The veritas at Harvard University is that 17% fewer applicants are expressing early, exclusive interest in the more than 385-year-old Ivy League institution.
The drop in early applications, which is at a four-year low, per Bloomberg, comes “as Harvard has become embroiled in a national row over how U.S. colleges are handling incidents of antisemitism in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks on Israel and Israel’s subsequent military action in Gaza,” per the publication.
Harvard announced that it accepted 692 early applicants out of 7,921. Those who apply early haven’t committed to accepting admission, but they signal to a school that it is at least a strong preference. Last year, 9,553 people applied early, per Harvard.
Aly Beaumont, who owns the Admissions Village college coaching company, told CNN that two “top students” dropped Harvard from their list of schools to which to apply for regular decision “after the school’s handling of events on campus following Oct. 7.”
At the University of Pennsylvania—another Ivy whose embattled president resigned after testifying at a House hearing that it wouldn’t necessarily violate the university’s policies to call for genocide against Jews—early applications are reportedly up from 8,000 last year to 8,500 this fall.
