When Jimmy Quach '97 went home last month, he returned to his alma mater, San Francisco's Lowell High, a public magnet school known for its racial quota system.

Under a court order, Lowell limits Asian-American student representation to 40 percent of the school. As a result, Quach says, an atmosphere of anger, resentment and racial tension surrounds Lowell's admissions process.

Quach's mission was to convince minorities to apply to Harvard and thus diversify the pool of high school seniors that sends applications to Byerly Hall.

As one of 10 undergraduates and two Asian-American recruiters who work for the Admissions Office's minority recruitment program, Quach helps sing Harvard's praises to prospective applicants.

The point of the program "is to bring in those that aren't represented well, and that's my personal motivation for doing recruiting," Quach says. "For me, it's a chance to be home and to talk to high school students about my Harvard experience."

One goal of the program is to increase the diversity of the Asian-Americans who apply to Harvard.

But in the wake of recent efforts across the country to scale back affirmative action programs, Asian-Americans have found themselves caught in the middle of a national debate over such programs.

While some argue that Asian-Americans have a responsibility to defend affirmative action, others say Asians are bearing more than their share of the burden.

Minority Recruiting

The minority recruiting program aims to bring in Asian-Americans who are underrepresented at Harvard, in both socioeconomic and ethnic background.

Quach and others in the program spend one week in October visiting public and private high schools with large populations of minority students.

The groups that are least represented include urban, less advantaged East Asian-Americans, and students of South- and Southeast Asian descent.

Mina K. Park '98, a program coordinator, says the program targets Cambodian, Laotian and Vietnamese students who are less likely to apply.

"They're worried because of the stereotype of Harvard," Park says. "They're worried whether or not they'll fit in, whether they'll be marginalized when they get here."

According to Margot Hsu Carroll, a senior admissions officer who oversees Asian-American admissions, the program helps Byerly Hall target those who are underrepresented throughout the admissions process.

"People think everyone [in the Asian-American community] wants to go to Harvard, but there are students who believe they would never get into a place like this," says Carroll, who is one of two "fourth readers" of Asian-American applications.