What's up with the weather? The week that Harvard students actually leave for spring break, the weather starts becoming nice. Sorry, not nice--gorgeous. But Dartboard's not complaining, because the weather that has enveloped usually dismal Cambridge has been hanging around for the last couple of weeks. And from throwing around the ol' pigskin to getting that envious tan to even doing homework, Harvard students are finding that outside is the place to be.

The admissions department is probably enjoying it too: imagine what pre-frosh are thinking. "Harvard is the best school in the country, andit gets good weather?" Well, maybe that isn't exactly what they're thinking, but we do. If it's gonna be like this, why should pre-frosh even consider Stanford?

While the forecast predicts cloudy skies for the next couple of days, more sunshine is sure to come. So one word to the environment gods: keep global warming at just this level. We think we can handle the rays.

Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics

Here at Dartboard we were interested to hear the results of this year's survey of college first-years. The final verdict? Less sex, less beer, more volunteering, less politics, fewer pre-laws--we're getting a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Just for starters, this year's college first-years are increasingly heading to the political right. Was it something we said? According to the study by the Higher Education Research Institute at the University of California at Los Angeles, those who began college in fall 1998 showed a decline in support for abortion. Only 50.9 percent of the class support it--a record low.

Additionally, the number of students agreeing that "if two people really like each other, it's all right for them to have sex even if they've known each other for a very short time" declined--only 39.6 percent of frosh think this is okay, down from 42.2 percent last year.

Maybe their disinterest in one-night stands is linked to the fact that the class of 2002 drinks less beer than any other first-years in the 33 years of the survey's history. But if they're not at the bar, they're not reading the newspaper either. A record low 25.9 percent consider keeping up with politics important. Fourteen percent frequently discuss political matters.

So what do these first-years do in all their spare time? Almost two-thirds use e-mail. More than half use Internet chat rooms. More than 80 percent play computer games "at least occasionally." And 72.9 percent participate in "other Internet use." Hmm, wonder what that means?

But 43.2 percent of first-years think "material on the Internet should be regulated by the government." Women's support of this was higher than men's. Aren't college students old enough to take care of themselves? And there's that whole inconvenient First Amendment issue. Funny. Dartboard thought censorship was unconstitutional.

Overall, survey results seem decidedly befuddling (or maybe Dartboard is just easily confused). Less sex, less beer? More conservatism? We thought this was college...

BEACH WEATHER-Vasant M. Kamath; TEETOTALERS-Vasugi V. Ganeshananthan