Academic competition at Radcliffe is so intense that the college wonders whether "the pressures under which a student works help to develop her or crush her," a recently published "consumer's guide" to colleges reports.

At Harvard, it says, "pressures for academic achievement are rigorous," but the College is "likely to be extraordinarily gratifying to the scholar, the intellectual, the grind, the highly motivated plodder-to all but the traditional candidate seeking a leisurely gentleman's C."

The book, the Comparative Guide to American Colleges, calls Harvard and Radcliffe two of the 19 "most selective" institutions in the country. Brandeis, Carleton, wellesley, and Yale also make the "most selective" list.

The guide's editors-James Cass, associate educational editor of the Saturday Review, and Max Birnbaum, director of education and training for the American Jewish Committee-base their "selectivly index" on the scholastic potential of the student body. The index, they claim, "is a crucial measure of the academic quality of a college because...an institution of higher learning can never be much better than its student body-and is not likely to be much worse."

Not Always Successful

Taking note of the Gen Ed program, the guide says that "the college seeks to preserve the integrity of liberal education in undergraduate years from pressures for early specialization." But, it adds, "it does not always succeed."

In its "campus life" section, the guide cities the numerous cultural and intellectual activities at Harvard, which it says are "enough to overwhelm any student." In its comparative study of Yale, the guide reports that "prestige symbols on campus now include the intellectual as well as the social."

At Harvard, according to the guide, the student body includes both brillant minds and "just good, ordinary, decent human beings." Princeton, however, "unlike some other leading institutions.. is reluctant to take a chance on those who display unusually creative talents in a single area, no matter how brillant they may be."