"If you come from a family with lesser means, you're never introduced to a jacket and tie or a cocktail. It's just not part of your experience," says Linzee, who grew up in Stony Brook, N.Y. That's the way I look at class, as experiences."

His father, an artist, and his mother, a stage actress, both teach in a private school. They made every attempt to provide Linzee with singular educational opportunities.

Linzee and his parents took a year off to travel around the world during high school. He traveled through Europe, Asia and the South Pacific. His trip included sojourns to his great-uncle's medieval castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and a leaf hut in Malita Island, part of the Solomon Islands.

"I was raised in a very comfortable environment," he acknowledges. "In some ways, it was a wealthy environment."

The childhood of Lauralee Summer '98 childhood was markedly different.

Born in Santa Rosa, Calif., she lived in more than 20 locations before settling in Quincy. "I'm not working-class," Summer says. "My family is poor. We had $5,000 a year and under. It was public assistance."

Raised by a single mother who supported herself on Aid to Families With Dependent Children, Summer also received a lot of attention from her mother while growing up. "What motivated me in school is that my mother is very imaginative and learning-oriented, so she would read to me and taught me about anything I wanted to know," she says.

Summer and her mother were homeless twice, while she was in the fourth and eighth grade. After attending several elementary schools, she insisted on going to one high school for all four years. "I made my mother stay in one place. I told her not to move," says Summer, who attended Quincy High School in nearby Quincy, Mass.

Despite encouragement and support from her mother, growing up poor was tough.

"There are a lot of demands just trying to take care of the everyday needs of the family," says Summer, who has several older half-siblings. "Even my mom and I going to the laundry--we don't have a washer and dryer, we don't have a car--we'd walk like eight blocks taking big, heavy bags of laundry. That would take the whole day."

Class in the Classroom

For Harvard students, these "different life experiences" often crystallized in the classroom. High school's most universal aspects--classes, teachers and tests--varied according to the socioeconomic status of the student body, easing or impairing students' paths to college admission.

Rey F. Ramos '98 from the Bronx, N.Y., attended James Monroe High School, labeled the city's worst high school by former New York City Schools chancellor Ramon C. Cortines.

Only two Monroe graduates had ever gone on to Harvard before, in 1952 and 1956, "back when the Bronx was all white," Ramos says. Today, the school's population is predominantly Puerto Rican, Dominican and African-American.

He credits his academic success to his participation in Bridge to Medicine, a program for high-school students interested in becoming doctors, sponsored by the City College of New York. He went to City College in uptown Manhattan every day after school until 5 p.m. to study chemistry, calculus and English.