Among the Ivies, Brown is particularly well-known for having a gay-positive environment.
"My friend from high school who is also gay is in a freshman dorm at Brown with around 200 people," Hobbs says. "Of that 200, maybe 20 or 25 are gay bisexual or lesbian, as opposed to the same number for the entire class of Harvard."
Undergraduates say that one reason for the larger number of out students at other schools could be their active gay student organizations.
During Coming Out Week, the Yale gay community was extremely active, students there say.
"It was definitely visible. They had talk tents, tons of advertising, events throughout the whole week," says Evan E. Hughes, a Yale first-year. "They had a P.A. system set up in the central quad and people came up and talked about their experiences."
Harvard's resources for gay students are not as extensive as those at Yale or Brown, students say. While at Yale and Brown there are many student groups dealing with gay issues, at Harvard there are just two main organizations--BGLSA and Contact, a coming-out rap group.
"The support here is much better than I expected, but it's not over-whelming," Stephens says.
Others say BGLSA by itself can't answer all the needs of first-year students coming out of the closet.
"BGLSA's role is very unclear. It depends on who you talk to," Roddy says. "Some believe it is not as political as it should be. It's also a comfort zone for a place people can be out to a select group and for people who are not sure."
Some first-years say they would like a group that deals only with their needs.
"There should be a freshman forum for people who are thinking about coming out. BGLSA isn't so much a support group as it is an active student organization," Stephens says. "There needs to be separate resources for freshmen who are coming out and they need to be promoted and supported. As a result of that they'll be more accessible."
But despite their criticisms of Harvard's resources and atmosphere, the College's gay first-years say they do not regret coming out.
"In the middle of September, I had to make a choice of telling a group of people when I had never told more than one at a time. In interviewing for this article, I had to choose to tell the world," Steckler says. "The choice seemed like a difficult one, but then I realized just how simple it was. If I want things to change I have to stand up for myself and be counted. Now I'm standing up."