Ramos agrees. "I was surprised by the amount of money students had here. I was surprised a lot of black people weren't on financial aid either. From where I was from, all the black people were poor," says the South Bronx resident, who is Puerto Rican.

Preparation

For some, the decision to apply to Harvard is obvious, expected by parents, teachers, friends and high-school guidance counselors.

Take David M. Weld '99. Weld is the latest in a long-standing pedigree of Harvard alumni--his ancestor, William Fletcher Weld, in 1873 funded the construction of first-year dormitory Weld Hall.

But the Milton Academy graduate said he was not influenced by his family's more than 170-year presence at the University and that the decision to come to Harvard was his own. For Weld, his Harvard legacy "was a big negative. It's a pain in the ass to have a dorm the same name as you."

"I liked Harvard of all the six schools I applied to, so I went here anyway," he says. His older sister opted not to follow the clan's well-worn path, and is now at New York University.

For others, applying to an Ivy League university raises eyebrows and generates assumptions rather than evoking family memories.

"It was funny because when the people in the town would find out I was applying to Harvard or I was going to Harvard, there was this big myth that my parents must be unbelievably rich, because it costs $28,000--no, $29,000--to go," says Matthew Davis '97.

Davis, a mathematics concentrator, grew up in rural Bronson, Mich., population 2,300 and part of Michigan's aging industrial belt. He describes his background as "fairly poor." Most people in his hometown were from similar social situations.

"Bronson as a whole is not a rich town," he says. "I wasn't coming into contact with gross discrepancies."

Few of Davis' high-school classmates dropped out, but none had ever applied to an Ivy League school either. Of his graduating class of 72, about a quarter went on to college, mainly the University of Michigan or Michigan State University. Most graduates return to Bronson to work in blue-collar or clerical, service-sector occupations.

For Davis, information about schools like Harvard came not from parents with extensive foresight but from the high-school academic track of math leagues and competitions. His father graduated from Western Michigan University; his mother did not attend college.

Prospective applicants often turn to mentors for advice, or learn about Harvard through alternative means--summer programs or accelerated academic tracks.

For Summer, the decision to come to Harvard was unexpected--she decided to apply only eight days before the January 1 deadline. She credits her application and subsequent admission to the Heritage program at Quincy High School, an alternative learning system which allowed her to tutor in the morning, take classes in the afternoon and take college classes at night--at the Harvard Extension School.

It was at the Extension School, which is attended mainly by adult students, that she met an instructor who encouraged her to apply.