudine Gay told a House panel that context was important in evaluating anti-Semitic speech. Gay has also been involved in a plagiarism controversy in which she was accused of lifting parts of her dissertation from others without citing her sources.
Americans reject antisemitism.@Harvard under President Claudine Gay’s leadership has turned into a bastion of antisemitism and the American people know it.
“Harvard early admission applications drop 17% during bombshell antisemitism claims”https://t.co/x7whcHItvl
— Rep. Elise Stefanik (@RepStefanik) December 20, 2023
As noted by the Daily Mail, this year’s admissions process was the first since the Supreme Court invalidated Harvard’s race-based admissions process.
Do you believe anti-Semitism is rampant at American universities?
Aly Beaumont, who owns the college coaching service Admissions Village, said two top students decided not to apply at Harvard in response to how the school handled the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians, according to CNN.
Prominent law firm Edelson PC withdraws from Harvard recruitment events over anti-Semitism on campus – as early admissions applicants to the Ivy League school drop 17% https://t.co/LDTwpXO8sE pic.twitter.com/bDevJY9sJ9
— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) December 19, 2023
One college admissions consultant said student reaction to Harvard’s tarnished brand is a “complete shock” to him, according to Fox News.
“Virtually every student I’ve ever worked with who got into Harvard early pretty much stopped [looking elsewhere],” Christopher Rim, CEO of Command Education, said during a “Fox & Friends First” appearance.
“This is the first time and first application season where I’ve seen a student who got into Harvard early that I’ve worked with for almost three and a half, four years now, starting in ninth grade – we’re seeing them say, ‘You know what? I want to apply to other schools because what if I graduate and this stigma and this reputation of Harvard stays the same?’ That’s their true concern,” he said.
I want to congratulate the board at Harvard! The alumni association for allowing Harvard to go down the drain, and by doing nothing helping a Harvard degree become worthless or ridiculed!
Harvard early applications plummet as campus rocked by antisemitism, plagiarism…
— Dmturk (@abledanm) December 18, 2023
“This is the first time this has happened. Normally, my student will get into Harvard or a top-tier school, and then that’ll be it. We’re done,” he said.
In the current environment, he said, “we’re seeing students say, ‘You know what? Let me double-think this. Let me think about other options.’”
