Please note: we are no longer accepting questions for this feature, which concludes Sept. 16.

As the nation’s high school seniors return to their classrooms, a stack of college applications already gathering on their desks, The Choice has invited William R. Fitzsimmons, the dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard since 1986, to answer select reader questions.

Mr. Fitzsimmons’ first answers are scheduled to appear Thursday — you can now read them here — and continue through Sept. 15. (Given the deluge of questions we are receiving on Mr. Fitzsimmons’s behalf, he will only be able to respond to a small fraction. Nonetheless, if readers wish to continue to submit questions and comments, we will continue to post them.)

Mr. Fitzsimmons is among the longest-serving and most influential college admissions officers in the nation. He has worked in the Harvard admissions office since 1972, and served as the director of admissions at Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges from 1975 to 1984. He holds bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees from Harvard, and received a full, need-based scholarship as an undergraduate (supplemented only by income from part-time jobs.) He is a former trustee of the College Board.