College Shorts

Author: Kathryn Flagg and Derek Schlickeisen

Harvard drops early admission

In a move that could significantly alter the landscape of elite university admissions, Harvard University announced Tuesday its plans to abolish the "early action" admissions option that allows high school students to vie for early slots in the university's incoming class. Harvard is the first of the country's elite universities to end the program, with university officials contending that early admissions programs put low-income and minority applicants at a disadvantage in the admissions game.

Harvard administrators hope that this decision will allow other universities, some of which have long admitted the dangers of such programs, to follow suit.

"We think this will produce a fairer process, because the existing process has been shown to advantage those who are already advantaged," said the university's interim president Derek Bok in an interview with The New York Times.

Though the decision has been met with delight by many high school college counselors and university admissions officials, the school's dean of admissions William Fitzsimmons acknowledged that the school faces some risks.

"There's no question [losing good students] is a risk," he told CNN, acknowledging that the policy change could discourage students who may desire a guaranteed spot early in the admissions process. Fitzsimmons continued, however, "We just felt it was much more important to do the right thing.

Harvard's change will not affect admissions for students applying to the university this fall.

-The New York Times and CNN.com



Long-term 9/11 impact studied

The U.S. government's failure to involve young people in the 9/11 rebuilding process has left them more cynical and disengaged from their government, researchers at Columbia University's National Center for Disaster Preparedness said Monday.

On the five-year anniversary of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the Columbia researchers released a report detailing what they allege is the failure of social and governmental leaders to educate America's youth about the opportunity to help. "There's a responsibility of the society to mobilize the natural inborn idealism of the youth, their tremendous energy, their physical power and desire to help into a socially constructive healing force," he continued. "This does not occur, and this is a terrible story."

- U-Wire



UPenn student charged with murder

Irina Manilovskaya this week will stand trial a second time for the 2004 killing of a Temple graduate student. Manilovskaya, an undergraduate at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton Business School, is charged with murdering Temple graduate student Irina Zlotnikov in a Wilmington, Delaware apartment two days before Christmas.

The jury hung in Manilovskaya's first trial, with an 11-1 majority favoring acquittal. "The prosecution must have thought that they didn't do so good of a job the first time and decided to try again," said Pennsylvania Law professor Paul Robinson.

- The Daily Pennsylvanian