"I found academic life very stultifying for me," Lang says. "I was tired of writing papers that nobody really cared about and I really wanted to do something."

During the summer after her sophomore year, Lang started an SAT tutoring program in Mount Vernon, N.Y., with the goal of reaching less affluent high school students who couldn't afford classes at the major test-prep companies. When she returned to Harvard that fall, she founded a similar program, Get Ready!, in Boston.

"Students come here feeling like they made a difference [in high school]," says Tanya L. Barnes '00, who revived the Harvard Mock Trial Team and founded the Pre-Law Society with Lauren A. Wetzler '00 and Thomas G. Saunders '00. "It becomes natural to want to have that same thing in college."

Of course, students who found their own groups sometimes contend with charges of resume padding or opportunism. Becoming a campus leader can be as easy--or as difficult--as creating a group and anointing oneself its chief.

Cooke says that before proposals are granted student group status, the College administration is usually able to weed out students who are motivated purely by self-interest.

"If there are students who are proposing an organization simply because they want to lead an organizations, then that's transparent," Cooke says.

Brian J. Rosenthal '00 says making a student group work requires a strong vision and a genuine desire to share it with others. Rosenthal is one of the founders of InterCity, a public service group which offers free Web page design classes in the Back Bay and then helps program graduates find jobs.