Getting into freshman seminars is a game of wits and perseverance. The applications are a gamble--if you're lucky you get an interview. Write a clear, brief essay and don't show off. Once you get in the professor's office, you'll have plenty of time for song and dance. Find out who you're talking to, and ask questions that show you are interested.

This may not be enough, though. One professor, whose seminar is enormously popular, admits only one or two students without fathers famous enough to be known to him. Another dismisses the written applications in favor of geographical, income-level, racial, and educational balance. Many resort to a lottery past the initial application.

So place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, and take your chances.

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You will probably hear Registration referred to as a "zoo." Ah yes, but in most zoos you can but popcorn and candy and have a reasonably good time. In this zoo, you are the animals. True, you must wait in line, which is an indignity rarely bestowed on your average giraffe. But once inside, weird people try to do weird things to you. Like get you to settle outstanding term bill balances, denoted by the infamous "Red Dot" of measles fame. And multitudes of undergraduate organizations will try to solicit you.

Many upperclassmen relish Registration. It is, after all, the one time they can enter Memorial Hall, receive a packet of papers from someone, and generally get all the answers to the questions.

To assist you in filling out forms is the Freshman Task Force. These are bright, energetic young people who will remind you of the bouncy cast of the Frosted Mini-Wheats commercials. You may think, "What lovely people, giving up large chunks of their time to assist poor confused freshmen. Someday I'll be like that, too." Well, you'll have to wait in line, sport. These folks are paid.

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This summer you received a reading list. And because you thirst for knowledge, you have read each book carefully, checked out some contemporary criticism, and jotted down a few random notes to help guide your discussions with friends and roommates. If you did all these things, you are at the wrong school, pointy-head. The proper response to your roommates scholarly query, "What did you think of those books?" is, "What books?" or "Let's smoke some dope."

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If you're coming from East Aurora, lectures may be a new phenomenon for you. So a few are planned for Freshman week, to break you in. Since these events are one-timers and large audiences are guaranteed, the professors involved seem less bored than in regular classes. Freshman week lectures might be some of the most provocative and interesting you hear for the next four years.

"Education and Society: The Harvard Tradition" will be a big draw, mostly because it is a general enough topic for anyone. James Q. Wilson is widely recognized as a good performer, even by those who consider his authoritarian and bureaucratic leanings a little on the fascist side.

William Alfred, speaking on "Beckett's Waiting for Godot and After", is reportedly one of the nicest professors around, and for the English Department, this says a lot. The topic is rather interesting, too, although most people will probably re-enact the end of Godot: "Let's go. (They do not move)."

Jorges Dominiquez is a well-respected political scientist, but a little dull as a speaker. Don't go to his lecture on communist regimes, but do stop and talk with him afterwards.

James Hays, professor of geology, will discuss comparative planetology; this may be rocky going, but it's solid stuff.