There was also the problem of Bill's mysticism, which forced Gary to rethink the values he'd been fed by his "aetheistic, middle-class background."

"Bill read science fiction and believed in God. I thought that people who believed in God were superstitious maniacs and people who read science fiction just didn't know better. It took a while to assimilate that style of thinking but now I'm thinking of going to Divinity School."

At the Horace Mann School in New York, Jeff Barclay '76 was a public figure; a teenage Midas whose touch turned activities into achievements. That was part of the problem.

"I was confident to the point of being overconfident and that meant trouble. Lots of praise in high school makes you believe you're good and yet it makes you suspicious of your glory. I wanted to believe I was hot shit but part of me believed that it was nonsense."

Jeff had always nurtured the idea of going into academics, maybe hitting the big time with a tenured appointment at Harvard. Freshman year turned out to be an academic disaster which threw his dream into confusion.

"Freshman year I decided to turn totally toward academics. That isn't where my strength lies. Three years later I still don't want to believe it. I've tried to be more of an academic. But I wasn't in love with the work. It made me wonder why I was here. Not to be facetious, that took up a lot of my time. I was confused. I turned inwards. I read a lot, did a lot of stuff by myself, basically turned off my public image."

By the end of freshman year, Jeff was beset by conflicts. He wasn't sure he could shine at Harvard like he had in high school and that scared him.

"The fact that I can hold unrealistic expectations about myself and not live up to them scared me."

What's more, he was no longer so sure that he wanted the laurels Harvard said he should want.

"Part of me is fed up with the pettiness here. I became obsessed with thinking in terms of power and prestige. I began to hate it and the part of me involved with it."

Patsy McDermott '75 came from a Catholic high school that didn't send people to places like Harvard. Some went to UMass or small New England colleges, some got jobs, others got married.

"I never expected to come to Radcliffe. I applied as a joke. I even had eraser holes in my application."

She came from a basically working-class school that didn't worry about feeding students into the Ivies, much less prepare them for the academic pressure they would face once they got here.

"I never got challenged in high school. I just kind of breezed by. I never worked so I never knew how to study."

When Patsy tried the pre-med route, her better prepared competition intimidated her into mediocrity.

"In science, no matter how hard you try not to compete, there's always the curve. I couldn't compete with my image of Harvard people. I figured if I don't try, I don't have to test myself. It's stultifying."

Patsy's academic problems were not due to dealing with college work, per se, but to attending such a high-powered university.

"In another school, I think I would have aced my courses. But if I do badly, I might as well do badly here because it looks better."