When the father of Martha H. Seneta '97 sent her mail last Thursday form Chelmsford, a town about 35 miles northeast of Boston, she said the two agreed it would be in her hands by the following Tuesday.

Yesterday, her Science Center mailbox was still empty.

"It's taken over a week to get something from a place only a half hour away." Seneta said.

Seneta is one of a growing number of Harvard first years who say mail is slow in finding its way into their boxes at the Harvard Yard Mail Center (HYMC).

"I don't understand why mail takes three times longer to arrive here than it does through the normal U.S. Postal service," Yoav Berger '97 said.

Berger added that he frequently receives mail postmarked a week-and-a-half earlier.

A supervisor at the HYMC defended the center yesterday, saying mail delays result form foul-ups at the central Cambridge post office.

"[Students] get mad at us but it's the Cambridge Post Office's fault," said the supervisor of the HYMC.

The supervisor, who refused to give his name, said the Cambridge Post Office delivered nothing to the mail center yesterday because of inclement weather.

Other times, the supervisor said, the post office fails to deliver Harvard mail because the staff is "short-handed."

Post Office Defends Service

Margaret C. Dimock, customer relations coordinator at the Cambridge post Office, disputed the supervisor's description of how mail reaches the mail center.

"Harvard mail is picked up by a private courier form Harvard," Dimock said, although she later said she "wasn't sure" whether the post office delivered some of the mail.

Dimock also said the post office never has a problem with personnel shortages.

"We use overtime to cover all vacancies," she said. "It's never an issue that we don't sort or deliver the mail.