“We would have loved to have seen Harvard go on in the NCAA tournament, so we could watch them play in Boston Garden,” Cappello said. “That would have been super, and I think really would have gotten people excited about Harvard in a way that they never have been before. Unfortunately, they lost.”

There is, for a variety of reasons, a level of disinterest in Harvard as an institution from the students at CRLS.

“As far as students thinking about going to Harvard, some of them will say ‘I don’t want to go to or apply to Harvard because it’s in Cambridge. I’ve lived here all my life, I want to get out,’” Cappello said.

Still, as the application numbers show, the proverbial ‘university at the top of the hill’ does have a significant draw on CRLS students considering their college options.

“It’s great being in Cambridge still,” said Bonsey of attending school in his hometown. “A lot of people want to go to college and kind of get out of their hometown. But for me it was more about being in a place that I really love. I love being in Cambridge; I love the people here. Of course, Harvard is Harvard. You’re not really going to find a school like this anywhere else, and the fact that it was in my hometown made it a pretty easy decision.”

For many student-athletes at Rindge who could play at the Division III level, compromises are made to attend Harvard.

“For me, I always knew I wanted to keep sailing just because I loved it so much,” Lafler said. “The competition level really rises in college in a lot of sports, but for sailing there’s a smaller community and so it’s a bit easier to continue in college. For a lot of my classmates, there were a lot of factors to consider, but Harvard worked out pretty perfect for me.”

Whether embraced or resented, the effect Harvard has had on the city of Cambridge vice versa is undeniable. It remains to be seen if that relationship will transfer more conspicuously onto the playing fields at Rindge and for the Crimson.

“My guess is that things won’t change,” Bonsey said. “[Rindge has] never been an athletic power house in anything, and neither has Harvard. I’m a big sports fan, but I’m fine with things being that way.”

—Staff writer Alexander Koenig can be reached at akoenig@college.harvard.edu.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: April 5

In an earlier version of this article, Josiah Bonsey ’14 said that a student from his alma mater, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, is recruited to play a Division I sport in college every few years. Though the athletic director at the high school declined to provide the exact number of students who are recruited to play Division I sports, the average is in fact more than one per year.