Big Man on Campus

William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard College, has been culling elite freshman classes since 1972. A Harvard grad himself, Fitzsimmons and his staff of 35 admissions officers scrutinized nearly 23,000 applications last year but sent out just 2,100 of those coveted, thick acceptance envelopes.

No one knows who is in or out until the admissions officers convene to debate the merits of each application. Fitzsimmons may be king, but when his committee meets, it's one person, one vote.

How many applications did you personally read last year?

More than 2,000. Everything filters through subcommittees first and then goes to the full committee. Sometimes we spend an hour on a single application.

Do you feel like the belle of the admissions ball, rejecting so many and yet rarely getting rejected?

Roughly 80 percent of those we admit choose to come here. But the truth is, competition for the top students has never been more intense.

Can you detect when someone has been extensively coached?

There's no way to tell with certainty whether or not someone has received inappropriate help. We're always looking for consistency, where the teachers, the counselors and the interviewers are all really saying much the same thing. You might ask yourself why someone who writes perfectly and beautifully gets Bs and Cs in English.

And now there's a coaching industry.

We know there are at least three private admissions counselors out there who charge $35,000 for their services. We heard recently of a $10,000 three-day admissions boot camp. On the other hand, there are people who have no guidance counselor in their high school. Or their parents may not have gone to college—it's very hard for parents who haven't been through the process to help their children. So the lack of a level playing field is a huge issue.

What are the more unusual ways people try to catch your eye?

We get a lot of food—nut bread, chocolate chip cookies, cake.
We had one person send in copies of all the corrected papers she'd received since pre-kindergarten. We've had diaries. One guy wrote his essay with his foot—and had a friend take pictures. Another person sent in a stuffed squirrel; he was trying to show us his taxidermy skills. Unfortunately, the squirrel must have spent too much time in the U.S. mail.

Every year, two or three people put their faces on a mocked-up copy of Time magazine as man or woman of the year. One person sent in a life-size statue of herself. We've had a dozen roses, a chocolate Harvard shield.
I could go on like this for a long time.

Were either the foot essayist or taxidermist admitted?

No, no. But it happens periodically.

Have you been stalked by anyone who's been rejected?

Yes. When it's extreme, we have to call the police.
We once had a person who sent in at least one recommendation a day for probably 60 or 80 days—I think everybody he'd ever met. Finally, near the end of the onslaught, we received a copy of a letter from his orthodontist, who talked about how wonderfully things have gone with the orthodontia.

Is there an essay topic you'd ban if you could?

No, no, no. But I think the more personal it is, the better, rather than, say, writing about the national debate topic of the year, or something that's dealt with ad nauseam on the nightly news.

From your perch, how would you describe the current cohort of American teens?

It's impossible not to be optimistic about the future of the country, based on reading the applications of the people who apply to Harvard.
You also learn that there are advantages and disadvantages with any kind of growing-up process. Everybody would understand some of the challenges of growing up, as I did, in the bottom quarter of income distribution. But there are also real pressures in the most affluent communities, especially given the frenetic pace today, where people start their sports and musical instruments and academic enrichment practically before preschool.

Despite your optimism, do you have any criticisms of today's teens?

We've written a paper called "Time Out or Burn Out" about taking a gap year. It's on our Web site. For the past 30 years, we've encouraged students to take time off before coming here. It isn't so much a criticism as it is a caution. Students need to determine what their hearts and souls are telling them, as opposed to their heads.