Early admissions at Harvard down 17% amid increased antisemitism on campus

Officials at Harvard have repeatedly failed to adequately condemn antisemitism following a rise in anti-Jewish hate on campus in the wake of Hamas' brutal attack on Israel and the ensuing retaliation against the Iranian-backed terrorist organization. During that time, the university has suffered; a number of high-profile donors have pulled their funding, and now, it appears less people are eagerly submitting their applications to study there.

Last week, Harvard released its early admission numbers, revealing that only 7,921 high school seniors had applied via the Early Action Program by the November 1 deadline.

As the New York Post reports, that's a drop of 17 percent over last year, where 9,553 early applications were sent in.

Not all universities whose leaders struggled to properly condemn anti-Jewish hate saw their early application numbers drop. The University of Pennsylvania, for example, actually saw 500 more than last year.

In the three weeks between the launch of Hamas' latest round of terrorist attacks on October 7 and Harvard's November 1 early application deadline, the school managed to get itself into hot water, largely thanks to officials' response, or lack thereof, to the situation.

Shortly after the war began, a number of student groups signed a joint letter calling Israel an "apartheid regime," and saying it was "the only one to blame" for the terror.

Harvard President Claudine Gay had released a statement regarding the atrocities committed by the terrorist organization, but following backlash over the aforementioned letter, she eventually revised it to distance the institution from the student groups.
 

"As the events of recent days continue to reverberate, let there be no doubt that I condemn the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by Hamas," she wrote. "Such inhumanity is abhorrent, whatever one’s individual views of the origins of longstanding conflicts in the region."

"Let me also state, on this matter as on others, that while our students have the right to speak for themselves, no student group — not even 30 student groups — speaks for Harvard University or its leadership."

In the weeks since, antisemitism has become such an issue on campus that the school has become the subject of an investigation by the Department of Justice, and Gay testified on the issue before Congress.