New Ways into College

College applications once consisted of a high school transcript, board scores and perhaps a why-I-want-to-go-to-your-school essay. No more. The college acceptances being sent through the mails last week-were based, in a good number of cases, on such evidence as a handmade jacket of chain mail, an original eight-page score for a string quartet or a taped rendition of Cesar Franck's Piece Heroique.

Art schools and progressive colleges like Bennington have appraised applicants' artifacts for years, but only lately has the practice reached other liberal arts colleges. Bowdoin in Maine and Hampshire in Massachusetts first invited examples of creative work three years ago. Yale joined them this year and others are considering it. Not everyone approves. Harvard tried it and then gave up because, according to Admissions Director John P. Reardon, it attracted too many "bizarre" submissions--and "wasn't all that helpful anyway."

Getting Even. Some of Reardon's counterparts disagree strongly. The entrance staff at Yale inspected almost 400 samples of applicants' work, compared with perhaps a dozen volunteered in earlier years, to learn more than is revealed by S.A.T. scores. Gimmicks alone will not get a student into college, of course. Yale turned down--on academic grounds--applicants who had sent in an embroidered pillowcase, an apple cake and a sexy black negligee handmade of appliqued silk. At Bowdoin, President Roger Howell took a bite of a cookie made by one aspirant and grunted, "She'd better be good in class because she's not in the kitchen." She wasn't, and was not admitted.

As in the case of an athlete or student newspaper editor, however, outside interests can be decisive in borderline cases. "This is a chance for the sensitive, imaginative student to get even," says Bowdoin's Admissions Director Richard Moll. Amy Carney ensured her acceptance to Bowdoin when she spotted a tear in Moll's pants, then mailed him an embroidered linen patch accompanied by a quotation from Thoreau on the value of mending old clothes. The college's aim, says Moll, is "to build a class full of differences."

-In a sharp reversal from last year, according to a New York Times survey, applications to the eight Ivy League colleges have climbed 12% while applications to the 74 largest state universities leveled off to an increase of only 1.5%. Apparent reason for the change: improved economic conditions make parents more willing to pay the private colleges' fees of $4,000-plus.

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