If memory serves, he always had bringing her into the X-Men in one form or another in mind.  By the way, would you like me to send you my New Mutants index?  It only goes up through the September 1986 issue (and it omits the first annual), so I'm not sure how much help it will actually be.

Cei-U!
I summon the new kids on the block!

Fond remembrances of this series.Loved the Mcleod art and enjoyed the wildness/creativity that came from Sienkiewicz. Collected up through the end of Bret Blevins' run and stopped when Liefeld came on board. 

A.K.A. "The Jamie Madrox Baseline"

Marvel Graphic Novel #4, the debut of The New Mutants, presents a decision that, on its face, seems pretty straightforward. A bunch of mutants discover their powers for the first time or suddenly come in contact with Charles Xavier, and the Professor makes the decision to reopen his school so that he can train them to hone and come to terms with their powers as well as the world around them. I've re-read this story countless times and never thought twice about it beyond the convenience of all these new mutants suddenly dropping on Xavier's porch at one convenient time. But there's something pretty wrong with this: less the idea that he is willing to teach new students, and more the question of why he wasn't taking on new students before this moment.

We take for granted the assumption that Xavier's doors are always open to young mutants in need, but when had we ever seen this be the case? Beyond the founding five members and Kitty Pryde, anyone who has ever been brought into those halls between 1965 and 1980 was brought in primarily as a member or ally of The X-Men, Xavier's covert paramilitary group, and not as students in need of a school for mutants. Xavier had Cerebro, a machine capable of detecting mutants all across the world, but when had he ever used that machine to locate confused mutant teenagers in need of guidance and acceptance? Instead, we repeatedly saw that device used to assess and locate mutant threats. X-Men business prevails.

It truly seems as if, prior to the moment in Marvel Graphic Novel #4 where Moira MacTaggart talks Xavier into teaching these new students, the school was little more than a sham; a front for The X-Men's operations and nothing more.

But let's look even deeper.

Why does Xavier consider admitting these students to his school after such a long stretch of not admitting any new students? He doesn't appear to have any plans to turn them into a super team at this point, but he's also not taking open applications and searching across the world for other students to take in. He opts to take in Xi'an Coy, Danielle, and Rahn, (even offering to cover Xi'an's financial needs), stumbling upon the others afterward. Xi'an Coy is there because the Fantastic Four put in a good word for her, Danielle because Xavier had connections with her grandfather, and Rahn because Moira MacTaggart vouched for her. So the name of the game is personal connections -- is that what gets you admitted into Xavier's School?

In contrast, let's take a look at Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man, introduced in Giant Size Fantastic Four #4, just a few months ahead of Giant Size X-Men #1. Xavier arrived to help Madrox, a mutant in great physical and emotional crisis whose powers posed a great threat to mankind. Xavier vows to help him at the end of the story, and that's the last we see of him for ages after, finally showing up as an aid to Moira MacTaggart at Muir Isle. Here's a textbook example of someone who needed Xavier's school and was quickly passed off to someone else. It would seem that he lacked a personal connection to Xavier.

But it might actually be more insidious than that.

After all, the real idea at the center of Xavier's debate in MGN #4 is his belief that the X-Men have just died. We've already explored how the paramilitary aspect of the school seemed to be his true goal all along, Xavier only taking in the first five X-Men in order to have such a team and pretty much closing his doors after. So what is his reason for deciding to reopen the school? If it was out of some sense of nobility, again, he would have extended the application process wider to students who hadn't just coincidentally shown up on his doorstep with some inside connection to him. No, he grabs the first three students he sees, even while he's convinced one of them (Xi'an) is lying to him about her past.

The reason why seems obvious: fill in the gap. Deal with the loss of the X-Men by effectively replacing them. Just as he only drafted the first five students because he had use of them, he now takes on this new team for much the same reason -- to fulfill his own personal needs and not theirs. It explains why the team becomes such an afterthought after the X-Men return fromt he dead. It also explains why poor Jamie Madrox got shuffled off to Muir Isle. Xavier's School truly is nothing more than a front designed to support Xavier's true passion project; the students admitted based upon Xavier's needs and not the needs of the students nor the society to which they belong.




...or it's all narrative convenience and lazy writing that depends too much upon coincidence.

But I think part of this hearkens even more to the basic ideal of Xavier's dream: peaceful co-existence between mutants and humans. But what has he and the X-Men actually done to foster this? Far too many of their actions were reactive in nature.