This system passively supported the continuation of the Harvard caste system. Even though the Houses were somewhat diverse, the intense social polarization of the Gold Coast remained.

While the House system became the so-called forum for socialization, Harvard students still felt that their social standing and careers depended on admission and success in a final club. Not every young gent made the cut--many were left outside in the cold, staring through the windows of the Pudding, watching the swirling gowns and flowing champagne--the legacy of the Gold Coast.

Boston society was stongly invested in the fate of the student-gentry and their new haunt--the social clubs--as they had been with the Gold Coast. One article found in the scrapbook of a 1903 graduate, George Stillman, proclaimed in the headline, "Student Stunts at Harvard!-Tests Required of Candidates for Secret Societies." The Boston Globe often announced the Hasty Pudding Annual Dance with detailed explanations of ball gowns and the appearance of the women as well as lists of the social elite at the party.

Among the elite, there were students who chose not to participate in this exclusive social world. Walter C. Paine '49, grandson of President Eliot, slogged through the massacres of World War Two before beginning Harvard College. "Many of us looked down on the kids sliding by and getting C grades and having a hell of a time."

Today, the Gold Coast glitters no longer. But even with current randomization policies, the question of elitism at Harvard remains. The College is accused of admitting students based on money and social standing rather than academic achievement. Miller claims that times have certainly changed.

"Since the late 1960s, Harvard has been much more diverse. It started from a swing to public school acceptances post-World War Two. The country exploded demographically and so admissions changed."

However, author Nelson W. Aldrich Jr., maintains that the strength of aristocracy in Harvard affairs still holds strong:

"For admissions officers, it's all a question of balance: between children of the 'high' social composition of each entering class--and children of 'talent.' The actual Harvard has usually fixed that balance at around 20 percent of alumni children. They are called, fittingly enough, 'legacies.'"

Wide social chasms, though not as pronounced as the separation between Coast and Yard, continue and flourish. Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 states:

"As far as where you live and what courses you take, Harvard has tried to eliminate differences based on personal resources, though of course it cannot wipe out all effects of personal differences in family means."

There is no longer the flurry of cotillion invitations and the constant sight of young men bedecked in top hats and tails strolling to their apartments on the Gold Coast to smoke a cigar under the light of a glowing chandelier. Nor the spectacle of languishing youths, waited on hand and foot by a faithful valet. However, the legacy of the Coast has not disappeared. Present-day inequity takes a subtler form.