As early action admissions letters start arriving in mailboxes across the country, the Undergraduate Minority Recruitment Program (UMRP) must be celebrating. With minority early admissions up 14 percent from last year, the UMRP seems to be doing something right.

And while Byerly Hall officials warn against making too much of the statistics, they acknowledge that admissions are on the right track.

"If there is any credit to be claimed for those numbers [of applicants], it is very widely shared," says Senior Admissions Officer Roger Banks, who works with the UMRP. "The campus climate on race and ethnicity is one in which everybody can take some pride and some interest."

An offshoot of the Undergraduate Admissions Council, which uses student volunteers to help the admissions office reach prospective applicants, UMRP engages minority undergraduates directly in Harvard's efforts to woo minorities.

Student coordinators representing five major ethnic groups--Asian Americans, blacks, Latinos, Mexican Americans and Native Americans--work with the admissions office to increase minority enrollment at the College.

Through phonathons, mailings and even week-long recruiting trips, the student coordinators work to debunk myths about Harvard's homogeneity.

In the Trenches

The Internet has changed college recruiting, increasing the need for an organization like the UMRP, Banks says. With prospective students now able to do much of their research on the Web, the admissions office no longer relies on personal recruiting.

"Recruitment is not hand-to-hand combat [anymore]," Banks says. "That's what the UMRP does--hand-to-hand recruitment, personal contact by phone and by visits."

The admissions office sends minority students on 20 to 25 recruiting trips every fall, Banks says. Traveling from New York to Chicago to San Francisco, coordinators visit school after school, trying to convince minorities that Harvard is the place for them.

"Students get a chance to hear the authentic story about what it's like to be a minority student at Harvard-Radcliffe from a Harvard-Radcliffe student," Banks says.

The admissions office tries to assign representatives to their own high schools and others in the area.

"It establishes a special rapport when you can tell them that you grew up in their home area," Heather C. Chang '99 says.

And with the number of early applications from African-American and Mexican-American students jumping 27 and 23 percent respectively, it seems the personal touch has been persuasive.

But converting students into admissions officers comes at a price.