Harvard sees applications drop 5% in wake of anti-Semitism and plagiarism scandals - as rivals Yale and Dartmouth boast 10% rise

Harvard College saw undergraduate applications drop by 5 percent this year, while other Ivy League schools, including Yale and Dartmouth, boasted a record increase of 10 percent.

Harvard received 54,008 undergraduate applications, about 5 percent fewer than last year, following the resignation of former president Claudine Gay amid plagiarism accusations and backlash over anti-Semitism events.

Applications to Brown University were also down by nearly 5 percent from last year, but other Ivy League schools saw a record rise in applicants, according to The New York Times.

Yale University and Dartmouth College received applications up by 10 percent from last year, while M.I.T., which also made headlines for anti-Israel protests on campus after the October 7 attack, and experienced its own plagiarism scandal saw applications rise by 5 percent.

Columbia, which declined an invitation to testify before congress alongside the presidents of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT, also saw a 5 percent rise despite repeated accusations of antisemitism on campus.  

Cornell and Princeton decided not to release the number of applicants or the admission rates for this admissions cycle. 

Harvard College saw undergraduate applications drop by 5 percent this year, while other Ivy League schools, including Yale and Dartmouth, boasted a record increase of 10 percent

Harvard received 54,008 undergraduate applications, about 5 percent fewer than last year, following the backlash over anti-Semitism scandals. Demonstrators are seen at Harvard on October 14, 2023 

Yale University(left) and Dartmouth College(right) received applications up by 10 percent from last year

Early applications to Harvard were down 17 percent, and regular ones dropped by almost 3 percent this year. The school accepted 1,937 students to its class of 2028, about 3.6 percent of applicants. 

Despite the decline, it marked the fourth year in a row that it received more than 50,000 applications, according to the Harvard Crimson. 

The drop in applications follows accusations of anti-Semitism on campus at Harvard, which started with a student letter asserting that Israel was 'entirely responsible' for the October 7 attacks. 

The student branch of the group, Students for Justice in Palestine, published the controversial letter blaming Israel for the Palestinian extremists' terror plot.

The letter launched an outcry from many Harvard alumni and led to dozens of top-tier donors pulling their tens of millions from the school.

It was that series of events that started the ball rolling toward the ultimate ousting of Harvard President Gay, 53, who only lasted just six months in the role.

Former President Claudine Gay resigned from her post after plagiarism accusations and disastrous testimony to Congress that failed to condemn campus anti-Semitism

M.I.T. (left) and Columbia (right), which also made headlines for anti-Israel protests on campus after the October 7 attack, saw applications rise by 5 percent.

Her resignation in January came only a month after her shocking congressional testimony about campus antisemitism, where she refused to categorize calls for Jew genocide as harassment or concede that Jewish students had a right not to feel safe at Ivy League schools. 

In her resignation, Gay wrote that she was standing down after 'consultation' with the school's board, which has been under pressure to replace her after defending her remarks. 

'It has become clear that it is in the best interests of Harvard for me to resign so that our community can navigate this moment of extraordinary challenge with a focus on the institution rather than any individual,' Gay wrote, adding that she had been the victim of racist threats.

UPenn President Liz Magill said the school had demonstrated its 'unyielding commitment to combatting antisemitism' but also refused to categorize calls for the genocide of Jews as harassment or a breach of the school's code of conduct

MIT President Dr. Sally Kornbluth was also grilled for her school's response to protests. She too failed to outwardly condemn calls for the genocide of Jews 

During a Congress hearing in December of last year, presidents of Harvard, M.I.T, and University of Pennsylvania equivocated when asked if calls for the genocide of Jews counted as hate speech. 

During the five-hour hearing, Gay, UPenn's Liz Magill and M.I.T's Sally Kornbluth were questioned over their response to antisemitism on their campuses. 

The trio all agreed that reprimanding students who call for a Jewish genocide was not paramount - but instead, they said the blatant antisemitism is 'context' specific. 

Magill, a lawyer by trade, even smirked and smiled as she refused to categorize calls for genocide as harassment or a breach of the school's code of conduct in front of Congress. 

House Committee on Education and the Workforce Chairwoman Virginia Foxx announced the formal investigation into Harvard, along with UPenn and M.I.T days after the hearing. 

Blasting the schools' presidents in the announcement, she said: 'The testimony we received earlier this week from Presidents Gay, Magill, and Kornbluth about the responses of Harvard, UPenn, and MIT to the rampant antisemitism displayed on their campuses by students and faculty was absolutely unacceptable. 

Magill also resigned from her post following fierce backlash to her congressional testimony shortly after the hearing on December 5.