Anonymous
04/17/2026 11:06
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I agree that nothing in the report indicates they will move to a lottery system. My point was that so long as they are admitting to promote undisclosed institutional priorities, they will continue to have the kind of “murky admissions practices” that the report decries.
Most of the institutional priorities are disclosed. Sports, money, legacy, etc. get.rid of them all.
What you are really saying is "let's focus on my priorities rather than yours because yours are misguided in my opinion because they do not favor me".
Anonymous
04/17/2026 11:06
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.
Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.
The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.
The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.
People are angry about sailing?
NP Of course they are. Nobody thinks kid should get a seat at one of the top academic schools in the country because they can .. sail. Sports that serve as a community building and a focus of school spirit is one thing. sailing is quite another.
Just curious, which sports build community in your opinion?
The ones where there are more unrelated people in the stands than on the field.
I have been to some of my son's matches and if you stripped out blood relatives and girlfriends, there would be NOBODY in the stands.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 11:05
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Wow the oblivious have woken up and seen the obvious. Now we just need to rebaseline grades and standardized tests to create the necessary distinction between applicants and we are back to normal
You're never going to fix GPAs.
But you can fix standardized test scoring curves. Make the curve flatter and extend out the tails.
And get rid of superscoring. 2 tries, both have to be reported.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 11:05
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Not sure if this is relevant to the current emotional rants about Yale & sports at colleges, but...
American football was invented at Yale.
(full disclosure: I was at the Yale-Harvard game in 1968, which Harvard won by a score of 29-29. ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Beats_Yale_29%E2%80%9329
American football was invented at Yale.
(full disclosure: I was at the Yale-Harvard game in 1968, which Harvard won by a score of 29-29. ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Beats_Yale_29%E2%80%9329
Anonymous
04/17/2026 11:04
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.
It's not about HIS kid, it's about society.
All those sports you named are pretty expensive.
The schools themselves are pretty expensive. There are plenty of flagship state schools that can offer better and cheaper education without the obscure sports focus. But, that just won't do for clout chasers.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 11:03
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
I am fine with giving up sports recruiting. It favors wealthy kids like most other things but has no academic purpose.
You are fine with it, so what. The Ivies have been recruiting for athletics for 125 years, it's important to them and they have every right to it. They shouldn't have to give one inch on sports recruiting until every other school does. Why should they disadvantage themselves relative to Alabama any more than they already do by not offering scholarships??
Anonymous
04/17/2026 11:02
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.
Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.
The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.
The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.
People are angry about sailing?
They are angry about country club sports recruiting
They don't mind football, basketball (maybe baseball, hockey, soccer and volleyball) but sailing? fencing? crew?
Anonymous
04/17/2026 11:00
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Wow the oblivious have woken up and seen the obvious. Now we just need to rebaseline grades and standardized tests to create the necessary distinction between applicants and we are back to normal
Normal? Even with the current admissions preferences the system is still less skewed to wealthy insider white men then it used to be. Let's make it more fair and inclusionary instead of going backwards into the old exclusionary past. That is exactly what is pissing people off
To be fair, a lot of schools used to have a "no blacks" policy and limited jews with holistic admissions.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 10:59
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
You could eliminate all of those sports and guess what, your kid still isn't getting in. As long as the prestige whores keep chasing these schools admissions will be driven by the denominator not preferences. I am all for things like SAT minimums and academic minimums for ALDC candidates which could even be set higher but the idea that these schools cannot have institutional priorities and generally admit whom they want is offensive. Just one example; any top professor who a school really wanted and pursued would be stupid to not insist on admissions preference for their children if it was something important to them.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 10:58
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Wow the oblivious have woken up and seen the obvious. Now we just need to rebaseline grades and standardized tests to create the necessary distinction between applicants and we are back to normal
You're never going to fix GPAs.
But you can fix standardized test scoring curves. Make the curve flatter and extend out the tails.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 10:55
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.
It's not about HIS kid, it's about society.
All those sports you named are pretty expensive.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 10:55
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
+1
Anonymous
04/17/2026 10:52
Subject: Re:Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Where universities have lost the pot is that they don’t teach. They have these super ego inflated professors who care more about research and their classes are afterthought..
That is nonsense. Some professors are excellent teachers and have a really good reputation around that. The students absolutely try to get into classes with top professors.
And the top professors do everything that they can to not teach undergraduates.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 10:49
Subject: Re:Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Where universities have lost the pot is that they don’t teach. They have these super ego inflated professors who care more about research and their classes are afterthought..
The research function (research and training grad students via what is effectively an apprenticeship) and the undergraduate education function are mostly separate functions which is one of the reasons that all of the funding cuts were just stupid. Destroy our research machine fighting about something that the researchers have no real interest in. The grad programs would cut the undergrad programs free in a heartbeat if they could, they just aren't relevant to their work.
This is why top SLACs are the single best place for undergraduate education in traditional subjects outside of engineering and CS.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 10:46
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:“
People not from the west but living in the west overlook the downsides and advocate for a system that they understand how to navigate vs one that they do not understand. There is much less angst from the native born. This isn’t unique to the top privates, it applies equally to the top UC schools given that many of these families live in CA. Our system of private universities is unique and the fact that they aren’t focused on peak academics but rather a high baseline then other factors is also pretty unique.
They want to attend these schools because if their prestige but at the same want to change them in ways that would reduce their prestige longer term.”
+1
Well put.
I was born here and I remember a time when the SATs counted for a hell of a lot more than it does now.
Holistic admissions was created to keep Jews out of Harvard. Literally created to give admissions officers enough discretion to discriminate.