How Harvard’s Admissions Office Courts Donors and Low-Income Students

Updated (10/17/2018, 9:53 p.m.) with news of this afternoon’s testimony.

William R. Fitzsimmons loves Harvard University.

As its longtime dean of admissions, he spent the day here in federal court on Wednesday testifying about how the university labors to find the most promising students in all corners of the country. He sought to portray the elite institution as fighting widening economic divides, not a place that is reserved for the most privileged students.

One example? Himself.

During questioning from Harvard’s lawyer, William F. Lee, Fitzsimmons recounted his own experience growing up in Weymouth, Mass., the child of a gas-station owner. He was in the first generation in his family to go to college, received a scholarship, and paid the rest of his tuition himself.

Lee asked which university he had attended.

“Harvard College, fully accredited in Cambridge,” he said proudly in his Boston accent.

That testimony came in the afternoon of the third day of a trial that has forced Harvard to defend its admissions process from claims that it discriminates against Asian-American applicants. The case was filed in 2014 by Students for Fair Admissions, an organization founded by the conservative activist Edward J. Blum, who is behind anti-affirmative-action lawsuits against other universities as well.

Earlier in the day, Fitzsimmons struggled to portray Harvard as an equalizing force. He spent many hours on the stand answering questions from John M. Hughes, a lawyer for Students for Fair Admissions. Hughes presented data analyzed in different ways, in charts, graphs, and reports, and tried to get Fitzsimmons to admit that Asian-American high-school students are at a disadvantage when they apply to Harvard.

One chart listed “tips” that ostensibly increase an applicant’s chances of getting accepted, in the order of their value to students. According to the chart, which was prepared by Harvard’s Office of Institutional Research in 2013, having the highest score (as determined by the admissions office) for athletic achievement was listed first, followed by a high personality rating, then being the child of an alum, then being African-American. Being of Asian descent was at the bottom of the list.

Fitzsimmons, as always, tried to inject nuance into the picture of Harvard’s admissions process. Those “tips” don’t determine whether an applicant is admitted, he said, and an applicant’s race is never considered by admissions officers as a negative factor. It can only help.

A bar graph, also from the Office of Institutional Research, indicated that if the university considered only academic credentials, Asian-American students would make up about 43 percent of admitted undergraduates. The graph, which analyzed classes from 2007 to 2016, showed that the actual portion of Asian-American students was about 19 percent.

Though Hughes didn’t dwell on it, the data also showed that less than 1 percent of the admitted students would be African-American and about 2.5 percent Latino if only academics were considered in admissions. Students for Fair Admissions lawyers have said that “diversity is not on trial,” but Harvard officials say that that is exactly what is at stake. They’ve cited Blum’s history of challenging civil-rights laws to illustrate what they say he is really after.

In the afternoon, when Lee began questioning Fitzsimmons, the dean’s mood lightened, and he became more animated in explaining the process that he oversees.

Lee argued that there was more to the story of Harvard admissions than what Hughes was asking about. He revisited a process that Harvard officials use to recruit applicants by targeting high-school students who earn at least a certain score on the PSAT. On Monday, Hughes pointed out that Asian-American males from geographic areas that are less well-represented at Harvard must earn a higher score than prospective white applicants do in order to be targeted with recruitment materials.

But under questioning from Lee, Fitzsimmons said that most of those students are in the Midwest, where applicants tend to take the ACT. The data Lee presented seemed to show that Asian-American students must earn a lower score than white students do on the ACT in order to receive recruitment materials.

Donor Clout

Emails between Harvard officials that were shown in the courtroom on Wednesday morning offered a glimpse into how being connected to a major donor might improve a high-school student’s chance of admission to the prestigious university.

The emails illustrated how admissions officers receive information about applicants who are members of families that donated or might donate to the university. Fitzsimmons said that those applicants were added to a “dean’s list” that he kept an eye on, sometimes before their applications were even reviewed.

In one 2013 email, the dean of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government at the time, David T. Ellwood, wrote to Fitzsimmons that he “had done wonders” because some admitted students were connected to important people, including some who had “already committed to a building.”

In another email, fund-raising officials discussed a donor whose name had been redacted from the copy that was shown in court.

“Going forward I don’t see a significant opportunity for further major gifts,” one official said. He mentioned a donor with “an art collection, which conceivably could come our way.”

He concluded that he would rate a boost associated with the donor a “2.” Hughes asked Fitzsimmons what “2” meant. The admissions dean responded that it meant the applicant had a “reasonably serious bump” in the admissions process. A “1” would have been better.

In a third email, Fitzsimmons was told by Harvard’s tennis coach that the family of an applicant had donated $1.1 million to the university over a four-year period. Names had been redacted from the email, but the coach appeared to be thanking Fitzsimmons for rolling out the “red carpet” for a campus visitor.

The emails will surprise no one, but they show some of the mechanics of a process that elite colleges and universities use to raise funds and remain competitive with one another. The children of donors aren’t guaranteed admission, Fitzsimmons said, but they are given careful treatment by admissions officers.

In a statement emailed to reporters at the end of the day, Lee said there are some children of donors “who get in and some that won’t.” He added: “No one claims that the admission of donors or donors’ children or donors’ relatives on the dean’s list has any effect on Asian-Americans. No economist claims this.”

Fitzsimmons’s testimony on Wednesday also demonstrated that Harvard has made efforts to counter the advantage that its very rich applicants receive. He was asked questions about data indicating that low-income applicants also receive a “tip” in the admissions process.

Low-income applicants’ chance of being admitted to Harvard was important to Fitzsimmons, he testified.

“In a country that is so segregated economically,” he said, “it’s more important than ever to have people from low-income and modest-income backgrounds, from first-generation backgrounds, at Harvard.”

That’s not only for their own benefit, he said, but also “to make sure that their classmates understand what America is really like.”

Nell Gluckman writes about faculty issues and other topics in higher education. You can follow her on Twitter @nellgluckman, or email her at nell.gluckman@chronicle.com.