If granting preferential admissions treatment for the sake of a few bucks isn't wrong--and Fitzsimmons says it isn't--then why not just auction off "tip" stickers to the highest bidders, to be attached to application forms in the promise of special consideration? It would be much more economically efficient and not a bit less just.

Athletics are just another extracurricular. The officials argue that athletes are treated the same in the admissions process as "French horn players" and those "likely to edit The Crimson." Then why does the admission office have an "athletic rating" separate from the "extracurricular rating"? Why do athletes score significantly lower in every other area of comparison? Although the officials are correct in pointing out that athletes' disproportionate admission rate alone does not prove that they receive preferential treatment, these figures do.

The Department of Education found comments on the folders of admitted athletes such as "A shaky record and so-so scores don't bode well for [the applicant's] case.... He'd make a fine addition to the team if the coaches go all out for him, but that's what it would take." Do appeals from debate-team advisors and Phillips Brooks House officers hold similar sway?

Implicitly recognizing the fallacy in their own argument, the officials turn to their alternative excuse: that an athletic program is "so ingrained as part of American college life that students and alumni alike have come to expect varsity sports at colleges." Agreed. Harvard officials point out that most schools bend the admissions standards far further. We agree again. But they have also claimed that some measure of preferential treatment is necessary to support a competitive Division I program. Here we must differ. We believe that if the price of "competitive" teams is lowering standards, we should be content to be uncompetitive or to compete at a lower level.

The Crimson is promoting divisiveness and stereotyping. We have always acknowledged the achievements of truly accomplished student-athletes and legacies. It is the admissions office which creates the stigma associated with these groups by admitting marginally qualified athletes and legacies who tar others with the perception of "dumb jocks" and "rich alumni kids."

The admissions office is an open book. The officials seemed positively shocked that we could claim to have "uncovered" the truth about legacies and athletes. They point to the "open" nature of the admissions process, meaning the number of officials involved and the amount of paper records generated. Our characterization of the admissions office as a "notoriously secretive bureaucracy" referred to the virtual impossibility of obtaining statistics from them, not to any paucity of paperwork in the office itself.

Perhaps we're being unfair. In order to give the admissions office a chance to prove its good faith on openness and to settle the question of whether athletes are treated differently from those applicants who excel at editing the paper or playing the French horn, we call upon the admissions office to release the aggregate applicant statistics of the men's hockey team, the football team, the field hockey team, the Crimson executive board and the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra. Let's settle this little factual dispute once and for all.

Harvard's a great school, and The Crimson ought to know it. The reponse repeatedly emphasizes the high level of achievement among Harvard's admitted classes. It brags about Merit Scholars, Westinghouse Science winners, Putnam Mathematics stars, Rotary, Fulbright and Marshall winners, ad nauseum.

To our best recollection, our editorials have never disputed that there are a great many bright people at Harvard. Nor have we argued that Harvard should limit its consideration to SAT scores, or even to SAT scores and class ranks. We simply insist that Harvard stop granting unwarranted special treatment to those who have a good jump shot or a Harvard pedigree. We also insist that Harvard be completely forthright about these policies--a request that has yet to be granted.

Winning national championships and pleasing wealthy alumni are understandable aims. But if achieving these goals requires compromising Harvard's rigorous admissions standards and trampling all notions of justice and fair-play, then we are content to do without them.