RECRUITING WARS

Joy D. Jones would have been a member of the Class of 1997 next fall, but she turned down Harvard's admission offer because she thought the campus would be hostile to her as a Black student.

"I felt people there would look at me and think I'm only there because of affirmative action," says Jones, a resident of Los Angeles, who will be attending Duke University in the fall. "That's something I would have to deal with everyday of my life."

Aggressive recuiting and what she perceived to be a more tolerant campus led her to choose Duke, Jones says. A National Merit Scholarship finalist, a commended student in the Outstanding Achievement for Negroes Award and president of her school's African American Culture Club, Jones was recruited heavily by an array of top schools and was a hot commodity in the competitive college market for the limited pool of highly sought-after Black students.

With offers of all-expense paid campus visits, assorted merit-based scholarships and campus environments perceived as more welcoming, colleges across the country are wooing students like Jones away from Ivy League institutions like Harvard, which refuse to enter the new bidding war of the college market. If Harvard wants to maintain its commitment to enrolling the most talented students, it may have to adjust to the new rules of the admissions game.

Harvard's track record on attracting Black students has been less than exemplary. Numbers of Black matriculants have remained stagnant over the past decade despite increased recruiting efforts. But last year, the number of Black matriculants dipped precipitously to 95 for the Class of 1996, the lowest number since the Col- lege instituted affirmative action admissions policies in 1969.

The Class of 1997, however, marks a dramatic turnaround from last year. A record high 143 Blacks will join the Harvard first year class in September.

Intense recruiting efforts boosted the applicant pool and number of matriculants, according to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons '67.

A newly instituted second-phase search program specially targeted Black students based on Scholastic Aptitude Test scores after the first round search based on Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test. Probably as a result of this search, the Black applicant pool this year grew to 845 compared to 690 last year. After the acceptance letters were mailed out, undergraduate volunteers called minority admits to allay fears and answer questions.

Nevertheless, this year's record matriculation of Black students may be little more than breaking even. Throughout most of the 1980s, the number of Black students in a class hovered above 130. This year's record figure beats the old mark set by the Class of 1992 by only five students.

Thirteen Black students admitted to the Class of 1997 interviewed last week say the admissions offices' increased efforts have not advanced Harvard's standing in the bidding war. A single letter or phone call can't compete with flashy free trips, generous aid packages and the reassurance that Black students are welcome on campus, according to current and prospective Black students interviewed.

How much increased pre-application recruitment is directly responsible for the higher number of matriculating Black students remains unclear. The fact remains: Harvard admitted 214 Blacks, the highest-ever number in a given year, but these offers were accepted by only a slightly above-average number of students. The problems, according to students and admissions counselors, are three-fold:

* Harvard's image as a racially charged campus discourages. Black admits from matriculating; in fact, some of the prospective first-years interviewed last week say they have already encountered overt racism on the Harvard campus.

* Harvard fails to retain students who have been accepted, since it does not pay for air tickets and roll out the red carpet for prospective Black students.

* Perhaps most significantly, Harvard has need-blind admissions and need-based financial and, which limits its competitiveness against institutions like Duke, which are similarly deep-pocketed but are more willing to fund full scholarships.

An Image of Intolerance

The value of the Harvard name and its annual number one ranking in the U.S. News and World Report college ratings attracts students into the applicant pool with the promise of prestige and access to the inner sanctum of the Ivy League.

With this reputation, however, also comes the image of being an intolerant haven of the white-dominated establishment--an image Harvard and many other elite institutions find it hard to shirk.

For two Black applicants to the Class of 1997, Harvard's image as an intolerant and racist institution was based only on hearsay until they made their first visit to Cambridge. Within the period of their brief stays, however, both experienced their first personal encounters with racism, incidents that tainted their first impressions of Harvard.

Demian A. Hare, who was accepted to nine colleges, including all the Ivy League institutions, says that racist attitudes he confronted at Harvard Summer School discouraged him from going to Harvard.

"I did enjoy [summer school]," says Hare, a Long Island native who is an Outstanding Achievement Award for Negroes scholar, and plans attend Stanford University in the fall. "But I knew of some problems over the summer. Every Black guy who was dressed nicely and was carrying a briefcase was accused of being Jean Baptiste." Baptiste, who is Black, was convicted in 1991 of rapidly two male Harvard summer school students.

Amillah Pinnock '97, who went to predominantly. Black school in Jacksonville, Fla., says her visit to Harvard over pre-frosh weekend included a shocking encounter with facism.

"I was in the [Mass. Army-Navy Store] looking at shoes with a friend," says Pinnock. "A salesman asked a white girl if she needed help but she said, No, but you need to help those niggers over there.'"

Pinnock says she tried not to let the experience play into her decision too much, but for others like Hare, an incident was damaging enough to make them opt for another school.

This troubled reputation has even penetrated into Harvard's backyard, elite preparatory schools, which have extensive affirmative action programs. Bad experiences at such schools, often perceived to be microcosms of Harvard, often prevent some of the best educated Black students from applying to Harvard, some students say.

"People at Exeter who go to Harvard tend to be very conservative," says J. Dmitrii Bloodworth '97, a Brooklyn native who will graduate from Phillips Exeter Academy. "Harvard has an image problem. No one would ask me why I'd go to Yale. But they do ask me why I'm going to Harvard. They say, 'Why would you go to Harvard. It's another four years of Exeter.'"

Bloodworth says Harvard was not on his preliminary list of 50 possible colleges a year ago because he thought the climate on campus is too conservative. It was not until Harvard sent him a brochure on minority student life--part of its new minority recruiting effort--that Bloodworth decided to include Harvard as his seventh-choice college on his short-list of 17 schools.

Bloodworth, who is president of the Afro-Latino Exonian Society at Exeter, says many Blacks do not apply to Harvard because of its "image problem." Bloodworth says only one Black student at Exeter has expressed interest so far in applying for admission next year.

If Exeter's Black students, privy to an insider's knowledge of the goings-on of the campus, are concerned about the atmosphere, the glare of the national spotlight has done little to enhance Harvard's image.

Highly publicized racial incidents, protests against the dearth of minority faculty at many of Harvard's schools, and the hanging of a Confederate flag outside a student's window paint a picture of a volatile Harvard campus.

In the past year alone, Black students at Harvard say they have undergone a grilling by campus conservatives who have scrutinized their academic qualifications. Thomson Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. '53 sparked controversy when he made statements in Harvard Magazine and The Crimson linking grade inflation with the institution of affirmative action.

And articles in a number of publications have also challenged the legitimacy of Black students' place on campus, often disputing Harvard's affirmative action program, designed to up the enrollment of Blacks in the late 1960s.

The New York Times reported on February 28 of this year that a Harvard admissions officer sent a Black high school senior a letter offering to waive the usual January 1 deadline. The Times reported that when the student called to check on the deadline waiver, admissions officials denied knowledge of it until he mentioned he was Black. Black student leaders say the article unfairly implied that admissions officers, in the name of diversity, offered Black students preferential treatment in the admissions process.

Also, a confidential report obtained by The Crimson last month revealed that the average SAT score of Blacks at Harvard is the lowest of any ethnic group. The Consortium of Financing Higher Education, an organization of 32 colleges and universities, compiled the previously unpublished data.

"I think if one were to look at the new media and campus publications as a barometer of pressure that [Black] students face, we will see that in terms of the number of stories, content and the number of issues raised, Black students are subject to significantly more," says Zaheer R. Ali '94, former president of the Black Students Association (BSA). Ali also spearheaded a coalition of nine campus minority groups, the Coalition for Diversity, which called Harvard "the Peculiar Institution."

Harvard may have a particularly bad reputation in the Black community, but it also suffers from a national trend of Black students flocking to historically Black colleges like Morehouse and Spelman doubt they will be treated equitably both in and out of the classroom is turning some Black students away from predominantly white institutions like Harvard, according to college counselors interviewed.

"Not only is Harvard fighting off other Ivies in attracting African-American students, but it's also fighting the historically Black institutions," says Frank J. Burtnett, executive director of the National Association of College Admission Counselors. "I know it may seem like comparing apples with oranges, but I know of so many youngsters who have said they'll go to Howard for their bachelor's and then to an Ivy for graduate school."

Black parents too perceive Harvard as an oppressive institution that forces students to conform with the white majority, says Frances S. Logan, an admission counselor at Florida A&M University, a predominantly Black college.

"The concern [of Black parents] is being sure that their offspring are going to be treated fairly and that they will go into the classroom and be graded fairly," says Logan, who has been a college financial aid and admissions director for the past 28 years. "A student sitting in the classroom knowing they won't get the same grades as a white student--that's just not worth the effort."

Janet D. Jones, Joy's mother, says she wouldn't have encouraged Joy to go to Harvard even if she wanted to because she says she has "seen many Blacks come out of that place as Caucasians with Black skin."

Ouzama N. Nicholson '94, an undergraduate admissions recruiter, says the climate for Blacks at Harvard is so oppressive and tense at times, that she sometimes is reluctant to give her sales pitch to the Black students she tries to recruit.

"My job is encouraging people to see Harvard as an option. When I see students I like who are good students, I want to tell them to come here," says Nicholson, who is also co-chair of the student advisory council of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations. "But maybe the best advice I could give them is not to come here...I should be telling students to look more closely."

An Unconvincing Suitor

Harvard's efforts to allay these fears and fight its image problem, however, may not be adequate. Although it has increased its recruitment activities considerably by sending letters and brochures to students with qualifying SAT or PSAT scores, the intensity falters in the follow-through.

"I felt the least wanted by Harvard," says Tyron J. Sheppard '97, a Los Angeles resident who was accepted to 10 elite colleges. "Even when I wrote saying that I wasn't going to accept admission, [other schools] wrote back hand-written notes wishing me good luck at Harvard. When I accepted Harvard's offer, they only sent me a postcard."

Joy Jones also says Harvard's efforts to persuade admitted students to accept its offer are much less intense than at other colleges. After highly publicized racial incidents at Duke, for example, Duke embarked on a calling campaign to assure its admits that the administration was taking steps to alleviate the tensions on campus, according to Jones.

Harvard's post-acceptance letter efforts consist of a phone call to its admits by a team of undergraduates representing five minority student organizations: BSA, the Asian American Association, La O, Raza and the Native American Association, according to Roger Banks, a senior admissions and financial aid officer who is in charge of minority recruiting.

This is the key point where Harvard's recruitment strategies fall short. Harvard largely relies on the initiative of regional alumni networks and student volunteers at the admissions office. Some of the Black students admitted to the Class of 1997 interviewed say they weren't contacted by Harvard after they were admitted.

In addition, the College invites all admits to pre-frosh weekend, with on-campus expenses paid, and also offers minorities the option of extending their visit to stay for the extra days dedicated to addressing minority issues.

Crescent N. Mohammed '97 from South Bend, Ind., says Harvard did not provide her any campus contacts after she was accepted, so she depended on her experiences at pre-frosh weekend to answer her concerns about the campus climate. In fact, when she discovered her hostess was not Black, she stopped a group of Black female students walking down the street and asked them if she could stay with them.

But aside from these recruitment measures--common at most colleges and universities--Harvard lacks a competitive strategy to hold the attention of its admits. Many Black admits interviewed say Harvard made a substantial effort to get them to apply, but that once they got in, they were left alone and exposed to the more intense recruiting efforts of other colleges.

Harvard's new recruiting scheme may expand the applicant pool but does little to increase the yield, or percentage of students who decide to matriculate. And when other colleges are flaunting offers of perks and scholarships. Harvard's perceived indifference and inattentiveness seems to become yet another reason for them not to want to come.

"I didn't really feel like Harvard wanted me to come," says Solita C. Alexander '97, a commended student in the National Merit Achievement Awards who was admitted early action. "Brown [University] made much more of an effort...They did more calling than Harvard and that really made it hard [to decide between them]."

Alexander, a resident of White Plains, NY, who almost decided to attend Brown, says recruiting efforts played a significant factor in her college decision. Brown wooed Alexander by inviting her to a weekend in November exclusively for Blacks.

Mohammed says Dartmouth provided round-trip airfare to visit the campus. Notre Dame as well as some state colleges, offered to pick up the tab for a visit, as well as a full scholarship.

James L. Price III '97, a star football player and National Merit Award semifinalist from Lynwood, Calif., says in addition to a Dartmouth weekend, he was offered full tuition at Loyola, a college that openly recruits outstanding athletes.

And the absence of Harvard, as well as many other elite institutions, at many urban college fairs also misses a large Black population that largely remains untapped by college recruiters, says Burtnett, whose association organizes college fairs at 29 metropolitan areas across the country.

"They may not need to do it, but they are conspicuous in their absence," says Burtnett, adding that the fairs are an effective public relations technique.

The recruiting efforts Harvard and other Ivy League institutions attempt, however, are limited in their efficacy, because the schools lack a critical mass of Blacks from which to build a campus community and to help recruit more Black students, according to Derek S. Gandy, director of minority recruitment at Yale.

"Part of the problem is that we just don't understand enough the people we are trying to recruit," Gandy says, "Only when we get enough people to really understand the people we are trying to recruit can we really increase the applicant pool."

Floundering in a Buyer's Market

With an aloof recruiting attitude, with a dearth of minority recruiters and with its hands tied by its commitment to need-based aid, Harvard can't compete with free-rides, merit-based scholarships and perks. Most Black admits who decide not to matriculate are lost to schools who can offer them merit-based or athletic scholarships, according to Director of Financial Aid James S. Miller.

"Parents are often very aware of their child's desirability in the applicant pool," Miller says. "There is a very good sense that it's a buyer's market in college admissions these days."

Pinnock, winner of a $20,000 Coca-Cola scholarship, was offered free rides to Stetson and Florida A&M, in her home state of Florida.

Duke University, included in the short lists of many of the Harvard admits to the Class of 1997 interviewed, offers the Reginald Howard Memorial Scholarship to the top seven Black students admitted. The scholarship awards the students $6,000 per academic year, based on leadership and academic abilities.

Though Harvard offers only need-based financial aid and grants, Miller says it is Harvard's "generous financial aid program" that enables many minority students to enroll. Harvard offered $11 million of aid in direct grants to the incoming first-year class, of which three-fourths will be claimed, Miller says.

Although many of the Black admits interviewed received merit-based scholarships, all of those who applied for financial aid say their Harvard packages were within a couple thousand dollars of their other aid offers. But last year, almost 40 Black students who chose to decline a Harvard acceptance said they received better financial packages than Harvard offered by a margin of $10,000 or more.

Admissions and financial aid officers expressed frustration because they are handcuffed to overcome such differences by the restrictions of need-based aid. The financial aid office has limited discretion in boosting the packages of aid candidates, because aid packages are determined by the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J.

With limited funds, private institutions will encounter increasing difficulty in their pursuits of recruiting talented Black students, according to Timothy J. McDonough, assistant director for public affairs at the National Association of Private Colleges and Universities.

"Private colleges and universities want to maintain their record of diversity and in order to do that with less funds and without government support is difficult," McDonough says, adding the association--of which Harvard is a member--is lobbying Congress to boost federal aid to colleges through Pell Grants.

For now essentially, Harvard depends on prestige and reputation alone to keep up its numbers of Black students. Without offering free-rides, special perks, merit-based aid or better concentrating its recruitment efforts, Harvard has little bargaining leverage in the bidding war for highly qualified Black students.

"We have to build on what we have and we have to redouble our efforts," says Fitzsimmons. "We have reached the top percentage of talented African-Americans. We must continue our search efforts that will give us a leg up on our competition."

Harvard, however, will have to do more than expand its search efforts to maintain its commitments to attracting the most talented students in the world, because top Black students can no longer be lured with the conventional attraction of prestige.

As President Neil L. Rudenstine acknowledged last year, Harvard may have to attract merit-based scholarships to keep highly sought-after Black students. Harvard must realize that College admissions is now an issue of dollars and cents and, just as importantly, an issue of hustling to sell students on a campus that offers more than just the Harvard stamp of approval.

If one were to look at the news media...as a barometer of pressure that [Black] students face,... Black students are subject to significantly more.' ZAHEER R. ALI '94CrimsonJamie W. Billett

The Class of 1997, however, marks a dramatic turnaround from last year. A record high 143 Blacks will join the Harvard first year class in September.

Intense recruiting efforts boosted the applicant pool and number of matriculants, according to Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons '67.

A newly instituted second-phase search program specially targeted Black students based on Scholastic Aptitude Test scores after the first round search based on Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test. Probably as a result of this search, the Black applicant pool this year grew to 845 compared to 690 last year. After the acceptance letters were mailed out, undergraduate volunteers called minority admits to allay fears and answer questions.

Nevertheless, this year's record matriculation of Black students may be little more than breaking even. Throughout most of the 1980s, the number of Black students in a class hovered above 130. This year's record figure beats the old mark set by the Class of 1992 by only five students.

Thirteen Black students admitted to the Class of 1997 interviewed last week say the admissions offices' increased efforts have not advanced Harvard's standing in the bidding war. A single letter or phone call can't compete with flashy free trips, generous aid packages and the reassurance that Black students are welcome on campus, according to current and prospective Black students interviewed.

How much increased pre-application recruitment is directly responsible for the higher number of matriculating Black students remains unclear. The fact remains: Harvard admitted 214 Blacks, the highest-ever number in a given year, but these offers were accepted by only a slightly above-average number of students. The problems, according to students and admissions counselors, are three-fold:

* Harvard's image as a racially charged campus discourages. Black admits from matriculating; in fact, some of the prospective first-years interviewed last week say they have already encountered overt racism on the Harvard campus.

* Harvard fails to retain students who have been accepted, since it does not pay for air tickets and roll out the red carpet for prospective Black students.

* Perhaps most significantly, Harvard has need-blind admissions and need-based financial and, which limits its competitiveness against institutions like Duke, which are similarly deep-pocketed but are more willing to fund full scholarships.

An Image of Intolerance

The value of the Harvard name and its annual number one ranking in the U.S. News and World Report college ratings attracts students into the applicant pool with the promise of prestige and access to the inner sanctum of the Ivy League.

With this reputation, however, also comes the image of being an intolerant haven of the white-dominated establishment--an image Harvard and many other elite institutions find it hard to shirk.

For two Black applicants to the Class of 1997, Harvard's image as an intolerant and racist institution was based only on hearsay until they made their first visit to Cambridge. Within the period of their brief stays, however, both experienced their first personal encounters with racism, incidents that tainted their first impressions of Harvard.

Demian A. Hare, who was accepted to nine colleges, including all the Ivy League institutions, says that racist attitudes he confronted at Harvard Summer School discouraged him from going to Harvard.

"I did enjoy [summer school]," says Hare, a Long Island native who is an Outstanding Achievement Award for Negroes scholar, and plans attend Stanford University in the fall. "But I knew of some problems over the summer. Every Black guy who was dressed nicely and was carrying a briefcase was accused of being Jean Baptiste." Baptiste, who is Black, was convicted in 1991 of rapidly two male Harvard summer school students.

Amillah Pinnock '97, who went to predominantly. Black school in Jacksonville, Fla., says her visit to Harvard over pre-frosh weekend included a shocking encounter with facism.

"I was in the [Mass. Army-Navy Store] looking at shoes with a friend," says Pinnock. "A salesman asked a white girl if she needed help but she said, No, but you need to help those niggers over there.'"

Pinnock says she tried not to let the experience play into her decision too much, but for others like Hare, an incident was damaging enough to make them opt for another school.

This troubled reputation has even penetrated into Harvard's backyard, elite preparatory schools, which have extensive affirmative action programs. Bad experiences at such schools, often perceived to be microcosms of Harvard, often prevent some of the best educated Black students from applying to Harvard, some students say.

"People at Exeter who go to Harvard tend to be very conservative," says J. Dmitrii Bloodworth '97, a Brooklyn native who will graduate from Phillips Exeter Academy. "Harvard has an image problem. No one would ask me why I'd go to Yale. But they do ask me why I'm going to Harvard. They say, 'Why would you go to Harvard. It's another four years of Exeter.'"

Bloodworth says Harvard was not on his preliminary list of 50 possible colleges a year ago because he thought the climate on campus is too conservative. It was not until Harvard sent him a brochure on minority student life--part of its new minority recruiting effort--that Bloodworth decided to include Harvard as his seventh-choice college on his short-list of 17 schools.

Bloodworth, who is president of the Afro-Latino Exonian Society at Exeter, says many Blacks do not apply to Harvard because of its "image problem." Bloodworth says only one Black student at Exeter has expressed interest so far in applying for admission next year.

If Exeter's Black students, privy to an insider's knowledge of the goings-on of the campus, are concerned about the atmosphere, the glare of the national spotlight has done little to enhance Harvard's image.

Highly publicized racial incidents, protests against the dearth of minority faculty at many of Harvard's schools, and the hanging of a Confederate flag outside a student's window paint a picture of a volatile Harvard campus.

In the past year alone, Black students at Harvard say they have undergone a grilling by campus conservatives who have scrutinized their academic qualifications. Thomson Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield Jr. '53 sparked controversy when he made statements in Harvard Magazine and The Crimson linking grade inflation with the institution of affirmative action.

And articles in a number of publications have also challenged the legitimacy of Black students' place on campus, often disputing Harvard's affirmative action program, designed to up the enrollment of Blacks in the late 1960s.

The New York Times reported on February 28 of this year that a Harvard admissions officer sent a Black high school senior a letter offering to waive the usual January 1 deadline. The Times reported that when the student called to check on the deadline waiver, admissions officials denied knowledge of it until he mentioned he was Black. Black student leaders say the article unfairly implied that admissions officers, in the name of diversity, offered Black students preferential treatment in the admissions process.

Also, a confidential report obtained by The Crimson last month revealed that the average SAT score of Blacks at Harvard is the lowest of any ethnic group. The Consortium of Financing Higher Education, an organization of 32 colleges and universities, compiled the previously unpublished data.

"I think if one were to look at the new media and campus publications as a barometer of pressure that [Black] students face, we will see that in terms of the number of stories, content and the number of issues raised, Black students are subject to significantly more," says Zaheer R. Ali '94, former president of the Black Students Association (BSA). Ali also spearheaded a coalition of nine campus minority groups, the Coalition for Diversity, which called Harvard "the Peculiar Institution."

Harvard may have a particularly bad reputation in the Black community, but it also suffers from a national trend of Black students flocking to historically Black colleges like Morehouse and Spelman doubt they will be treated equitably both in and out of the classroom is turning some Black students away from predominantly white institutions like Harvard, according to college counselors interviewed.

"Not only is Harvard fighting off other Ivies in attracting African-American students, but it's also fighting the historically Black institutions," says Frank J. Burtnett, executive director of the National Association of College Admission Counselors. "I know it may seem like comparing apples with oranges, but I know of so many youngsters who have said they'll go to Howard for their bachelor's and then to an Ivy for graduate school."

Black parents too perceive Harvard as an oppressive institution that forces students to conform with the white majority, says Frances S. Logan, an admission counselor at Florida A&M University, a predominantly Black college.

"The concern [of Black parents] is being sure that their offspring are going to be treated fairly and that they will go into the classroom and be graded fairly," says Logan, who has been a college financial aid and admissions director for the past 28 years. "A student sitting in the classroom knowing they won't get the same grades as a white student--that's just not worth the effort."

Janet D. Jones, Joy's mother, says she wouldn't have encouraged Joy to go to Harvard even if she wanted to because she says she has "seen many Blacks come out of that place as Caucasians with Black skin."

Ouzama N. Nicholson '94, an undergraduate admissions recruiter, says the climate for Blacks at Harvard is so oppressive and tense at times, that she sometimes is reluctant to give her sales pitch to the Black students she tries to recruit.

"My job is encouraging people to see Harvard as an option. When I see students I like who are good students, I want to tell them to come here," says Nicholson, who is also co-chair of the student advisory council of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations. "But maybe the best advice I could give them is not to come here...I should be telling students to look more closely."

An Unconvincing Suitor

Harvard's efforts to allay these fears and fight its image problem, however, may not be adequate. Although it has increased its recruitment activities considerably by sending letters and brochures to students with qualifying SAT or PSAT scores, the intensity falters in the follow-through.

"I felt the least wanted by Harvard," says Tyron J. Sheppard '97, a Los Angeles resident who was accepted to 10 elite colleges. "Even when I wrote saying that I wasn't going to accept admission, [other schools] wrote back hand-written notes wishing me good luck at Harvard. When I accepted Harvard's offer, they only sent me a postcard."

Joy Jones also says Harvard's efforts to persuade admitted students to accept its offer are much less intense than at other colleges. After highly publicized racial incidents at Duke, for example, Duke embarked on a calling campaign to assure its admits that the administration was taking steps to alleviate the tensions on campus, according to Jones.

Harvard's post-acceptance letter efforts consist of a phone call to its admits by a team of undergraduates representing five minority student organizations: BSA, the Asian American Association, La O, Raza and the Native American Association, according to Roger Banks, a senior admissions and financial aid officer who is in charge of minority recruiting.

This is the key point where Harvard's recruitment strategies fall short. Harvard largely relies on the initiative of regional alumni networks and student volunteers at the admissions office. Some of the Black students admitted to the Class of 1997 interviewed say they weren't contacted by Harvard after they were admitted.

In addition, the College invites all admits to pre-frosh weekend, with on-campus expenses paid, and also offers minorities the option of extending their visit to stay for the extra days dedicated to addressing minority issues.

Crescent N. Mohammed '97 from South Bend, Ind., says Harvard did not provide her any campus contacts after she was accepted, so she depended on her experiences at pre-frosh weekend to answer her concerns about the campus climate. In fact, when she discovered her hostess was not Black, she stopped a group of Black female students walking down the street and asked them if she could stay with them.

But aside from these recruitment measures--common at most colleges and universities--Harvard lacks a competitive strategy to hold the attention of its admits. Many Black admits interviewed say Harvard made a substantial effort to get them to apply, but that once they got in, they were left alone and exposed to the more intense recruiting efforts of other colleges.

Harvard's new recruiting scheme may expand the applicant pool but does little to increase the yield, or percentage of students who decide to matriculate. And when other colleges are flaunting offers of perks and scholarships. Harvard's perceived indifference and inattentiveness seems to become yet another reason for them not to want to come.

"I didn't really feel like Harvard wanted me to come," says Solita C. Alexander '97, a commended student in the National Merit Achievement Awards who was admitted early action. "Brown [University] made much more of an effort...They did more calling than Harvard and that really made it hard [to decide between them]."

Alexander, a resident of White Plains, NY, who almost decided to attend Brown, says recruiting efforts played a significant factor in her college decision. Brown wooed Alexander by inviting her to a weekend in November exclusively for Blacks.

Mohammed says Dartmouth provided round-trip airfare to visit the campus. Notre Dame as well as some state colleges, offered to pick up the tab for a visit, as well as a full scholarship.

James L. Price III '97, a star football player and National Merit Award semifinalist from Lynwood, Calif., says in addition to a Dartmouth weekend, he was offered full tuition at Loyola, a college that openly recruits outstanding athletes.

And the absence of Harvard, as well as many other elite institutions, at many urban college fairs also misses a large Black population that largely remains untapped by college recruiters, says Burtnett, whose association organizes college fairs at 29 metropolitan areas across the country.

"They may not need to do it, but they are conspicuous in their absence," says Burtnett, adding that the fairs are an effective public relations technique.

The recruiting efforts Harvard and other Ivy League institutions attempt, however, are limited in their efficacy, because the schools lack a critical mass of Blacks from which to build a campus community and to help recruit more Black students, according to Derek S. Gandy, director of minority recruitment at Yale.

"Part of the problem is that we just don't understand enough the people we are trying to recruit," Gandy says, "Only when we get enough people to really understand the people we are trying to recruit can we really increase the applicant pool."

Floundering in a Buyer's Market

With an aloof recruiting attitude, with a dearth of minority recruiters and with its hands tied by its commitment to need-based aid, Harvard can't compete with free-rides, merit-based scholarships and perks. Most Black admits who decide not to matriculate are lost to schools who can offer them merit-based or athletic scholarships, according to Director of Financial Aid James S. Miller.

"Parents are often very aware of their child's desirability in the applicant pool," Miller says. "There is a very good sense that it's a buyer's market in college admissions these days."

Pinnock, winner of a $20,000 Coca-Cola scholarship, was offered free rides to Stetson and Florida A&M, in her home state of Florida.

Duke University, included in the short lists of many of the Harvard admits to the Class of 1997 interviewed, offers the Reginald Howard Memorial Scholarship to the top seven Black students admitted. The scholarship awards the students $6,000 per academic year, based on leadership and academic abilities.

Though Harvard offers only need-based financial aid and grants, Miller says it is Harvard's "generous financial aid program" that enables many minority students to enroll. Harvard offered $11 million of aid in direct grants to the incoming first-year class, of which three-fourths will be claimed, Miller says.

Although many of the Black admits interviewed received merit-based scholarships, all of those who applied for financial aid say their Harvard packages were within a couple thousand dollars of their other aid offers. But last year, almost 40 Black students who chose to decline a Harvard acceptance said they received better financial packages than Harvard offered by a margin of $10,000 or more.

Admissions and financial aid officers expressed frustration because they are handcuffed to overcome such differences by the restrictions of need-based aid. The financial aid office has limited discretion in boosting the packages of aid candidates, because aid packages are determined by the Educational Testing Service in Princeton, N.J.

With limited funds, private institutions will encounter increasing difficulty in their pursuits of recruiting talented Black students, according to Timothy J. McDonough, assistant director for public affairs at the National Association of Private Colleges and Universities.

"Private colleges and universities want to maintain their record of diversity and in order to do that with less funds and without government support is difficult," McDonough says, adding the association--of which Harvard is a member--is lobbying Congress to boost federal aid to colleges through Pell Grants.

For now essentially, Harvard depends on prestige and reputation alone to keep up its numbers of Black students. Without offering free-rides, special perks, merit-based aid or better concentrating its recruitment efforts, Harvard has little bargaining leverage in the bidding war for highly qualified Black students.

"We have to build on what we have and we have to redouble our efforts," says Fitzsimmons. "We have reached the top percentage of talented African-Americans. We must continue our search efforts that will give us a leg up on our competition."

Harvard, however, will have to do more than expand its search efforts to maintain its commitments to attracting the most talented students in the world, because top Black students can no longer be lured with the conventional attraction of prestige.

As President Neil L. Rudenstine acknowledged last year, Harvard may have to attract merit-based scholarships to keep highly sought-after Black students. Harvard must realize that College admissions is now an issue of dollars and cents and, just as importantly, an issue of hustling to sell students on a campus that offers more than just the Harvard stamp of approval.

If one were to look at the news media...as a barometer of pressure that [Black] students face,... Black students are subject to significantly more.' ZAHEER R. ALI '94CrimsonJamie W. Billett