Don't Get Suckered, They're Slick

When it's all over and done with, you'll probably remember the months leading up to your first classes at Harvard as the time groups here made their most crude and direct approaches to you. You are the niave prey, they are the vultures swooping in on you trying to sell you yearbooks, linens, Workers' Power, rings and Confi Guides. Since you made that fateful decision to attend Harvard instead of Stanford, Yale or Morgan St., you no doubt have been deluged with information and solicitations from every group remotely connected with Harvard.

But take heart, you ain't seen nothing yet. Seventeen hundred freshman of the Harvard and Radcliffe Classes of 1978 still have to fight each other and the registrar and then run the snake-like gauntlet of group representatives peddling their wares before they can officially say they are Harvard students.

The best advice we can offer you is to only send money in advance for things you will absolutely need when you get here--you've got a whole week before classes start to square away the unimportant details.

Maybe you've already paid for HSA linens, a yearbook and a freshman register, your Class ring and the orchestra's concert series. But if you haven't, be forewarned: Just because it's Harvard doesn't mean it's good. The linen service is okay if you are the type who sends laundry home--but remember that you have to pick up your linens at a particular time or place each week or else you're out of luck. If you're doing your own laundry, why not just do linens, too, and save the money. No one is really impressed by Harvard's yearbook and you can always use your roommate's or your neighbor's freshman register. At least wait until you're here in Cambridge and you can do some investigation of your own before jumping for the bait all the groups dangle for you.

Our usually reliable sources say that since your class is the most brilliant ever to enter the University, the administration has decided not to give any written tests on the summer reading they asked you to do. So if the books interest you, read them. Otherwise, spend your last days at home more wisely.

The Coop has also sent you a membership application. You have to buy books and supplies, so you might as well pay a dollar for the membership and get the annual rebate on your purchases--about 7 per cent this year. But remember that a charge card at the Coop is not the best incentive to adhere to a strict budget if you have to worry about such trivia.

At registration, you'll get literature from at least 20 organizations and get hit again for money by The Crimson, HSA, the yearbook staff and so on. Before you register, it's probably a good idea to sit down with your roomates or next-door-neighbor and figure out what newspapers you want to get, who will buy the Confi Guide, whether or not you need a refrigerator and your other needs.

Just remember, there's a reason that none of the groups who prey upon you attack upperclassmen as openly and directly. Don't be suckered into buying a lot of junk.