"A Touch of Greatness"

Most high school seniors suppose that getting into Harvard requires a score of 700 or above (top: 800) on college-board tests. Not necessarily, say Admissions Men Fred L. Glimp and Dean K. Whitla in the Harvard Alumni Bulletin. Harvard more and more seeks men who may score below 500 but have something else: "a touch of greatness." High school teachers and principals are asked to weigh this quality on a high-to-low scale of 1 to 6. Glimp and Whitla wisely avoid defining it, but envision some combination of "effectiveness, energy, judgment, integrity, generosity of spirit or cussedness."

The "good news," they report, is that "the purely personal strengths we think we are measuring have academic currency." In the classes of 1962 and 1963, magnas or sumrnas went to 28% of those who entered with board scores of 700 to 800--and to 30% of those with a top personal rating.

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