"One applicant compared herself to a rubber band, another one to a cello. Which one are you most like, and why?"

So began a Harvard Summer School seminar Monday night called "How to Write the College Essay," an event that filled Sever 113 with high school students eager to hear a former admissions officer share the tricks of adroit essay writing.

Many students sat through the lecture to help them survive their upcoming application process. But others were there trying to learn something far more specific: how to get into Harvard.

A 17-year old Greenough resident confidently pronounced after the seminar: "I will definitely apply to Harvard." Rumors circulate among the students in the Secondary School Program (SSP) that students have a higher chance of acceptance into Harvard after a stint at the Summer School.

But, Harvard administrators say, SSP students may have the wrong impression.

"They don't have a better chance nor do they have a worse chance. We've had that policy in place for a long time," says Dean of Undergraduate Admissions William R. Fitzsimmons '67. "In the past, we did an informal study. The only thing I remember about it definitively was that the admission rate for summer school students was very similar to the pool as a whole."

"Certainly any number of people do apply," he says. "One of the things we say pretty clearly to students is that Summer School wouldn't convey any advantage, nor would it be a disadvantage."

Fitzsimmons believes that some summer programs are used as recruitment devices to get people to apply, but "certainly Harvard has no conscious policy to do that."