Trying to change the attitudes of people comfortable in their middle ages is like trying to remove a deeply-imbedded splinter from your big toe: the process is inevitable, slow and always painful.

However, the Harvard-Radcliffe admissions office has opted for this slow-and-painful process by its decision to rely heavily on alumni, after they have been properly "sensitized" to the need for increasing the number of women and minorities at Harvard.

Last year, when minority applications to Harvard dropped about 24 per cent, some admissions officers criticized alumni for not doing enough to attract minorities and, in some cases, for discouraging these students altogether.

This year, the idea is that with a change in the attitude of alumni, this group will prove to be an effective mechanism for recruiting.

The admissions office has singled out ten cities that have lagged in the past in minority recruiting--Chicago, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Houston, New Orleans and Los Angeles--for particularly intense recruitment drives.

Community groups that deal with minority students will also be asked to aid Harvard's recruitment drive.

Whether Harvard can get alumni to "really pound the pavement" in search of qualified women and minority students, as David L. Evans, associate director of admissions said this week, is as yet unknown.