NEWSWEEK: Fairness in the admissions process is a personal and academic interest of yours. When you were named interim president [two months ago], was changing Harvard’s early-admissions policy something you were already planning to do?

Derek Bok: No, it wasn’t. Our wonderful dean of admissions [William Fitzsimmons] had been worried about this for a number of years. He intuited that now was a good time to raise the issue, so he came in and talked about it.

Describe that moment, and what your reaction was.

I had followed this debate for some time. I’m a good friend with Dick Zeckhauser and Chris Avery [Harvard professors who co-wrote “The Early Admissions Game”], and I was aware of the increasing frenzy about the whole college-admissions process. So I think I was immediately receptive, and [I] said, somebody has got to take the lead, and we’re an obvious candidate to do it. We’re in a better position to take those risks, and therefore have a responsibility. I felt fortunate that I would come in a time when we could do this.

What kinds of discussions were involved in pushing the idea forward and formalizing the policy change? What were some of your concerns?

Well, certainly we wanted to talk a bit about how much risk we were running. Whether the disadvantages of our mild version of early action—as opposed to early decision—really necessitated reform. [Early decision is binding, and requires students to commit to attend a school, if admitted; early action is nonbinding.] We just wanted to go over those questions. I was pretty persuaded from the beginning. And Fitz was well prepared on that. There wasn’t a whole lot of cogitation. The meeting wasn’t contentious, and we said, let’s go for it. Let’s write it up as persuasively as we can. Part of the exercise is to give good enough reasons so others will agree with us and it will have a real impact.

As yet, no other school has followed Harvard’s lead and switched its own policy. Are you surprised that there hasn’t been more of an immediate response?

No, I’m not. I think these are serious issues, and I think they probably raise greater questions for other schools than they do for us. As a result I wouldn’t think other schools would jump into it without reviewing it carefully. Fitz had reviewed it carefully before he brought it to me. But for other schools, clearly it will take some period of time.

Informally, what have you been hearing from other schools? Do you think many other schools will follow your lead?

I think the only honest answer is to say that I have no crystal ball that will enable me to know. I’ve been out of the presidential business for 15 years [Bok was Harvard president from 1971 to 1991], so I don’t have an immediate set of relationships with my counterparts at other universities. And we’re scrupulous not to raise it, because that would create antitrust problems.

Will it hurt Harvard if they don’t?

I think that’s also not entirely clear. Of course even now we’re at something of a competitive disadvantage, if you look at it from a narrow self-interested point of view, because we give people the opportunity to see if we would admit them, but don’t work in terms of [binding] early decision. That said, this decision won’t work only one way. There are some people frightened away from applying because of the complexities of all this, who will want to wait and see if there are competitive financial-aid packages. What I can say is we have serious competition from only a small number of other schools. So there are relatively few whose decisions will immediately affect us.

It’s only a small number of students who apply to Harvard early, and an even smaller number who are accepted. Even if a handful of other elite schools change their policies, it will still be a small number of students who are directly affected, in a national context. Can you tell me, given this, what you think the broader impact of your decision will be?

Well, I think the broader impact depends an awful lot on what other schools do. If it does start a chain reaction of other schools doing it, it will have good effects. It will help disadvantaged students without a lot of high-priced counseling. It will take some of the early frenzy away from the whole admissions process. In those respects, it will be very positive. But by ourselves we can only have a limited effect. We can’t change the atmosphere too much, just by ourselves, but if we can start something with other schools following our lead, we could really make a difference.