<p>The dead man was visiting his girlfriend, according to reports. Do you suppose she or whoever introduced him went to CRLS, or do you find it likelier that Harvard girls like to date their drug dealers?</p>
<p>Harvard does not publish statistics on the performance of preferred admission categories. Common sense, and the results of studies in the case of athletes, minorities, etc suggest that the same performance deficit holds for CRLS admits, though I admit the latter have some advantage in a local support system. </p>
<p>CRLS draws about half its students from the Cambridge housing projects. The equivalent demographic at schools with comparable admission results would be tiny indeed, and having very little social overlap with the academic echelon of students going to Ivy Leagues (as they take no classes together). Because CRLS teaches students of all levels in the same classes, there is a lot more mixture, and a lot more students to mix with. I need not dwell on the fact that, in Cambridge as everywhere else, crime is strongly linked to socioeconomics, race, parental education, and all the usual factors. CRLS is up to its ankles in unfavorable demographics and low performance, and I believe was on probation with the state accreditation agency in the not too distant past for the academic underperformance of the minority students.</p>