But for every student CHANCE convinces about Harvard's commitment to the community, there are several others who continue to resent Harvard students.

Says Rodriguez, "Some of my friends who don't go to the program think that Harvard students are so up on their attitudes and don't want to deal with people who aren't close to them."

And CHANCE's officers have started to worry about the problem of exactly who they're helping at Rindge and Latin. They say the students they tutor are already academically motivated, and are looking to go to college. And that limits the program's reach, they add.

"Our original intention was that we wanted kids who had the ability to go to college but were not working to their potential," Richman says. "We think we are getting overqualified kids."

Rene Meshon, a guidance counselor with Rindge and Latin's Student Service Center, oversees the school's selection of students whom it recommends to participate in CHANCE each year.

And she, too, sees a potential problem. "We'd like to have students who need it [extra help] more. We're not giving up. It's a tough question," she says.

All-Purpose Volunteers

The Cambridge School Volunteers, Inc., a nonprofit organization closely associated with the Cambridge public school system, also draws on Harvard students for its tutoring programs with Rindge and Latin.

In fact, about half of the volunteers come from either Harvard or MIT, says Frank H. White '55, the organization's director. There are between 150 and 200 Harvard undergraduates involved, he says.

"I think it's extraordinary," White says. "Harvard and MIT undergraduates are ideal. They are at just the right age to work with high school students. The kind of student at Harvard and MIT has a good understanding of the learning process. There is no question in our minds that the quality of the students there is excellent."

Harvard students are all-purpose volunteers in White's program. Most serve as personal tutors, but some work in the school's computerized writing center, library and in classrooms where they sometimes prepare "mini-courses" and give lectures, White says. One student, he says, taught guitarplaying to a small group of students.

The Cambridge School Volunteers program, however, concentrates much of its work at Rindge and Latin on English-language training.

Because of the tremendous diversity of languages spoken at Rindge and Latin, "two-thirds of the high school students we see are here because English is their second language. That need is increasing," White says.

Rindge and Latin senior Yao Feng, 18, is a recent immigrant from China who was tutored last year by Tim K. Marks '90 in pre-calculus as part of the Cambridge School Volunteers program. "He [Marks] helped me understand word problems. When you talk one-to-one, it's very helpful," says Yao Feng.

Yao Feng also says that through the regular tutoring sessions, he became friends with Marks and "learned a lot about the social life in the United States. We talked a lot about college and about which college I should go to."