As the admissions process begins earlier andearlier in a student's career, it requires morethought and planning, and Balz says students andparents need to be on the right academic andfinancial tracks, taking the right courses andsaving earlier for college.

"Early admissions means colleges have to startreaching students to make sure they are awareearlier," Balz says. "It' requires more intensiverecruiting."

The College's admissions recruitment campaignsare starting earlier than in previous years.

"Harvard does more spring time travel than itused to, and in general more recruiting ofjuniors," Lewis says, though he notes that this islargely because other colleges use earlyadmissions.

For the last decade, the admissions office haspartnered up with other competitive colleges tovisit high schools across the country together.

Fitzsimmons says the joint presentations andquestion-and-answer sessions have helped to "levelthe playing fields" by reaching students who mightotherwise slip through the cracks.

On these trips, the admissions officers meetnot only with students, but also with parents andguidance counselors, helping to expand theirrecruiting network.

But while successful recruiting may offset someof the advantages of privilege in the earlyadmissions process and encourage minorities andlower-class students to think about collegeearlier, it is not a panacea.

Balz says the focus of the college admissionshas moved up to the end of junior year andtherefore may exclude students who are not reachedby the recruiters.

But both Lewis and Jeremy R. Knowles, dean ofthe Faculty, defend Harvard's program because itis an early action process, and does not requirestudents to come if accepted.

Fitzsimmons also adds that the trend towardsearly application is not a new one, but in factgoes back more than 10 years.

"Students today are much more sophisticated,"he says. "They need more information earlier."

Fitzsimmons says greater media attention,particularly in magazines, as well as an increasein college-educated parents, has made high-schoolstudents aware about college at any earlier stageand more apt to apply early.

What is more, Fitzsimmons says the trend willprobably continue in the next few years, though itwill eventually level off.

"It's not inconceivable that the early poolwill go as high as 5,000 [applicants], thoughprobably not to 6,000," he says. This year, earlyapplications grew by 9.3 percent, to 4,604