10 a.m.-5 p.m. The Freshman's Dean's Office, at Morton Prince House, will be open. A good excuse to talk to Hank Moses, dean of Freshman. He's heavy into Outward Bound and orienteering, so read up in advance if you need a pretext for discussion. Go easy, though: Moses is a low-key fellow. Very Ivy League, very laid back. He wears cool penny loafers or topsiders. Ask for the brand name then go buy a pair.

10 a.m. Brunch for a mere two bucks at Hillel house. Hillel has the best brunches and deli dinners at the University.

10 a.m.-Noon, 1 p.m.-3 p.m. Assembly/Workshop for Third World students. A must, since representatives of all the established campus minority organizations will be there. Don't miss this meeting.

Noon Lunch with your folks, if they're still here. You got into Harvard, so you should have been smart enough to have them treat you to a meal at a good restaurant last night. So too, tonight. Have a reunion dinner with the 1600 freshmen and their parents at Locke-Ober's tonight; last night you saw them all at Anthony's Pier 4. Today at lunch is the time to inform your parents that their deadline for departure is right after dinner--otherwise, you'll lose 0.1 on your GPA, as you were told by some high authority. That way, you've played them for another fancy meal, and once they leave you don't have to feel guilty about their prowling Boston alone while you try to make friends. A case study in how to put your newfound Harvard education to work.

1-3 p.m. Required meeting of those freshman notified that they are eligible for advanced standing. This is one of those choices you have to make yourself, and the meeting will help confuse the issue by giving you all the right information. But you have to go; so don't let yourself be confused with the facts, just go with your gut. Then, start looking for the guts--whichever route you choose.

3:15-5 p.m. Opening exercises in Tercentenary theater. The last time you will all assemble in one place before Commencement, as each of the speakers will surely remind you. A real live opportunity to hear the pillars of the Harvard establishment expound on Harvard. Presidents Bok and Horner will welcome you to the company of not-yet-educated men and women. Dean Rosovsky will bring his dry and sometimes stinging wit along to give an address. (His address, by the way, is University Hall.)

Opening excercises are a nice touch for the parents, but the cognoscenti stay away. The bigwigs will spend a couple of hours trying to convince you they have nothing better to do than welcome and address you. Don't be fooled; they do. Besides, if you heard Guy Vander Jagt or Mo Udall give a keynote speech this summer, you've probably listened to enough rhetoric to last till 1984. When, as the intelligentsia secretly know, the world will end.

5:30-7 p.m. The freshman picnic at Radcliffe Yard. The brochure says this event is "informal." Actually, you have to go out and buy a tux or evening gown to dine on rubbery chicken. Actually, you don't. You may as well trek up Garden St. to absorb the atmosphere, lie on the grass, maybe meet a few new people. Avoid the food, though.

9 p.m. Required meeting with proctors for all freshmen. UPPERCASE in the brochure. You know what that means. Wanna eat this year? You need an I.D. card to do that, and this meeting is where they are meted out. Other things are meted out: what is illegal and where to go for official--but not necessarily authoritative--advice. If you lose your I.D., you can get a replacement at Holyoke Center, for a fee. Then you can once again hang out in libraries. Sure. Your proctor will also introduce you to everyone else in your entry. Proctors memorize the freshman yearbook so they recognize everybody's faces. They also write confidential reports on you at the end of the year. They are allotted a fund for "milk and cookies"--post-prohibition style. Although the drinking age in Massachusetts is 20, don't let it deter you.

After the meeting: Party. UPPERCASE.

Monday, September 8

8:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Registration. This is it, and there's no way around it. Registration is a sort of personal odyssey, as you wend your way past hundreds of sweaty bodies to get to point A, only to be referred to point B, and you will finally wind up at point C, where they more often than not will send you back to A. At registration, you will get a course catalogue. You will also be able to get a Confi Guide, which you will need to select your courses intelligently. You will doubtless gape at the swirl of activity going on around you, and be weighed down by a barrage of materials. This is the Harvard Experience? you will ask. Just wait for sectioning next week.

1:30-3:30 p.m. Placement test in chemistry, the first of several weeding out processes that the University uses to separate the sheep from the goats. And after a summer when you assuredly forgot everything you ever learned in high school. Masochism, Cambridge style.

3:45-5:15 p.m. Placement test in mathematics. Required. Ugh. Quick, what's the quadratic formula?

8 p.m. Faculty discussion: "Was the American Revolution a Mistake?" with Bernard Bailyn, award-winning historian. Catch him while you can; he'll be on leave this year. Which will introduce you to another fact of life--sometimes the best professors aren't even here.