Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are the one fussing about woke. The report wasn't really fussing about it and you're right yale is not fussing about it either. Spend some time there and you'll stop worrying about woke. That was just a whole lot of Fox News garbage all around.

If the report was trying to appease the administration they could have done a better job. But obviously they have figured out how to appease the administration, because they are left alone relative to other ivies.

[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?

Interesting comment. Your last line is the only one that matters. Why can't they? There is no logical reason that they cannot have priorities like any other private enterprise.

Jealousy is the only answer. If I can't have it I want to break it.

They can have priorities but when those priorities conflict with the public policy, they cannot have public funding

It seems blatantly political to be honest. They go after Harvard. They don't really go after Yale. That's just the way it is now. There is corruption up down back and forth everyday with this administration. We will all be better off when they're gone regardless of your politics.

It was all political wait before this. This is just attaching consequences to being too political. Get used to the new normal. Being too woke will make you a target.

Wait, anti-woke weirdo is back again!? Or do we now have multiple anti trolls on this ever-lengthening thread?

[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.

^ Oops! meant _this_ anti-woke weirdo, clearly deluded or trolling.

“Woke gone too far” is one of their signature phrases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Now you’re making an entirely different point after your claim that all legacies are dumb didn’t hold up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Now you’re making an entirely different point after your claim that all legacies are dumb didn’t hold up.

The report is making the point. It says what it says. Sorry if you don't like it.

The report says that legacies are not particularly special in and of themselves, but they have an admissions advantage. This is not rocket science nor a surprise to anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Now you’re making an entirely different point after your claim that all legacies are dumb didn’t hold up.

The report is making the point. It says what it says. Sorry if you don't like it.

The report says that legacies are not particularly special in and of themselves, but they have an admissions advantage. This is not rocket science nor a surprise to anyone.

Legacies as a group look like everyone else in the pool and Yale has every right to prefer legacies if they want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Now you’re making an entirely different point after your claim that all legacies are dumb didn’t hold up.

The report is making the point. It says what it says. Sorry if you don't like it.

The report says that legacies are not particularly special in and of themselves, but they have an admissions advantage. This is not rocket science nor a surprise to anyone.

Legacies as a group look like everyone else in the pool and Yale has every right to prefer legacies if they want to.

If the pool is filled with a few hundred thousand grand then sure!

You didn't take a lot of math classes I guess.

They can and do prefer legacies and that affects their reputation. And just because they write a report about it does not mean they care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are the one fussing about woke. The report wasn't really fussing about it and you're right yale is not fussing about it either. Spend some time there and you'll stop worrying about woke. That was just a whole lot of Fox News garbage all around.

If the report was trying to appease the administration they could have done a better job. But obviously they have figured out how to appease the administration, because they are left alone relative to other ivies.

I have read the entire report. The report says nothing significant and that is why it was designed to do. It commits to nothing significant and nothing significant will be done. The report is the document containing the vague “recommendations” which will be used to appease the administration.

Regarding pricing, the basically said the model is the right model but the public is too stupid to understand it.

Regarding preferences, nothing will change. There may be a few years of slight lower legacy admits but that is it. They will not reduce athletic recruiting because they want to compete with the other Ivy League teams. The other stuff is noise.

For admissions they basically said that they will go back to testing and put in a floor. As I said previously the floor will still be relatively low compared to what you wish because realists kid with a 1400 can succeed anywhere. That may eliminate a very few athletic recruits who will just be replaced with other recruits with slightly better academics….no effective change. Applications will drop with test required but it will remain single digit.

Nobody cares about your cost frustrations, your admissions opacity frustrations, or your legacy frustrations. And this report proves that nobody cares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Now you’re making an entirely different point after your claim that all legacies are dumb didn’t hold up.

The report is making the point. It says what it says. Sorry if you don't like it.

The report says that legacies are not particularly special in and of themselves, but they have an admissions advantage. This is not rocket science nor a surprise to anyone.

Legacies as a group look like everyone else in the pool and Yale has every right to prefer legacies if they want to.

If the pool is filled with a few hundred thousand grand then sure!

You didn't take a lot of math classes I guess.

They can and do prefer legacies and that affects their reputation. And just because they write a report about it does not mean they care.

I’ve likely forgotten more math than you ever learned but that is a separate conversation.

Their preference for legacies doesn’t hurt their reputation with anyone that they feel matters. Stanfords rejection of California’s restriction on money to schools who maintain legacy preferences shows exactly how elite schools feel about the subject. If legacies actually hurt their reputation they would do something about it but it does and they won’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Now you’re making an entirely different point after your claim that all legacies are dumb didn’t hold up.

The report is making the point. It says what it says. Sorry if you don't like it.

The report says that legacies are not particularly special in and of themselves, but they have an admissions advantage. This is not rocket science nor a surprise to anyone.

Legacies as a group look like everyone else in the pool and Yale has every right to prefer legacies if they want to.

If the pool is filled with a few hundred thousand grand then sure!

You didn't take a lot of math classes I guess.

They can and do prefer legacies and that affects their reputation. And just because they write a report about it does not mean they care.

I’ve likely forgotten more math than you ever learned but that is a separate conversation.

Their preference for legacies doesn’t hurt their reputation with anyone that they feel matters. Stanfords rejection of California’s restriction on money to schools who maintain legacy preferences shows exactly how elite schools feel about the subject. If legacies actually hurt their reputation they would do something about it but it does and they won’t.

^doesn’t

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Now you’re making an entirely different point after your claim that all legacies are dumb didn’t hold up.

The report is making the point. It says what it says. Sorry if you don't like it.

The report says that legacies are not particularly special in and of themselves, but they have an admissions advantage. This is not rocket science nor a surprise to anyone.

Legacies as a group look like everyone else in the pool and Yale has every right to prefer legacies if they want to.

If the pool is filled with a few hundred thousand grand then sure!

You didn't take a lot of math classes I guess.

They can and do prefer legacies and that affects their reputation. And just because they write a report about it does not mean they care.

I’ve likely forgotten more math than you ever learned but that is a separate conversation.

Their preference for legacies doesn’t hurt their reputation with anyone that they feel matters. Stanfords rejection of California’s restriction on money to schools who maintain legacy preferences shows exactly how elite schools feel about the subject. If legacies actually hurt their reputation they would do something about it but it does and they won’t.

Don't disagree with any of that.

Most legacy applicants to Yale and Stanford are from HHs with well above median income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You are the one fussing about woke. The report wasn't really fussing about it and you're right yale is not fussing about it either. Spend some time there and you'll stop worrying about woke. That was just a whole lot of Fox News garbage all around.

If the report was trying to appease the administration they could have done a better job. But obviously they have figured out how to appease the administration, because they are left alone relative to other ivies.

I have read the entire report. The report says nothing significant and that is why it was designed to do. It commits to nothing significant and nothing significant will be done. The report is the document containing the vague “recommendations” which will be used to appease the administration.

Regarding pricing, the basically said the model is the right model but the public is too stupid to understand it.

Regarding preferences, nothing will change. There may be a few years of slight lower legacy admits but that is it. They will not reduce athletic recruiting because they want to compete with the other Ivy League teams. The other stuff is noise.

For admissions they basically said that they will go back to testing and put in a floor. As I said previously the floor will still be relatively low compared to what you wish because realists kid with a 1400 can succeed anywhere. That may eliminate a very few athletic recruits who will just be replaced with other recruits with slightly better academics….no effective change. Applications will drop with test required but it will remain single digit.

Nobody cares about your cost frustrations, your admissions opacity frustrations, or your legacy frustrations. And this report proves that nobody cares.

I have also read the report and this is also my cynical takeaway. Yes, the report says some true and well-stated things about how admissions opacity and price (and lack of transparency about how price is calculated) are costing the school (and its peers) their credibility. I’m willing to believe the committee, or at least some of its members, believe these things.

But Yale, as an institution? Yale is not going to provide a minimum score because the true minimum score is lower than they would like to advertise.

Yale is not going to reform costs because notwithstanding its nominal nonprofit status, Yale likes making money.

And ultimately, Yale does not care whether the public likes or trusts it because Yale is an elite institution that does not believe it should be answerable to the public.

[Anonymous]

A report that recognizes that admissions to elite institutions is "tilted to advantaged" students is hardly ground breaking. If you can get yourself in there, you're going to have access to a very high quality education and lots of resources, opportunities, and financial assistance if you need it. But it's extremely difficult to get admitted and even more difficult if you're lower income. Welcome to an America.

[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.

I didn't know about now but they used to be dumber than the average non-athlete non-URM admit.

Please back this up. The studies I have seen have found that legacy admits have stats equal or higher to non legacies.

That's only if you include the affirmative action and athletic recruits.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-22341-023

[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.

I didn't know about now but they used to be dumber than the average non-athlete non-URM admit.

O they weren’t. They had slightly lower stats among a group where the real differences in ability are pretty much nil. Small differences in grades nd test scores are meaningless as a whole.

They sid thge same thing about affirmative action. That is was a small difference, like a tie breaker. it was a HUGE preference.

Legacy isn't as big a preference but its still pretty big.

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-22341-023