An overwhelming number of Harvard men majoring in Social Relations go to Medical School, and learn the specific tools used in Soc Rel, such as psychoanalytic method, for a professional career. Proportionally, over 50 per cent of Radcliffe graduates doing additional work enter the GSAS. However, the overwhelming majority of Harvard students continuing in graduate studies enter professional schools, such as Law or Medicine.

Compulsion to Study

Part of the Cliffies' compulsiveness to study comes from the 5:1 Harvard Radcliffe ratio. "This is a man's university," Morris says, "and the only way girls can establish themselves then to overcome the insecurity of their position, is by doing all the course work thoroughly." To express superiority-or perhaps to achieve superiority-the 'Cliffie will often study harder than her Harvard counterpart. Militant feminism, in Cambridge, finds expression in Rank Lists and Honors. Girls, in this predominantly masculine community, can never attain equality except by competitive methods provided by competitive methods provided by the classroom.

Many Cliffies express the desire for equality, however, in a less erudite manner. Often members of any Harvard class spend time aiding their poor damsels in the struggle through the academic sloughs. "And then the ungrateful curse reward us good Samaritans by raising the curve and getting better grades than we do," one Harvard student explained. In the eyes of many Harvard men, at least half the 'Cliffe students would never make Dean's List without willing and able assistance.

But the myth runs equally well in the opposite direction. Well known at Radcliffe is the song about the poor girl who wrote a thesis for some boy each year for three years, only to be "dropped" as soon as her typewriter-weary fingers turned over the black-covered masterpieces. A familiar scene around the Quad, come examination period, is a harried-looking Harvard student coming to get reading and/or lecture notes from a willing Cliffe amanuensis.

Academic assistance is a two-way street. Widener Reading Room has provided the scene for many inexpensive rendezvous meetings justified by the desire for scholarship. Harvard students cannot justify the Cliffies' higher marks on the basis of assistance rendered, since the assistance is just as likely to come in the opposite direction.

Are the Men Joiners?

An equally false argument with which Harvard men seek to explain their inferior marks arises from "extra-curricular activities." Some people have argued that men tend, more than women, to join undergraduate organizations. Admittedly, the 'Cliffe does not have organized sports. However, nearly all groups here are merged and in many, the U.N. Council for example, there are almost as many Cliffies as Harvard students. Radcliffe members of extra-curricular groups exert more than a proportional influence-and, a higher percentage of girls are involved in activities.

Girls Given Ultimate Edge

In the final analysis, it seems Harvard must face the facts: Girls do hold a slight edge in areas such as grades and the percentage of Honors degrees conferred. But the differential cannot be explained solely by any difference in sheer intellectual power, as the Cliffies claim. More than anything, their conscientiousness in the mechanical aspects of a course accounts for their favorable results.

But perhaps a final vindication is the fact that Cliffies will not, by and large, earn their living on the basis of their educational experience. Few Radcliffe graduates enter professional life, while their husbands-seventy per cent of whom are Harvard graduates-must earn a living for at least two. Radcliffe brains may grace a home; Harvard brains must buy it.