Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that people seem to think private universities are required to accept and educate the "smartest" kids that apply, however you define smartest (test scores, GPA, rigor, etc).

What if schools like Yale, which has been around since before the country was founded, did an analysis and decided, "It is better for the future of the nation if we teach critical thinking, morality, ethics, history and leadership skills to idiotic wealthy and powerful children (GW Bush, Don Trump Jr), because like it or not, those children will have an outsized impact on the world, rather than only teach the top .1% smartest kids, who are capable of learning on their own without us."

Why can't a school decide that dumb legacies are actually the most important people to educate?

They can, of course. And anyone who spends a lot of time around legacy admits knows your characterization is correct.

But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to admire the quality of the graduates of the school. The schools are welcome to lean even further into their origin stories of being finishing schools for the wealthy legacies. And the rest of us are free to see the reputation of the schools be shaped accordingly.

Except your characterization is not correct. Most legacies are very very far from dumb.

Perhaps most are not dumb but I’ve never met a single one that would have been admitted without the legacy boost and I’ve met many.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale committee concludes that colleges and universities have completely lost the plot:

“High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness.

The findings reflect misgivings that Americans have described across years of polling and interviews. But the report, from a 10-professor panel at one of the nation’s most renowned universities, amounts to a damning depiction of academia’s role in cultivating the political and cultural forces that are reshaping higher education’s place in American life.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/us/yale-report-colleges-unversities-trust.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bVA._ebw.-PVgolGZ4r5r&smid=url-share

The Yale committee is not wrong. $100,000 per year is ridiculous. The preference for athletes, FGLI, rich kids, faculty kids, connected kids, and soft racial preferences undermines any school's credibility. Having to be wary of whether you are for Trump or for Palestinians does undermine free speech and makes a campus stifling. And when people realize there are like three spots available at a school like Yale for a standard valedictorian from Des Moines or, alternatively, the suburbs of DC, NY, and SF, it's not surprising people are a little cynical of schools like Yale. Yet, despite abandoning any illusions of a meritocracy, the Yale grad has all sorts of opportunities that other graduates don't.

And this isn't exclusive to Yale. Anyone who has gone through the process of applying to top 20 schools knows how much BS is involved. Good for Yale for pointing it out.

Nonsense, it never has and never will. The credibility issues were about woke gone too far, nothing else.

Not according to this report . It's a long report, but in the section about admissions, the committees specifically speaks about wealth not "woke". They specifically call out athletic admissions, legacy admissions, and admissions that benefit wealthy students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that people seem to think private universities are required to accept and educate the "smartest" kids that apply, however you define smartest (test scores, GPA, rigor, etc).

What if schools like Yale, which has been around since before the country was founded, did an analysis and decided, "It is better for the future of the nation if we teach critical thinking, morality, ethics, history and leadership skills to idiotic wealthy and powerful children (GW Bush, Don Trump Jr), because like it or not, those children will have an outsized impact on the world, rather than only teach the top .1% smartest kids, who are capable of learning on their own without us."

Why can't a school decide that dumb legacies are actually the most important people to educate?

They can, of course. And anyone who spends a lot of time around legacy admits knows your characterization is correct.

But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to admire the quality of the graduates of the school. The schools are welcome to lean even further into their origin stories of being finishing schools for the wealthy legacies. And the rest of us are free to see the reputation of the schools be shaped accordingly.

Except your characterization is not correct. Most legacies are very very far from dumb.

Perhaps most are not dumb but I’ve never met a single one that would have been admitted without the legacy boost and I’ve met many.

Your kids are at Towson Somi d your place. And, the legacies that you’ve. Do you show proper deference? Your comment is stupid enough that you should be thankful if they acknowledge you.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.

The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.

It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.

Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.

And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.

I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.

I could do without Hockey players.

You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:


Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial

if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.

get rid of legacy at the same time.

get rid of the Z list.

and put in place SAT minimums.

announce it all at once.

Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.

Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.

The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.

The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.

People are angry about sailing?

Asians are angry about sports.

Asian here.

Lots of assumptions about asians and sports but the asians I know are not angry about sports. We have the resources to pay for sports. The poor asians don't but they probably get the FGLI preference.
We think some of these preferences are weird (giving a preference to professors kids would be considered pretty corrupt in my home country) but it doesn't bother us.
If you stack up all the preferences, the people who do NOT get a preference are native born white people who don't have the money to provide their kids an edge either through long term expensive activities or just a flat donation to institutions.

If you see an asian get really upset about testing, they probably poor or grew up poor. Testing is seen as a way to disrupt wealth and privilege in asia, here it is seen as reinforcing wealth and privilege.
Affluent asians are disproportionately alumni at some place that is worth having a legacy preference to. 5% of americans are asians, 20% of the alumni at the top schools are asian. The affluent asians might think legacy preferences are weird but we sort of like them. Stanford's recent stand against eliminating legacy preferences was met with a small sigh of relief by some families.

So nobody is actually mad about anything? Glad we cleared all that up. We’ve eliminated all the people who might have a grievance except poor whites. I don’t think they are the ones desperate to get into Yale in the first place so sounds like we’re all good here.

I can't speak for all asians. I was mad about the anti-asian discrimination, but SFFA seems to be making a difference in how people talk about being asian.
Also, it's not just poor whites gettig the shaft, its non-rich whites. A lot of the populist faction of MAGA comes from that group.

That group does not seem likely to want to send their kids off to elite private universities. They would like to destroy them as much as possible.

Middle class white families do in fact care but they have gotten so used to getting the crumbs that they pretend they are happy going to their state flagship because everyone has a preference to go to the more selective private schools, except them.

"everyone has a preference to go to the more selective private schools" This just isn't true. They mostly don't care in the way the other prestige obsessive groups care. The vast majority of college kids go to school within a couple of hour drive from their home.

A big part of this is a better understanding of the US college system by long term residents. There are some urban areas and social circles where it is important but not for the vast majority of the middle class.

Regular middle class families aren’t going to take out massive loans to pay for this. They are the donut hole families. That pp is woefully misinformed.

$200K families get free tuition, that's at the 84%ile of households. $100K families get a free ride, that's at the 57th%ile of households. The donut hole doesn't really start until at least $250K

Our MAGI is well under 200 (that's AGI plus adding retirement contributions back in) and we're full pay at Yale. they look at assets, even if you're under the 200k mark. From what I hear, we are not unusual. Maybe not full pay like us, but paying 70k+ plus

What kind of assets? House? Investments?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.

The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.

It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.

Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.

And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.

I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.

I could do without Hockey players.

You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:


Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial

if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.

get rid of legacy at the same time.

get rid of the Z list.

and put in place SAT minimums.

announce it all at once.

Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.

Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.

The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.

The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.

People are angry about sailing?

Asians are angry about sports.

Asian here.

Lots of assumptions about asians and sports but the asians I know are not angry about sports. We have the resources to pay for sports. The poor asians don't but they probably get the FGLI preference.
We think some of these preferences are weird (giving a preference to professors kids would be considered pretty corrupt in my home country) but it doesn't bother us.
If you stack up all the preferences, the people who do NOT get a preference are native born white people who don't have the money to provide their kids an edge either through long term expensive activities or just a flat donation to institutions.

If you see an asian get really upset about testing, they probably poor or grew up poor. Testing is seen as a way to disrupt wealth and privilege in asia, here it is seen as reinforcing wealth and privilege.
Affluent asians are disproportionately alumni at some place that is worth having a legacy preference to. 5% of americans are asians, 20% of the alumni at the top schools are asian. The affluent asians might think legacy preferences are weird but we sort of like them. Stanford's recent stand against eliminating legacy preferences was met with a small sigh of relief by some families.

So nobody is actually mad about anything? Glad we cleared all that up. We’ve eliminated all the people who might have a grievance except poor whites. I don’t think they are the ones desperate to get into Yale in the first place so sounds like we’re all good here.

I can't speak for all asians. I was mad about the anti-asian discrimination, but SFFA seems to be making a difference in how people talk about being asian.
Also, it's not just poor whites gettig the shaft, its non-rich whites. A lot of the populist faction of MAGA comes from that group.

That group does not seem likely to want to send their kids off to elite private universities. They would like to destroy them as much as possible.

Middle class white families do in fact care but they have gotten so used to getting the crumbs that they pretend they are happy going to their state flagship because everyone has a preference to go to the more selective private schools, except them.

"everyone has a preference to go to the more selective private schools" This just isn't true. They mostly don't care in the way the other prestige obsessive groups care. The vast majority of college kids go to school within a couple of hour drive from their home.

A big part of this is a better understanding of the US college system by long term residents. There are some urban areas and social circles where it is important but not for the vast majority of the middle class.

Regular middle class families aren’t going to take out massive loans to pay for this. They are the donut hole families. That pp is woefully misinformed.

$200K families get free tuition, that's at the 84%ile of households. $100K families get a free ride, that's at the 57th%ile of households. The donut hole doesn't really start until at least $250K

Our MAGI is well under 200 (that's AGI plus adding retirement contributions back in) and we're full pay at Yale. they look at assets, even if you're under the 200k mark. From what I hear, we are not unusual. Maybe not full pay like us, but paying 70k+ plus

What kind of assets? House? Investments?

I think they look at non-retirement assets. I think some part of your primary residence is excluded. I don't know the exact formula. You can run the net price calculator to get a good idea of your tuition burden.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale committee concludes that colleges and universities have completely lost the plot:

“High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness.

The findings reflect misgivings that Americans have described across years of polling and interviews. But the report, from a 10-professor panel at one of the nation’s most renowned universities, amounts to a damning depiction of academia’s role in cultivating the political and cultural forces that are reshaping higher education’s place in American life.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/us/yale-report-colleges-unversities-trust.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bVA._ebw.-PVgolGZ4r5r&smid=url-share

The Yale committee is not wrong. $100,000 per year is ridiculous. The preference for athletes, FGLI, rich kids, faculty kids, connected kids, and soft racial preferences undermines any school's credibility. Having to be wary of whether you are for Trump or for Palestinians does undermine free speech and makes a campus stifling. And when people realize there are like three spots available at a school like Yale for a standard valedictorian from Des Moines or, alternatively, the suburbs of DC, NY, and SF, it's not surprising people are a little cynical of schools like Yale. Yet, despite abandoning any illusions of a meritocracy, the Yale grad has all sorts of opportunities that other graduates don't.

And this isn't exclusive to Yale. Anyone who has gone through the process of applying to top 20 schools knows how much BS is involved. Good for Yale for pointing it out.

Nonsense, it never has and never will. The credibility issues were about woke gone too far, nothing else.

DP. Disagree. The credibility issues were also about opacity, behavior inconsistent with mission, and confusion about the mission itself.

When people have no idea what your admission standards are, how much they’ll pay, what behavior is tolerated, or your guiding intellectual or academic principles are, you’re going to have a problem.

Yale Committee nailed it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that people seem to think private universities are required to accept and educate the "smartest" kids that apply, however you define smartest (test scores, GPA, rigor, etc).

What if schools like Yale, which has been around since before the country was founded, did an analysis and decided, "It is better for the future of the nation if we teach critical thinking, morality, ethics, history and leadership skills to idiotic wealthy and powerful children (GW Bush, Don Trump Jr), because like it or not, those children will have an outsized impact on the world, rather than only teach the top .1% smartest kids, who are capable of learning on their own without us."

Why can't a school decide that dumb legacies are actually the most important people to educate?

They can, of course. And anyone who spends a lot of time around legacy admits knows your characterization is correct.

But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to admire the quality of the graduates of the school. The schools are welcome to lean even further into their origin stories of being finishing schools for the wealthy legacies. And the rest of us are free to see the reputation of the schools be shaped accordingly.

Except your characterization is not correct. Most legacies are very very far from dumb.

Perhaps most are not dumb but I’ve never met a single one that would have been admitted without the legacy boost and I’ve met many.

I asked for backup and instead of providing that, you cite your own opinion. Oh please.

You're met many legacies, huh? And you are the judge of their intellect AND you somehow know whether they would have been admitted had they not been a legacy? I'll say it again, oh please. lol, you made my day, this was just too funny!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that people seem to think private universities are required to accept and educate the "smartest" kids that apply, however you define smartest (test scores, GPA, rigor, etc).

What if schools like Yale, which has been around since before the country was founded, did an analysis and decided, "It is better for the future of the nation if we teach critical thinking, morality, ethics, history and leadership skills to idiotic wealthy and powerful children (GW Bush, Don Trump Jr), because like it or not, those children will have an outsized impact on the world, rather than only teach the top .1% smartest kids, who are capable of learning on their own without us."

Why can't a school decide that dumb legacies are actually the most important people to educate?

They can, of course. And anyone who spends a lot of time around legacy admits knows your characterization is correct.

But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to admire the quality of the graduates of the school. The schools are welcome to lean even further into their origin stories of being finishing schools for the wealthy legacies. And the rest of us are free to see the reputation of the schools be shaped accordingly.

Except your characterization is not correct. Most legacies are very very far from dumb.

Perhaps most are not dumb but I’ve never met a single one that would have been admitted without the legacy boost and I’ve met many.

Your kids are at Towson Somi d your place. And, the legacies that you’ve. Do you show proper deference? Your comment is stupid enough that you should be thankful if they acknowledge you.

It really was the most stupid comment of the day. This person clearly hasn't spent much time around Yale grads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it interesting that people seem to think private universities are required to accept and educate the "smartest" kids that apply, however you define smartest (test scores, GPA, rigor, etc).

What if schools like Yale, which has been around since before the country was founded, did an analysis and decided, "It is better for the future of the nation if we teach critical thinking, morality, ethics, history and leadership skills to idiotic wealthy and powerful children (GW Bush, Don Trump Jr), because like it or not, those children will have an outsized impact on the world, rather than only teach the top .1% smartest kids, who are capable of learning on their own without us."

Why can't a school decide that dumb legacies are actually the most important people to educate?

They can, of course. And anyone who spends a lot of time around legacy admits knows your characterization is correct.

But that doesn’t mean the rest of us have to admire the quality of the graduates of the school. The schools are welcome to lean even further into their origin stories of being finishing schools for the wealthy legacies. And the rest of us are free to see the reputation of the schools be shaped accordingly.

Except your characterization is not correct. Most legacies are very very far from dumb.

Perhaps most are not dumb but I’ve never met a single one that would have been admitted without the legacy boost and I’ve met many.

I asked for backup and instead of providing that, you cite your own opinion. Oh please.

You're met many legacies, huh? And you are the judge of their intellect AND you somehow know whether they would have been admitted had they not been a legacy? I'll say it again, oh please. lol, you made my day, this was just too funny!

Read the report. The committee found that legacies got a significant boost for the same academic credentials. It doesn't say they're dumb but it does not say they are outstanding. And preferencing them for admission is contributing to the idea that we can't trust elite institutions and they're just for a bunch of rich corrupt people. That is from the committee.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.

The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.

It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.

Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.

And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.

I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.

I could do without Hockey players.

You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:


Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial

if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.

get rid of legacy at the same time.

get rid of the Z list.

and put in place SAT minimums.

announce it all at once.

Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.

Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.

The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.

The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.

People are angry about sailing?

Asians are angry about sports.

Asian here.

Lots of assumptions about asians and sports but the asians I know are not angry about sports. We have the resources to pay for sports. The poor asians don't but they probably get the FGLI preference.
We think some of these preferences are weird (giving a preference to professors kids would be considered pretty corrupt in my home country) but it doesn't bother us.
If you stack up all the preferences, the people who do NOT get a preference are native born white people who don't have the money to provide their kids an edge either through long term expensive activities or just a flat donation to institutions.

If you see an asian get really upset about testing, they probably poor or grew up poor. Testing is seen as a way to disrupt wealth and privilege in asia, here it is seen as reinforcing wealth and privilege.
Affluent asians are disproportionately alumni at some place that is worth having a legacy preference to. 5% of americans are asians, 20% of the alumni at the top schools are asian. The affluent asians might think legacy preferences are weird but we sort of like them. Stanford's recent stand against eliminating legacy preferences was met with a small sigh of relief by some families.

So nobody is actually mad about anything? Glad we cleared all that up. We’ve eliminated all the people who might have a grievance except poor whites. I don’t think they are the ones desperate to get into Yale in the first place so sounds like we’re all good here.

I can't speak for all asians. I was mad about the anti-asian discrimination, but SFFA seems to be making a difference in how people talk about being asian.
Also, it's not just poor whites gettig the shaft, its non-rich whites. A lot of the populist faction of MAGA comes from that group.

That group does not seem likely to want to send their kids off to elite private universities. They would like to destroy them as much as possible.

Middle class white families do in fact care but they have gotten so used to getting the crumbs that they pretend they are happy going to their state flagship because everyone has a preference to go to the more selective private schools, except them.

"everyone has a preference to go to the more selective private schools" This just isn't true. They mostly don't care in the way the other prestige obsessive groups care. The vast majority of college kids go to school within a couple of hour drive from their home.

A big part of this is a better understanding of the US college system by long term residents. There are some urban areas and social circles where it is important but not for the vast majority of the middle class.

Regular middle class families aren’t going to take out massive loans to pay for this. They are the donut hole families. That pp is woefully misinformed.

$200K families get free tuition, that's at the 84%ile of households. $100K families get a free ride, that's at the 57th%ile of households. The donut hole doesn't really start until at least $250K

Our MAGI is well under 200 (that's AGI plus adding retirement contributions back in) and we're full pay at Yale. they look at assets, even if you're under the 200k mark. From what I hear, we are not unusual. Maybe not full pay like us, but paying 70k+ plus

What kind of assets? House? Investments?

I think they look at non-retirement assets. I think some part of your primary residence is excluded. I don't know the exact formula. You can run the net price calculator to get a good idea of your tuition burden.

Yale includes primary residence but up to a % of your income. I think it's 1.5. So if you make 200k, and have 500k of equity - they'll only take 300K. which is more than "typical assets" right now there.

300k of home equity plus your 529s (of all kids) plus even a moderate taxable investment account. you can get knocked out of all FA pretty quickly

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale committee concludes that colleges and universities have completely lost the plot:

“High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness.

The findings reflect misgivings that Americans have described across years of polling and interviews. But the report, from a 10-professor panel at one of the nation’s most renowned universities, amounts to a damning depiction of academia’s role in cultivating the political and cultural forces that are reshaping higher education’s place in American life.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/us/yale-report-colleges-unversities-trust.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bVA._ebw.-PVgolGZ4r5r&smid=url-share

The Yale committee is not wrong. $100,000 per year is ridiculous. The preference for athletes, FGLI, rich kids, faculty kids, connected kids, and soft racial preferences undermines any school's credibility. Having to be wary of whether you are for Trump or for Palestinians does undermine free speech and makes a campus stifling. And when people realize there are like three spots available at a school like Yale for a standard valedictorian from Des Moines or, alternatively, the suburbs of DC, NY, and SF, it's not surprising people are a little cynical of schools like Yale. Yet, despite abandoning any illusions of a meritocracy, the Yale grad has all sorts of opportunities that other graduates don't.

And this isn't exclusive to Yale. Anyone who has gone through the process of applying to top 20 schools knows how much BS is involved. Good for Yale for pointing it out.

Nonsense, it never has and never will. The credibility issues were about woke gone too far, nothing else.

DP. Disagree. The credibility issues were also about opacity, behavior inconsistent with mission, and confusion about the mission itself.

When people have no idea what your admission standards are, how much they’ll pay, what behavior is tolerated, or your guiding intellectual or academic principles are, you’re going to have a problem.

Yale Committee nailed it.

No they aren't. Such things were mentioned in the spirit of full coverage but it all boils down to "woke" and preferences for blacks and Hispanics.

Admissions opacity is driven by the number of kids applying and that the vast majority look basically the same. The UMC public consistently forgets how large this country is and that their HS "standout" has one or more doppelgangers in each of the 27,000 or so high schools acrioss the country. Their kid is excellent but by no means as unique as they believe.

[Anonymous]

Here is how I understand the legacy data:

- If you have the stats - astronomic GPA, top of class, highest rigor, SATs- you are more likely to get in.

- If you don't have the stats, legacy doesn't give you enough of a boost to be considered.

You are only "more likely" to get in if you are an actual, legitimate, candidate for admission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale committee concludes that colleges and universities have completely lost the plot:

“High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness.

The findings reflect misgivings that Americans have described across years of polling and interviews. But the report, from a 10-professor panel at one of the nation’s most renowned universities, amounts to a damning depiction of academia’s role in cultivating the political and cultural forces that are reshaping higher education’s place in American life.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/us/yale-report-colleges-unversities-trust.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bVA._ebw.-PVgolGZ4r5r&smid=url-share

The Yale committee is not wrong. $100,000 per year is ridiculous. The preference for athletes, FGLI, rich kids, faculty kids, connected kids, and soft racial preferences undermines any school's credibility. Having to be wary of whether you are for Trump or for Palestinians does undermine free speech and makes a campus stifling. And when people realize there are like three spots available at a school like Yale for a standard valedictorian from Des Moines or, alternatively, the suburbs of DC, NY, and SF, it's not surprising people are a little cynical of schools like Yale. Yet, despite abandoning any illusions of a meritocracy, the Yale grad has all sorts of opportunities that other graduates don't.

And this isn't exclusive to Yale. Anyone who has gone through the process of applying to top 20 schools knows how much BS is involved. Good for Yale for pointing it out.

Nonsense, it never has and never will. The credibility issues were about woke gone too far, nothing else.

DP. Disagree. The credibility issues were also about opacity, behavior inconsistent with mission, and confusion about the mission itself.

When people have no idea what your admission standards are, how much they’ll pay, what behavior is tolerated, or your guiding intellectual or academic principles are, you’re going to have a problem.

Yale Committee nailed it.

No they aren't. Such things were mentioned in the spirit of full coverage but it all boils down to "woke" and preferences for blacks and Hispanics.

Admissions opacity is driven by the number of kids applying and that the vast majority look basically the same. The UMC public consistently forgets how large this country is and that their HS "standout" has one or more doppelgangers in each of the 27,000 or so high schools acrioss the country. Their kid is excellent but by no means as unique as they believe.

Woke and antisemitism were merely a red herring the Hispanic and black numbers at the top universities were low and have significantly DECREASED over the last 20 years. Notice the elites don’t complain about legacy admissions because it benefits them and it is the most egregious form of non merit imaginable. The pitting of Asians against other minorities was to increase the numbers for the elite. Take a look at TJ admissions thus far, even for the select few who are admitted, very few can actually afford to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale committee concludes that colleges and universities have completely lost the plot:

“High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness.

The findings reflect misgivings that Americans have described across years of polling and interviews. But the report, from a 10-professor panel at one of the nation’s most renowned universities, amounts to a damning depiction of academia’s role in cultivating the political and cultural forces that are reshaping higher education’s place in American life.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/us/yale-report-colleges-unversities-trust.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bVA._ebw.-PVgolGZ4r5r&smid=url-share

The Yale committee is not wrong. $100,000 per year is ridiculous. The preference for athletes, FGLI, rich kids, faculty kids, connected kids, and soft racial preferences undermines any school's credibility. Having to be wary of whether you are for Trump or for Palestinians does undermine free speech and makes a campus stifling. And when people realize there are like three spots available at a school like Yale for a standard valedictorian from Des Moines or, alternatively, the suburbs of DC, NY, and SF, it's not surprising people are a little cynical of schools like Yale. Yet, despite abandoning any illusions of a meritocracy, the Yale grad has all sorts of opportunities that other graduates don't.

And this isn't exclusive to Yale. Anyone who has gone through the process of applying to top 20 schools knows how much BS is involved. Good for Yale for pointing it out.

Nonsense, it never has and never will. The credibility issues were about woke gone too far, nothing else.

DP. Disagree. The credibility issues were also about opacity, behavior inconsistent with mission, and confusion about the mission itself.

When people have no idea what your admission standards are, how much they’ll pay, what behavior is tolerated, or your guiding intellectual or academic principles are, you’re going to have a problem.

Yale Committee nailed it.

No they aren't. Such things were mentioned in the spirit of full coverage but it all boils down to "woke" and preferences for blacks and Hispanics.

Admissions opacity is driven by the number of kids applying and that the vast majority look basically the same. The UMC public consistently forgets how large this country is and that their HS "standout" has one or more doppelgangers in each of the 27,000 or so high schools acrioss the country. Their kid is excellent but by no means as unique as they believe.

Cut and paste the part of the report where you're reading this please. That may be your opinion, but that's not what was discussed in this report. The admissions section was about wealth, not woke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yale committee concludes that colleges and universities have completely lost the plot:

“High costs, murky admissions practices, uneven academic standards and fears about free speech on campuses, the committee said, are among the reasons for widening discontent over higher education’s worthiness.

The findings reflect misgivings that Americans have described across years of polling and interviews. But the report, from a 10-professor panel at one of the nation’s most renowned universities, amounts to a damning depiction of academia’s role in cultivating the political and cultural forces that are reshaping higher education’s place in American life.”


https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/15/us/yale-report-colleges-unversities-trust.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bVA._ebw.-PVgolGZ4r5r&smid=url-share

The Yale committee is not wrong. $100,000 per year is ridiculous. The preference for athletes, FGLI, rich kids, faculty kids, connected kids, and soft racial preferences undermines any school's credibility. Having to be wary of whether you are for Trump or for Palestinians does undermine free speech and makes a campus stifling. And when people realize there are like three spots available at a school like Yale for a standard valedictorian from Des Moines or, alternatively, the suburbs of DC, NY, and SF, it's not surprising people are a little cynical of schools like Yale. Yet, despite abandoning any illusions of a meritocracy, the Yale grad has all sorts of opportunities that other graduates don't.

And this isn't exclusive to Yale. Anyone who has gone through the process of applying to top 20 schools knows how much BS is involved. Good for Yale for pointing it out.

Nonsense, it never has and never will. The credibility issues were about woke gone too far, nothing else.

DP. Disagree. The credibility issues were also about opacity, behavior inconsistent with mission, and confusion about the mission itself.

When people have no idea what your admission standards are, how much they’ll pay, what behavior is tolerated, or your guiding intellectual or academic principles are, you’re going to have a problem.

Yale Committee nailed it.

No they aren't. Such things were mentioned in the spirit of full coverage but it all boils down to "woke" and preferences for blacks and Hispanics.

Admissions opacity is driven by the number of kids applying and that the vast majority look basically the same. The UMC public consistently forgets how large this country is and that their HS "standout" has one or more doppelgangers in each of the 27,000 or so high schools acrioss the country. Their kid is excellent but by no means as unique as they believe.

Cut and paste the part of the report where you're reading this please. That may be your opinion, but that's not what was discussed in this report. The admissions section was about wealth, not woke.

We’re talking about two different things. Yale doesn’t care about what you are fussing over. They never have and never will. Note that Stanford gave up CA money rather than give up legacy admissions bumps.

The report was commissioned by a new president to signal to the clowns in the current administration that they heard them. The clowns in the new administration care about hurting blacks and Hispanics. They probably consider dropping Legacy as hurting white people.

The report only mentions ‘reducing’ the impacts of preferences in ALDC areas, not eliminating them. You will see a test required and academic floor announcement with a base somewhere below the current 25% level along with an out for ‘extenuating circumstances’. That might keep a few football linemen out but that is about as far as things will go.

Nobody at Yale has any real incentive or interest in any changes except those which get the current administration off of their backs. Those changes likely aren’t what you are hoping for but nobody at Yale cares what you want and there are no real incentives making the changes that you want. Sorry if that hurts.