3000 MEN TO CROWD COLLEGE

Harvard will welcome back 900 of her sons who left the University to serve in the armed forces, and admit 550 new students today when an estimated 1500 men register in Memorial Hall for the spring term.

Even up to the last hours before the deadline, officials were far from certain of their pre-enrollment figures and names. Last-minute dischargees, for example, threaten to swell the already overcrowded ranks and create more problems for a staff that has been increasingly harassed in recent weeks by the multifold difficulties of reconversion.

When added to the students in attendance during the fall term, today's total is expected to increase the strength of the College to a post-1943 high of 3000. Nearly two-thirds of this number will be veterans; approximately 490 of the 550 new students registering today, including 110 men who had been admitted but never attended, are ex-servicemen.

Conant to Speak

For the first time since the war disrupted the traditional registration week schedule, President Conant will address a meeting of all new and returning students in Sanders Theatre at 7:30 o'clock tonight. Provost Paul H. Buck, Dean A. Chester Hanford, and Sumner H. Slichter, Lamont University Professor, will also speak.

Housing the men who will enter or reenter, today has been a very difficult problem. Over and above the desperate search for quarters suitable for married students, the details of room assignments in College buildings have caused many complications. An effort was made to return all ex-students to the Houses where they previously lived, and House Masters fitted in as many of their former members as possible within the restrictions of available space, price ranges, and academic class distinctions.

Some new men who applied early were fitted into Houses, after all the returning veterans that could be handled were given rooms. But the bulk of new Freshmen and new veterans, as well as the onetime House residents who could not be taken care of, will live in the Yard.

Assignment of non-resident memberships in the Houses has been made by Half and entry. If there is a sudden increase in enrollments, the Union may be opened once again for those living in the Yard, but it is hoped that the House libraries and dining halls will be able to absorb everyone so that the Union may continue to serve the Graduate School.

Men entering today will find the University fast returning to something of a normal atmosphere. Every branch is flooded with applications for admission and has been forced to turn down the majority of those seeking to enter. Special veterans problems, such as course credit, housing and finances absorb much of the deans' time. There is "joint instruction" (not co-education).

But even with these new features, the returning servicemen will recognize the pre-war College as it changes from its role of a training school for war to an institution building for peace