bulldog days

HARVARD'S A CAPPELLA groups had better be practicing this week. When hundreds of pre-frosh students descend on campus this weekend, the one thing they will have seen at all the colleges they visit is an "a cappella jam." Harvard features a cappella performance, as does Yale, Brown, Stanford, Tufts, and University of California at Berkeley, among others. In fact, the only other constant across the board is a pre-med information session. Pre-frosh cannot help coming away with the impression that college is about two things: catchy harmonizing and organic chemistry.

The official line may be the same everywhere, but what really goes on when the lights go out and the administration turns away from its-frosh? Some schools strikes pre-emptively-Georgetown does not offer overnight stays in the dorm, and Duke only offers them during the week when the partying is, presumably, toned down. Boston University does host pre-frosh over the weekend but requires that they be in their host dorms at 11:30 p.m. At Brown, the administration schedules events all the way until 1 a.m., presumably in the hopes that after that hour, the exhausted pre-frosh will sleep rather than going out. Not so the University of Chicago, where former visitors report that many of the social activities offered at night centered around fraternity parties and heavy alcohol consumption.

Most current Harvard students surveyed said that they visited Harvard only to socialize; they had already made their decision. Maybe the a cappella groups can, as they say, take a deep breath.