Greeters Offer Prospective Students Welcome, Few Warnings

For every question about Harvard, Lauren A. Jobe '00 and Rachel L. Brown '01 have an answer.

As students lounged on the lawn outside of Byerly Hall earlier this week, Brown and Jobe, who is a Crimson executive, were fielding questions from about 40 high school juniors and their parents in the building's basement lecture hall.

"Are Harvard students geeks and nerds?" asked one mother. While there may be one or two, most are energetic, confident, witty and fun, Brown said, smiling. "Do graduate students teach classes?" another parent wondered. She was quickly assured that while a few introductory courses are taught by teaching fellows, 95 percent are headed by professors.

Such is the perspective offered to incoming parents and students today by Brown and Jobe, both volunteers for the Undergraduate Admissions Council (UAC). The council is an arm of the admissions office which enlists students in selling the University to prospective first-years.

"For me, I really only have positive things to say, in all honesty," Brown said. "I always emphasize the positive because everything here is pretty much positive."

Not all first-year students agree with that assessment, however.

"[The greeters] keep the negative things quiet," Richard K. Feeley '01 said. "It seems they diminish those things."

Jobe insists that the students guides offer an accurate representation of College life. That includes the negative, she says, although the emphasis is usually on Harvard's good points.

"We're not going to try to say negative things to prospective students, but if the topic comes up we have to talk about it," she said.

Some students, however, said greeters don't show both sides of particular issues-- even when asked. For example, in one information session, Brown offered an overwhelmingly positive view of the undergraduate advising system.

"While you're free to go out and make your own [academic] choices, you never feel like you're without a safety net," she said. "One of the best things about being a freshman is the strong advising system."

This claim was disputed by current first-year Tiziana Vargas.

"They exaggerate the strong counseling," Vargas said of information sessions. "I haven't had much counseling."

Vargas said although info session may be truthful, the view many present is one of potential campus experiences. There are no guarantees that what is described will become students' postadmission reality.

"I think they emphasize all the potential things you could do here, but I don't think they tell prospective students what a Harvard student's life is really like," Vargas said. "You don't necessarily get to do all the things Harvard has."

But Brown said such points are a matter of opinion.

"My negative might be someone else's positive," she said. "Everything I say is honest."

Greeters' statements are still predominantly true, but as first-year students note, they continuously stress the bright side of life at Harvard. This may be due to the greeter selection process, which actively recruits students with strong school spirit.

"The people we select to be greeters are enthusiastic about their Harvard experiences," said Adam R. Kovacevich '99, a UAC chair. Kovacevich said greeters rarely mention internal Harvard concerns like randomization and the Quad because they "would cause more confusion than clarification."

"The pre-frosh don't have the context to understand that," Brown said. "It's not really essential to them deciding a school."

The details may not be actively conveyed, but the picture presented by greeters of life at Harvard is generally accurate. And overall, new students say they don't mind the greeters' style.

"What else can you expect from them?" Feeley said. "Their role is to create a positive image."