The large crowd heading for Boston and Cambridge reveals some of the social pressures that accompany going to a single-sex school. During the week Wellesley students toil in an all-female environment and find it difficult to fit in the 40 minute ride to Harvard. The commuting difficulties divides work and weekends, they say.

Weekends are both the only time for the students to escape the monotony of student life and dress up for co-ed parties.

"The buses are the life-saver for us," says Debbie L. Dreyfus, a junior at Wellesley. "They are really the only way to get off campus on the week-ends."

"It's easy to take the bus," says sophomore Elizabeth Harmer. "I use it to get to the T, or to see friend."

"People at Wellesley resent the image of the bus and the tasty name people call it. It's not true," Harmer says. "I have a friend at Harvard and she said they hate Wellesley women. She says they think we can do whatever we want during the week, and then come out and put on a new persona for the weekend, while Harvard women have to put it on all the time."

Many of the women want to ask questions about Harvard. What do people think of us at Harvard, they ask. What kind of parties do you have? How's the social life?

The Wellesley women divide the riders into two distinct groups: a "Harvard group" of bus riders and an "MIT group." To which group people belong depends on whom you know at each college. But most of the women who got off at the Harvard stop say they just want to catch the T to get into to Boston. They say they really had to know someone to go to a Harvard party, which isn't nescessary at MIT frats.

When asked which fraternity they were going to, Sara A. Miller answers "one with men." Her companion, who is sitting in the back stairwell gives her name only as "Emily" replies, "the one with Greek letters that postered." They said that Harvard parties tend not to poster, so students looking for something definite tend to go to MIT.

The women are slightly touchy about the reputation of Wellesley women. Dreyfus says she "would kill anyone" who implied that she was "imported" for a party.

She does acknowledge the accuracy of the bus' notorious nickname. "It really is the fuck truck, let's be honest."

She estimates that slightly more than half of the women with their dark lipstick and mascara-ed eyes are actually going to parties, a figure that is backed up by several other women.

The women sitting in the stairwell--a first-year and a junior--say in unison that they ride the bus "as little as possible." The first-year says she is going to her fifth party, but the junior says this is her first frat party of the school year.

"I'm going to this party on the one in two million trillion chance that I'll find a guy who is not drunk and nice," says Emily. "The odds are not in our favor."

"We're looking to have fun," says Miller. "If men happen to show up, that's OK."

The women say they think the men may be "weird." The poster that told them of the party read, "If you have a problem getting to this party, call Mike," and included a phone number, they say. "If they are that desperate, they must be kind of weird," says Miller.