Lewis says the letter sprang from a discussion on advising during a meeting of the Committee on Undergraduate Education. He said that midway through the discussion, he realized that often the advice given by the College has been incorrectly focused.

“Rather than training advisers on how students can concentrate in 3 subjects simultaneously while graduating in 3 years and also fulfilling pre-med requirements, we should be encouraging students, and advisers, to take a step back and ask whether it really makes sense to try to do everything simultaneously, and whether those students wouldn’t do better to slow down and do a smaller number of things more deeply,” he wrote in an e-mail message.

Lewis said he has not yet decided whether his letter will be an annual offering to incoming students, since he wants to hear some reaction to the letter.

“It is basically a personal letter stating my own views, and those views have evolved, and will continue to evolve, as others point things out and help me think,” he wrote in the e-mail.

In addition to being mailed to all members of the Class of 2005, the letter will also be available on the College website, possibly as early as today.

—Staff writer Garrett M. Graff can be reached at ggraff@fas.harvard.edu.