OFF-CAMPUS ENTERTAINMENT VARIES FROM GIRLS' COLLEGES TO LOCAL BARS

Confidential Guide and official literature to the contrary, Harvard students do not concentrate exclusively on studying, trying out for the football team, or going to see the Dean. A good deal of a Freshman's spare time is spent on the campuses of neighboring women's colleges, and in bars, dance halls, night clubs, theatres and restaurants of Greater Boston.

Last year an exhaustive poll of the Senior class taken for the Senior Album revealed, among other useless information, that the class of 1940 rated girls' colleges in the following order of popularity: Radcliffe, Welleslcy, Smith, Vassar, Bennington.

Your Slip is Showing

Radcliffe, Harvard's little sister, is the traditional butt of Harvard humor. The typical Radcliffeite is pictured as a bony female wearing flat-heeled shoes, and horn-rimmed glasses, and carrying half a dozen textbooks; usually her slip is showing. But the vote of the class of 1940 seemed to belie that conception--or else last year's Seniors liked them that way. Radcliffe is conveniently close, the girls are generally more intelligent than at other colleges, and they don't mind riding subways or sitting in the balcony. At the beginning of the year the Radcliffe Houses hold "get acquainted" teas if you're too shy to go by yourself, you can get someone who knows the ropes to take you.

By repute, Welleslcy girls spend all their time looking for husbands, but you can have fun with them just the same. According to current folklore, Wellesley girls average prettier but dumber than Radeliffeites. Smith is ditto, but more fun to spend a week-end at. The same goes for Vassar. Bennington combines plenty of art, girls in slacks, lots of liquor, and absolutely no rules--Benningtonties can and do stay out all night. These last three colleges are out of the question unless you own or can borrow a car.

Bottoms Up

The Senior Album poll also dug up the astonishing fact that two thirds of the Senior Class took a drink at least once a week. Boston and Cambridge have almost as many bars as colleges. Unfortunately, they close early--one on weekday nights, twelve on Saturdays. If you want to keep on drinking, you'll have to go to Charlestown to the Stork Club, or to Revere to the Open Door, where you pay proportionately more. In Cambridge, the rowdy Stag Club (no membership dues) stays open an hour beyond the legal limit.

The only Boston bar traditionally associated with Harvard is the Riiz--inexpensive, crowded, and the place where simply everybody is seen. The Copley and Statler have conservatively genteel bars--keep away from the Merry-go-round bar at the former if you get dizzy easily.

Boston night clubs are not so hot. The Southland is big, noisy, and has first-rate bands. The Cocoanut Grove and the Beachcomber are also cut on a lavish bias--but the floor shows at all of them are consistently poor. The only good floor show in town is to be found at the dirt-cheap Little Dixie, located in the center of Boston's Harlem, but it's not the sort of place to take your grandmother.

Sub-Deb Dances

If you come from the "right kind" of family, you'll be asked to kick in with some dough for the various sub-deb subscription dances, the minor leagues of the deb party circuit. They're on the dull side, and early, and feature no drinking. House dances are O.K. if you go with some friends, but not many Freshmen do. Girls' college dances are aabout the best fun; the Statler and Copley are the conservatively correct places to go dancing after football games, but they're pretty stuffy.

An ancient Harvard institution is the Raymor ballroom. Here you can dance with anyone you want--girls go stag--and the dim lights make it a sporting proposition. Harvard boys are disliked by much of Raymor's clientele, because of their condescending "lets go slumming" attitude. A nice car usually fixes that. Beware of the Roseland State, another dance hall--you're apt to find yourself at old-timers' night.

Nights at the Old Howard

Two thirds of the Seniors went to the legitimate theatre at least three times, the poll revealed. Most good plays get to Boston months or years late, and bad as well as good onces come here before they fold in N. Y. The most popular theatre is the Old Howard, Boston's ancient burlesque emporium--the great majority of Harvard men go there at least once, many again and again.

Concerts and the opera rated considerably better attendance among last year's Seniors even than the Old Howard--one quarter of the class went more than seven times a year.

Boston has many restaurants, which fall into two general classes: the lousy and the expensive. Durgin-Park, famous Boston catery where you get a huge meal for very little and where the waitresses call you "dear," is excellent. The Russian Bear, the Lafayette, and Locke-Ober's are all excellent and expensive, as is Dinty Moore's, modernistic steak parlor.

Unfortunately eating at the Harvard Union--which by reputation is both expensive and lousy is compulsory for all resident Freshmen.