But Freeman admits he had trouble adjusting to Harvard's social scene. "There is some truth to the statement that Harvard has no social life," he says. "Here, most people are always on the move."

Guidance Problems

It was more difficult for Haverford College transfer Amanda K. Bean '97.

Bean, a mid-year transfer, says she had only two days to choose her concentration. After deciding on history and literature, the Dunster House resident says, she was told offhandedly that she would have to submit an application and undergo an interview the next morning.

"No one tells anything to transfers. Harvard does really almost nothing to help people adjust. I felt left out on my own--I wasn't prepared for that," Bean says. "I think it should be made clear that resources are available, but no effort was made."

Overwhelmingly, the chief complaint of transfers concerns what they perceive as a lack of guidance from their advisors.

When Chirag R. Shah '99 transferred from the California Technical Institute, he ran into problems similar to Bean's.

Shah transferred after deciding he no longer wanted a career in science. He says he wanted to concentrate in government at Harvard, but such a move would have left him no room for electives.

So he remained a science concentrator.

He says he often wondered during orientation week what he had gotten himself into.

"At the time that I first got here, I was upset by the way they treated us. I got here a week earlier than most sophomores just to go to a three-hour meeting. The only thing we had to go to was that information meeting, and then we were given a freshman orientation pamphlet and left on our own," he says. "I was thinking, 'Why am I here?'"

Transfer students, who tend to group together and befriend each other, have far fewer complaints about Harvard's occasionally quirky social scene.

Glanz says many transfers meet during Transfer Link's year-opening events and stay together because they have much in common.

"I think that with transfer students, there seems to be a greater concentration of active, or social, personalities than with other students," Glanz says. "Most other schools are a lot more social [events] than Harvard."

Shah says: "The only friends we had at the beginning were each other. We were all lost and hanging around together."