Students Receive Gamble Scholarships
By T. JAY MATTIIKWS
Collegiate Prow Nervier
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — About
100 undergraduates at Harvard
University are the winners in a
nationwide talent search, but
none of them knows it.
Itepresenting one of the larg
est collective risks ever taken by
a college admissions office, they
are the recipients of the so-call
ed "gamble fund" scholarships—
grants that since H»57 have
brought at least 200 high schools’
seniors with rock bottom college
board scores and difficult back
grounds to Harvard.
The students have come from
urban slums, unaccredited South
ern high schools, and migrant
ramps Their parents, in most
cases, never finished high school
and may even have openly dis
couraged them from going to col
lege.
Only a few members of the
Harvard admissions department
know who is receiving grants
from the fund The students are
told that they have normal schol
arships from Harvard "Obvious
ly you don’t write a boy and
soy 'Congratulations, you’re a ter
rihle risk,' " explains Peter Briggs,
the director of freshman schol
arships.
Becoming Standard
In 1966, this type of program,
reaching out to the deprived stu
dent, is becoming almost stand
ard in many of the larger univer
sities Kight years ago. when the
program was started at Harvard,
Athletics...
(Continui-d from payf 4)
but who probably wouldn't have
gotten an education otherwise ”
In addition, it was noted by
Childs, the athletic department
runs a tutor system for fresh
inen athletes. "It used to be we
lost a whole block of freshmen.”
stated Childs, "now its down to
3 or 5 percent."
The fact that the coaches re
ceive twice a term reports on
each boy’s academic progress
also is helpful. "If we notice
that boy’s doing poorly, we bring
him in and try to help him out."
says Childs.
"Overall,” maintains Childs,
"the boy's desire to compete, and
the coaches’ emphasis on the im
portance of education contribute
highly to the number of athletes
that graduate.”
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| there was almost no systematic
attempt to reach this type of stu
| dent.
It was then that Harvard ap
proached the head of an eastern
foundation, who was personally
Interested in helping disadvan
taged students. He agreed to con
tribute $50,000 personally for a
limited time. He believed that
other sources of funds could be
easily secured once it was proven
that the students he wanted to
tiring to Harvard could survive
there.
He was right. "There are now
at least twice as many members
of the freshman class who are
eligible for the program as arc
on the actual list of gamble
fund recipients,” Hriggs said. In
fart, the original donor has grad
ually been reducing his payments
and by 1970 will have stopped
' them completely.
Selection Not Easy
The admissions committee has
found that selecting boys with a
! potential for greatness in spite
of their backgrounds is not easy.
. However, the committee has come
i up with some real "winners.”
One student out of the first
group of 20 (which graduated in
class of IBfll) had grown up in
California’s Imperial V a 1 ley,
where his father made $4,500 a
year icing railroad cars and his
Mexican mother spoke little Eng
lish. Neither parent wanted their
son to go to college. The stu
dent’s Scholastic Aptitude Test
verbal score was 415; his math
was 452.
The college guide books cau
tion that scores this low often in
dicate inability to cope with col
lege work. Yet (the boy was first
in his high school graduating
class, student body president, and
a debater.
The same was true in the case
of a Negro boy from an unaccre
dited, segregated Mississippi high
school. He was student body pres
ident and near the top of his
Upward Bound
• • •
n onrtnuca from page l)
it’s boring now," Ken answered
when asked how he liked Uni
versity social life.
“If they'd make them (the Up
ward Bound students) feel that
they can do the work, they’d do ;
better," said Truman Massey,
talking of the attitudes of some j
of the program's administrators.
Truman, a young Negro who
was raised in Chicago, but gradu
ated from high school in Port
land in 1904. feels that he and
his fellow students may even be
getting too much help with their
studies.
Should Help Kids’
On the other hand, he feels
Court Convicts
3 of Cheating
Three students were found
guilty of academic cheating by
Student Court Tuesday.
Although each hearing involved
a physical science exam, the three
were not connected All three
violations occurred fall term
The first defendant, a fresh
man. was found guilty by admis
sion. and was put on disciplinary
probation for the remainder of
the year
The second defendant, also a
freshman, pleaded innocent, but
was found guilty. The sanction
is five terms of disciplinary pro
bation This student was on dis
ciplinary probation at the time
the violation occurred
The third case was tried in ab
sentia, as the accused is present
ly attending classes at another
state school. The defendant, a
sophomore, pleaded guilty, and
was suspended from the Univer
sity until winter term of the '66
'67 school year.
Business Group Elects
Alpha Kappa Psi, professional
business fraternity, elected offi
cers on Monday for the coming
year. The new officers are:
President, Steve Winfree; vice
president, A1 (label; secretary,
Herb Plep; treasurer, John Free
man; and master of rituals, Gar
rett Goo.
The outgoing officers were Bill
Allen, Terry O'Rourke, John
Shafer, Hallock Woodworth, and
Steve Winfree respectively The
new officers will be officially in
stalled Monday.
An^EWRDI Bonus
extra
A free scholarship given away Tonite
Phi Delta Theta — 7:30 p.m.
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the Upward Bound staff should
"help the kids and make sure
they don’t fall down.”
"I believe that plenty of them
will be able to pull up their
grades this term,” he continued.
Truman has a sister attending
Memphis State College and a
brother who graduated from Port
land State College last year, but
he worked for a year in a bowl
ing alley after he finished high
school.
“You have to pick a time when
you’re ready to go to school,” he
said, when asked if he had plan
ned to go to college before hear
ing about Upward Bound.
He wants to major in journal
ism, but doesn’t know yet whether
or not he will stay in college
until he gets a degree.
“I want to, and I think, in time,
I will. It’ll depend on this term
and next term,’’ Truman ex
plained
The next article will con
clude this series and will dis
cuss the views of some of the
faculty members, administrat
ors and counselors involved in
the Upward Bound program.
Tutorials Listed
For Tonight
An expanded program of ASUO
tutorials will be held from 7-10
p.m. today, covering six subjects.,
All tutors are students who have
received grade A or B in the
subject.
Students may receive free tu
toring in the following subjects:
French—215 Allen
Biology—221 Allen
Psychology—231 Allen
Italian—266 Commonwealth
Economics (Principles) — 214
Friendly
Physical Science Survey — 105
Science
PL-3 Program
WEDNESDAY. JANUARY 19
b :Mi Hl'XTLEY HR I NKl.EY REPORT
7 oo El GENE (’AMPI'S REPORT
7:05 PSYCHOLOGY FILM: "Our In
visible Committees"
8:00 ECONOMICS 202
8:30 F E l> E R A L MEDIATION: The
Work of tlu- Federal Mediation Service is
discussed by FMS Commissioners George
Walker, LeRoy Smith ami Bob McLel
land. Prof. Paul Kleinsorgc moderates.
I class, even while working night
I ly as the janitor in an office build
i ing. Yet, his SAT scores scraped
the 400 mark, and his father, a
$4,000-a-year laborer, cared lit
tle whether his son went to col
lege or not.
Finding Not Easy
Finding students like these
wasn’t easy. The admissions de
partment figured that it would
get applications from a few eli
gible students in the course of a
year but that the bulk of those
really eligible for the program
might not even apply to a col
lege, let alone Harvard.
Alumni were informed of the
program and asked to contact as
many high schools as possible.
Other groups, certain national or-;
ganizations and clubs, helped in
the search for promising young
men from deprived backgrounds
and marginal high school educa
tions.
One big problem was the com
plete lack of help from the par
ents, Fred L. Olimp, dean of ad
missions and financial aids, said.
"We’d put an application in a
boy’s hand, but when he got
home his father would rip it up
and tell him he’d had a night
mare,” Glimp said.
Another problem the commit
tee had to face was the big jump
from some place like the Imperial
Valley to Cambridge and Har
vard. To counter this, 10 per
cent of the fund was used in put
ting the students through a New
England prep school for a year
before they began college. One
student liked the small town at
mosphere so much after his year
at prep school that he turned
down Harvard and arranged a
scholarship for himself to Am
herst.
Despite all of the handicaps,
the students are found and most
of them go to Harvard. Though
their grade average has lagged
behind the overall class average,
it has been far ahead of what it
was predicted to be. The gam
ble fund has produced leaders in
almost every campus activity; one
of the students is a Rhodes schol
ar.
Twenty years ago. Harvard un
officially brought a “risk” from
a small farm in the Midwest to
Cambridge. Today, he is a well
known Ivy League professor. If
the admissions people have their
way, college faculties in the next
two decades will be filled with
the same kind of risks.
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