“I was undecided for a long time between Harvard and Stanford, then I pre-froshed at Stanford and their giant tree mascot chased me down the street yelling at me,” Jennifer L. Imamura ’03 wrote in an e-mail. “It was a small thing, but it definitely helped me make my decision to choose Harvard.”
Imamura added that she did not know whether the posters would have any real effects, but said that “it’s not worth the risk.”
Associate Dean of the College David P. Illingworth ’71 wrote in an e-mail that even though he thought the poster was in bad taste and might offend some students or parents, he did not think it would affect the yield for the Class of 2007.
“Students admitted to Harvard College are too intelligent and discerning to base their decision on such a small thing,” he wrote.
Gisele M. Morey ’04, a Mather resident who said she often attends HoCo meetings and came up with the idea for the Lather party, said that the posters “unintentionally resurrected an issue that HoCo thought was dead from last year.”
“It was an oversight on the part of the committee, but they’ve made efforts to take the signs down and at the end I hope everyone will want to come to the party,” she said.