ABSTRACT
As of 1963, the new elite was still overwhelmingly white, though by then diversified in terms of ethnic group and religious preference. Before World War II, children of middle- and upper-class families, predominantly Anglo-Saxon Protestant, had found it relatively easy, if they possessed minimum academic qualifications, to be admitted to the elite colleges and professional schools. In large measure, the elite institutions themselves effected this shift in student composition, within a few college generations, by requiring higher academic standards for admission and graduation. They also substantially expanded scholarship aid programs. Nevertheless, such older minority applicants as Irish Catholics and Jews still had substantial advantages over blacks and other newcomers to elite colleges. Their family and educational levels were higher, which in turn facilitated a greater degree of social assimilation. Whatever the percentages of Jewish students, and they may indeed fluctuate from year to year, Harvard had opened wide its doors to both Jews and to the so-called newer minority groups.
