Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale

[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.

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.

Stacking privilege on top of privilege without any merit certainly undermines credibility but this has been going on for a long time and we have known it goes on for a long time. Affirmative action was providing a lot of cover for these preferences. As long as affirmative action existed, nobody noticed how much the legacy and athletic admissions preferences were mostly helping rich white kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

And in a world where there are 7 or 8 legitimate candidates for admissions for every spot, the legacy tip means admission rates significantly higher than similarly situated applicants who are not legacy.

[Anonymous]

Yale, having declined in prestige in recent years due to factors entirely of its own making, has now decided the best way to restore some of that lost prestige is to point fingers at “academia” more broadly. Shocking, no?

[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.

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.

WTF are you talking about?

The number of students that have gotten into an ivy+ school from TJ that are not going to a ivy+ school because of money is effectively ZERO. These schools have very good financial aid and the only people turning them down are the ones getting into places like carnegie mellon or GA Tech where STEM is stronger than dartmouth or yale.

Unless history starts in 2022 we have seen a fairly steady rise in hispanic enrollment (mostly because the hispanic population has increased) as well as a smaller rise in black enrollment among Ivy+ baseds on IPEDs data from 2001 to today.

Here is an article that has some graphs.

https://www.highereddatastories.com/2025/01/diversity-in-first-year-class-at-ivy.html

They didn't pit asians against other minorities. They tapped into a growing discontent among asians on the one issue that they really care about, educational opportunity for their kids. This is not recent. Prop 209 was in 1996, pretending that asians were happy to be discriminated against in college admissions is not really supported by history.

Asians don't particularly like legacy preferences either but it's not illegal the way racial discrimination is.

[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.

DP

So you are ignoring what the article says and just engaging in mind reading that is consistent with your narrative?

[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?

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?

DP pretty sure being anti-woke is the majority of the country.

[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.

Unless it is a proxy for racial discrimination.

[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.

This was the entire point of the study. To justify returning to testing in the face of all the anti-racists saying that objective tests are racist.

[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.

Linemen catching strays

Linemen, particularly offensive linemen have a reputation for having better stats than the rest of the football team except maybe the quarterback.

[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.

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.

The important stuff is sections 1-4 and 7 While not directly saying so completely focus on the challenges with the current administration and their views of "woke". The rest of the report is fluff that they will never really address and have no actual interest in addressing because they do not believe that any of those things impact their standing with the groups which they actually care about.

[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.

DP

So you are ignoring what the article says and just engaging in mind reading that is consistent with your narrative?

Let’s just say I’m not holding my breath on transparent admissions and transparent pricing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yale, having declined in prestige in recent years due to factors entirely of its own making, has now decided the best way to restore some of that lost prestige is to point fingers at “academia” more broadly. Shocking, no?

Yale has not declined in prestige any more or less than other elite schools. Any decline is temporary and within in groups that frankly they do not give a rates ass about.

[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.

DP

So you are ignoring what the article says and just engaging in mind reading that is consistent with your narrative?

I actually read the entire report, every single page and section. The part that matters is sections 1-4 and section 7 which talk about the issues that the current administration is calling woke.

Regarding the sections on admissions they made no admissions or commitments to anything, just vague comments.

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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.

Unless it is a proxy for racial discrimination.

It isn't, it never was and it would be ironic seeing it reduced at the time when there are greater numbers of minorities including Asians reaching the point of potentially benefitting from legacy. The cry to reduce the impact of athletics is ironic as well because the sports impacted will be things like squash and fencing which are now predominantly Asian.

[Anonymous]

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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.

Linemen catching strays

Linemen, particularly offensive linemen have a reputation for having better stats than the rest of the football team except maybe the quarterback.

Maybe, John Urschel is an inspiration. I picked linemen based on a comment from a NESCAC coach who specifically said that it was extremely hard to recruit lineman with the needed academic chops.