The tour guide seems impressed as she tells the story, but afterwards she confesses that many of the big names she discusses on the tour are still just names to her.

"I didn't know who Williams James was before I went here," she says, after the group has dispersed.

"I still really don't know who he is. But he's got that big building over there." She points toward William James Hall, home of the Psychology Department.

Mixed in between the landmarks and the myths, the tour guides offer scattered impressions of undergraduate life: a job as an aerobics instructor, a Radcliffe externship, a roommate who heads a campus pro-life group.

"I try to describe how life will be if they decide to accept Harvard's offer of admission," says Hecht. "I say, 'This is how you would get to dinner and this is where you would eat." I make it active for them."

The stories provide amusing illustrations of life at Harvard, but can only go so far in capturing the nuances of student life. "I can only tell you what my experience here has been like," says Rachel Cashdollar '91, as she leads a group around the Yard. "I love Harvard, and so do all my roommates. But we're very different and we've found different parts to become involved in."

Consequently, prefrosh who are eager to learn what their experience at Harvard might be like often find the tour a limited resource, Cashdollar says. While student activities and classes and house life are mentioned, they are often squeezed in between descriptions of buildings and semi-historical anecdotes.

Hecht says her strategy is to offer some personal anecdotes to give students a perspective of Harvard life while not alienating them. Tour guides say they have to remove themselves from the day-to-day life and present Harvard in its entirety--which can often be difficult for them to accomplish.

"The most difficult part about leading tours," says Amy Heinman '90, "is stepping back from my own life and leading a group objectively. I may have had a horrible day and I may be temporarily really down on Harvard, but I can't let that show while I'm touring."

"I have to objectify Harvard and see it in different ways than I do in just my life," says Hecht.

One hour and fifteen minutes. In a span of time only slightly longer than the average undergraduate lecture, the visitors see a vast array of scattered and discreet images images of Harvard. For some students, a tour may be a pivotal factor in the final college decision. A sunny day or a friendly leader can make all the difference. Others may dismiss the tour as trivial and ephemeral and base their decision on more substantive factors.

But whatever criteria they base their final decison on, visiting students tend to come off the tour with a powerful sense of a Harvard mystique, a pervasive air about the University that makes it somehow different from other institutions. The fact that other schools tell nearly the same stories and show equally impressive buildings doesn't seem to matter as the tours reach their end; nearly everyone can sense the aura.

"I'm from North Carolina and my decision is between Harvard and Duke," one student explains to his guide, weighing the perceived virtues of each school.

"Duke is in my home state, which is great," he continues. "But this is Harvard."