The New York Times reported on February 28 of this year that a Harvard admissions officer sent a Black high school senior a letter offering to waive the usual January 1 deadline. The Times reported that when the student called to check on the deadline waiver, admissions officials denied knowledge of it until he mentioned he was Black. Black student leaders say the article unfairly implied that admissions officers, in the name of diversity, offered Black students preferential treatment in the admissions process.

Also, a confidential report obtained by The Crimson last month revealed that the average SAT score of Blacks at Harvard is the lowest of any ethnic group. The Consortium of Financing Higher Education, an organization of 32 colleges and universities, compiled the previously unpublished data.

"I think if one were to look at the new media and campus publications as a barometer of pressure that [Black] students face, we will see that in terms of the number of stories, content and the number of issues raised, Black students are subject to significantly more," says Zaheer R. Ali '94, former president of the Black Students Association (BSA). Ali also spearheaded a coalition of nine campus minority groups, the Coalition for Diversity, which called Harvard "the Peculiar Institution."

Harvard may have a particularly bad reputation in the Black community, but it also suffers from a national trend of Black students flocking to historically Black colleges like Morehouse and Spelman doubt they will be treated equitably both in and out of the classroom is turning some Black students away from predominantly white institutions like Harvard, according to college counselors interviewed.

"Not only is Harvard fighting off other Ivies in attracting African-American students, but it's also fighting the historically Black institutions," says Frank J. Burtnett, executive director of the National Association of College Admission Counselors. "I know it may seem like comparing apples with oranges, but I know of so many youngsters who have said they'll go to Howard for their bachelor's and then to an Ivy for graduate school."

Black parents too perceive Harvard as an oppressive institution that forces students to conform with the white majority, says Frances S. Logan, an admission counselor at Florida A&M University, a predominantly Black college.

"The concern [of Black parents] is being sure that their offspring are going to be treated fairly and that they will go into the classroom and be graded fairly," says Logan, who has been a college financial aid and admissions director for the past 28 years. "A student sitting in the classroom knowing they won't get the same grades as a white student--that's just not worth the effort."

Janet D. Jones, Joy's mother, says she wouldn't have encouraged Joy to go to Harvard even if she wanted to because she says she has "seen many Blacks come out of that place as Caucasians with Black skin."

Ouzama N. Nicholson '94, an undergraduate admissions recruiter, says the climate for Blacks at Harvard is so oppressive and tense at times, that she sometimes is reluctant to give her sales pitch to the Black students she tries to recruit.

"My job is encouraging people to see Harvard as an option. When I see students I like who are good students, I want to tell them to come here," says Nicholson, who is also co-chair of the student advisory council of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations. "But maybe the best advice I could give them is not to come here...I should be telling students to look more closely."

An Unconvincing Suitor

Harvard's efforts to allay these fears and fight its image problem, however, may not be adequate. Although it has increased its recruitment activities considerably by sending letters and brochures to students with qualifying SAT or PSAT scores, the intensity falters in the follow-through.

"I felt the least wanted by Harvard," says Tyron J. Sheppard '97, a Los Angeles resident who was accepted to 10 elite colleges. "Even when I wrote saying that I wasn't going to accept admission, [other schools] wrote back hand-written notes wishing me good luck at Harvard. When I accepted Harvard's offer, they only sent me a postcard."

Joy Jones also says Harvard's efforts to persuade admitted students to accept its offer are much less intense than at other colleges. After highly publicized racial incidents at Duke, for example, Duke embarked on a calling campaign to assure its admits that the administration was taking steps to alleviate the tensions on campus, according to Jones.

Harvard's post-acceptance letter efforts consist of a phone call to its admits by a team of undergraduates representing five minority student organizations: BSA, the Asian American Association, La O, Raza and the Native American Association, according to Roger Banks, a senior admissions and financial aid officer who is in charge of minority recruiting.