Harvard College reported on Thursday its early application total and the results show a significant drop from last year.
The Ivy League institution reported that they received 7,921 early applications and accepted 692 students. The submissions are a 17% drop from last year, which saw 9,553 applications.
Bob Sweeney, a retired college counselor at Mamaroneck High School in New York who worked as a counselor for almost 30 years, told Bloomberg that the soaring antisemitism could be one of the factors in the drop in early application submissions.
"That’s possibly one of several reasons, about the concern of safety on the campus," Sweeney said. "There might be other factors as well as students are being more realistic about their expectations and chances for acceptance."
Applications were due on Nov. 1, before Harvard University President Claudine Gay’s testimony during a congressional hearing that addressed rampant anti-Semitic rhetoric on college campuses.
A current Harvard Law student, Matias Mayesh, told Fox News Digital that the results of early application submissions are "not surprising" because the academic institution's "reputation is damaged."
"Not surprising. Harvard’s reputation has been damaged due to its failure to address leftwing extremism and antisemitism," Mayesh said.
Meanwhile, Harvard's rival Yale University is seeing a bit of a gain. Yale announced Friday it received 7,856 early applications this year, a 1.4% increase from last year and the second-highest number in the school’s history.
Harvard officials did not immediately respond for comment.
Gay received tremendous backlash over her controversial testimony before Congress on antisemitism.
Under fierce questioning from Republicans at the House Education and Workforce Committee hearing, Gay was asked whether people calling for the genocide of Jews was against Harvard policy.
She appeared to equivocate on the issue by repeatedly saying it depended on the "context."
The embattled professor later attempted to clean up her remarks under congressional questioning by issuing a statement. However, the move did not appease her critics.
Subsequently, on top of taking heat for her testimony at a congressional hearing, reports about Gay's academic writings were also addressed by Harvard officials.
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The Washington Free Beacon reported that Gay "paraphrased or quoted nearly 20 authors without proper attribution," according to an analysis by the investigative news site.
Furthermore, the Manhattan Institute’s Christopher Rufo and journalist Christopher Brunet published instances of what they said were problematic sections of her Ph.D. dissertation that "violate Harvard’s own stated policies on academic integrity."
Harvard University’s top brass backed Gay following intense backlash for her comments about antisemitism and accusations of plagiarism.
Several colleges across the U.S. are grappling with social unrest amid the Hamas-Israel war that began on October 7, when Hamas forces launched an assault on the Gaza Strip.
