{"id":36,"date":"2021-05-12T14:07:47","date_gmt":"2021-05-12T18:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/arx340-lcombest\/?page_id=36"},"modified":"2021-05-20T19:49:27","modified_gmt":"2021-05-20T23:49:27","slug":"ada-comstock-scholars-admissions","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sites.smith.edu\/arx340-lcombest\/smith-activism-timeline\/ada-comstock-scholars-admissions\/","title":{"rendered":"Ada Comstock Scholars Admissions"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1994, Smith students learned of a plan by Mary Maples Dunn’s administration to lower the proportion of Ada Comstock Scholars (AC Scholars) admitted to Smith College every academic year. After writing to President Dunn and imploring her to not discontinue the program or detract from it in any way, President Dunn primarily rationalized her decision in financial terms, saying AC Scholars required more financial aid on average than traditional age Smithies. As such, they had to prioritize more spots for traditional age students in order to accumulate enough paid tuition to cover AC Scholars’ financial requirements. She assured the AC Scholars who wrote to her that the program itself was not in danger of dissolution, but that its relative proportion of the student body would have to decrease to keep it as a financially viable program.<\/p>\n