Anonymous
04/17/2026 15:10
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
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?
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?
Anonymous
04/17/2026 15:10
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:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.
Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.
The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.
The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.
People are angry about sailing?
Asians are angry about sports.
Asian here.
Lots of assumptions about asians and sports but the asians I know are not angry about sports. We have the resources to pay for sports. The poor asians don't but they probably get the FGLI preference.
We think some of these preferences are weird (giving a preference to professors kids would be considered pretty corrupt in my home country) but it doesn't bother us.
If you stack up all the preferences, the people who do NOT get a preference are native born white people who don't have the money to provide their kids an edge either through long term expensive activities or just a flat donation to institutions.
If you see an asian get really upset about testing, they probably poor or grew up poor. Testing is seen as a way to disrupt wealth and privilege in asia, here it is seen as reinforcing wealth and privilege.
Affluent asians are disproportionately alumni at some place that is worth having a legacy preference to. 5% of americans are asians, 20% of the alumni at the top schools are asian. The affluent asians might think legacy preferences are weird but we sort of like them. Stanford's recent stand against eliminating legacy preferences was met with a small sigh of relief by some families.
So nobody is actually mad about anything? Glad we cleared all that up. We’ve eliminated all the people who might have a grievance except poor whites. I don’t think they are the ones desperate to get into Yale in the first place so sounds like we’re all good here.
I can't speak for all asians. I was mad about the anti-asian discrimination, but SFFA seems to be making a difference in how people talk about being asian.
Also, it's not just poor whites gettig the shaft, its non-rich whites. A lot of the populist faction of MAGA comes from that group.
That group does not seem likely to want to send their kids off to elite private universities. They would like to destroy them as much as possible.
They normally don't pay any attention to them. The only reason that they are paying attention now is because of the nutjobs in office calling them "woke". They will promptly go back to ignoring them once the idiots are no longer in office.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 15:08
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:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.
Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.
The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.
The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.
People are angry about sailing?
Asians are angry about sports.
Asian here.
Lots of assumptions about asians and sports but the asians I know are not angry about sports. We have the resources to pay for sports. The poor asians don't but they probably get the FGLI preference.
We think some of these preferences are weird (giving a preference to professors kids would be considered pretty corrupt in my home country) but it doesn't bother us.
If you stack up all the preferences, the people who do NOT get a preference are native born white people who don't have the money to provide their kids an edge either through long term expensive activities or just a flat donation to institutions.
If you see an asian get really upset about testing, they probably poor or grew up poor. Testing is seen as a way to disrupt wealth and privilege in asia, here it is seen as reinforcing wealth and privilege.
Affluent asians are disproportionately alumni at some place that is worth having a legacy preference to. 5% of americans are asians, 20% of the alumni at the top schools are asian. The affluent asians might think legacy preferences are weird but we sort of like them. Stanford's recent stand against eliminating legacy preferences was met with a small sigh of relief by some families.
So nobody is actually mad about anything? Glad we cleared all that up. We’ve eliminated all the people who might have a grievance except poor whites. I don’t think they are the ones desperate to get into Yale in the first place so sounds like we’re all good here.
I can't speak for all asians. I was mad about the anti-asian discrimination, but SFFA seems to be making a difference in how people talk about being asian.
Also, it's not just poor whites gettig the shaft, its non-rich whites. A lot of the populist faction of MAGA comes from that group.
" but SFFA seems to be making a difference in how people talk about being Asian." Not in a positive manner.
None of the MAGA woke noise about the Ivy leagues has anything to do with helping Asians. It is entirely about keeping black people down, preying on the resentments of poor whites. Stephen Miller doesn't want more Asians at Ivy league schools, he wants fewer Asians in the country.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 15:08
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:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.
Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.
The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.
The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.
People are angry about sailing?
Asians are angry about sports.
Asian here.
Lots of assumptions about asians and sports but the asians I know are not angry about sports. We have the resources to pay for sports. The poor asians don't but they probably get the FGLI preference.
We think some of these preferences are weird (giving a preference to professors kids would be considered pretty corrupt in my home country) but it doesn't bother us.
If you stack up all the preferences, the people who do NOT get a preference are native born white people who don't have the money to provide their kids an edge either through long term expensive activities or just a flat donation to institutions.
If you see an asian get really upset about testing, they probably poor or grew up poor. Testing is seen as a way to disrupt wealth and privilege in asia, here it is seen as reinforcing wealth and privilege.
Affluent asians are disproportionately alumni at some place that is worth having a legacy preference to. 5% of americans are asians, 20% of the alumni at the top schools are asian. The affluent asians might think legacy preferences are weird but we sort of like them. Stanford's recent stand against eliminating legacy preferences was met with a small sigh of relief by some families.
So nobody is actually mad about anything? Glad we cleared all that up. We’ve eliminated all the people who might have a grievance except poor whites. I don’t think they are the ones desperate to get into Yale in the first place so sounds like we’re all good here.
I can't speak for all asians. I was mad about the anti-asian discrimination, but SFFA seems to be making a difference in how people talk about being asian.
Also, it's not just poor whites gettig the shaft, its non-rich whites. A lot of the populist faction of MAGA comes from that group.
That group does not seem likely to want to send their kids off to elite private universities. They would like to destroy them as much as possible.
Middle class white families do in fact care but they have gotten so used to getting the crumbs that they pretend they are happy going to their state flagship because everyone has a preference to go to the more selective private schools, except them.
They don’t see the ROI and it’s hard to argue with that. They may not be rich but they aren’t stupid.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 15:08
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:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.
Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.
The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.
The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.
People are angry about sailing?
Asians are angry about sports.
Asian here.
Lots of assumptions about asians and sports but the asians I know are not angry about sports. We have the resources to pay for sports. The poor asians don't but they probably get the FGLI preference.
We think some of these preferences are weird (giving a preference to professors kids would be considered pretty corrupt in my home country) but it doesn't bother us.
If you stack up all the preferences, the people who do NOT get a preference are native born white people who don't have the money to provide their kids an edge either through long term expensive activities or just a flat donation to institutions.
If you see an asian get really upset about testing, they probably poor or grew up poor. Testing is seen as a way to disrupt wealth and privilege in asia, here it is seen as reinforcing wealth and privilege.
Affluent asians are disproportionately alumni at some place that is worth having a legacy preference to. 5% of americans are asians, 20% of the alumni at the top schools are asian. The affluent asians might think legacy preferences are weird but we sort of like them. Stanford's recent stand against eliminating legacy preferences was met with a small sigh of relief by some families.
So nobody is actually mad about anything? Glad we cleared all that up. We’ve eliminated all the people who might have a grievance except poor whites. I don’t think they are the ones desperate to get into Yale in the first place so sounds like we’re all good here.
I can't speak for all asians. I was mad about the anti-asian discrimination, but SFFA seems to be making a difference in how people talk about being asian.
Also, it's not just poor whites gettig the shaft, its non-rich whites. A lot of the populist faction of MAGA comes from that group.
That group does not seem likely to want to send their kids off to elite private universities. They would like to destroy them as much as possible.
Middle class white families do in fact care but they have gotten so used to getting the crumbs that they pretend they are happy going to their state flagship because everyone has a preference to go to the more selective private schools, except them.
Middle-Class Maga families want to send their kids to Yale and Harvard?
Anonymous
04/17/2026 15:05
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:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.
Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.
The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.
The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.
People are angry about sailing?
Asians are angry about sports.
Asian here.
Lots of assumptions about asians and sports but the asians I know are not angry about sports. We have the resources to pay for sports. The poor asians don't but they probably get the FGLI preference.
We think some of these preferences are weird (giving a preference to professors kids would be considered pretty corrupt in my home country) but it doesn't bother us.
If you stack up all the preferences, the people who do NOT get a preference are native born white people who don't have the money to provide their kids an edge either through long term expensive activities or just a flat donation to institutions.
If you see an asian get really upset about testing, they probably poor or grew up poor. Testing is seen as a way to disrupt wealth and privilege in asia, here it is seen as reinforcing wealth and privilege.
Affluent asians are disproportionately alumni at some place that is worth having a legacy preference to. 5% of americans are asians, 20% of the alumni at the top schools are asian. The affluent asians might think legacy preferences are weird but we sort of like them. Stanford's recent stand against eliminating legacy preferences was met with a small sigh of relief by some families.
So nobody is actually mad about anything? Glad we cleared all that up. We’ve eliminated all the people who might have a grievance except poor whites. I don’t think they are the ones desperate to get into Yale in the first place so sounds like we’re all good here.
I can't speak for all asians. I was mad about the anti-asian discrimination, but SFFA seems to be making a difference in how people talk about being asian.
Also, it's not just poor whites gettig the shaft, its non-rich whites. A lot of the populist faction of MAGA comes from that group.
That group does not seem likely to want to send their kids off to elite private universities. They would like to destroy them as much as possible.
Middle class white families do in fact care but they have gotten so used to getting the crumbs that they pretend they are happy going to their state flagship because everyone has a preference to go to the more selective private schools, except them.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 15:02
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:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:These are private institutions with their own priorities which they have every right to. The idea that admissions is somehow hierarchical in terms of scores and grades needs to just go away. Elite schools want an interesting mix of interests and talents. They are assembling a class. The fact that a kid might have better admissions chances from having collected rare western wildflowers and being able to have a discussion on them or played violin at an incredible level, or being a top volleyball player while keeping high grades than someone at the top of their class in high school with high test scores is fine. Actually, it is more than fine.
Maybe we need to separate the undergraduate portions of these schools from the graduate portions. The grant money is actually for the grad schools and their research anyway so why pretend. Admissions to the grad schools is pretty straightforward and subject based which makes sense for them as well. The undergraduate schools could make sure that they aren't admitting a disproportionate number of their grad students from their undergraduates and the undergraduate schools can do as they please.
But they don't have a right to tax exempt status.
They don't have a right to any federal funding.
They don't have a right to any research grants.
If their private status takes away our ability to control our dollars, we should only be funding state schools. Let the private colleges fund their own research and their own student aid and their own donation incentives.
We could do that and give up the greatest basic research apparatus in the history of mankind.
Or, you could quit conflating the graduate side of the universities with the undergraduate side.
I conflate the two because they are the same. You are making an artificial distinction.
Do you intend to hold all republicans responsible for trump? Why? Can't you make the distinction between trump and the rest of the party?
The distinction isn’t artificial, it just isn’t something that you want to contemplate because it doesn’t fit your narrative. Same goes for your republican comment. I was a republican for 35 years. Anyone that voted for that POS deserves whatever shame they get. They enabled the the grifter. The backlash will be hard.
The backlash will be temporary. It always is, but the free political points from bashing DEI at colleges is permanent for the foreseeable future.
Why can't ALL the research at Harvard be done at state schools? If ALL the funding goes there, you don't think the researchers will follow?
They might and that would be fine. My issue is with demanding that institutions drop their priorities for what another group believes to be the "correct" priorities. It's just fundamentally wrong.
Harvard can keep doing what its doing but stop whining about the loss of funding.
Stop complaining about your kid dying of diseases if you don’t want to fund research
We can fund the research at U Mass or UCLA.
That's not how research works. They don't hand out the grants and ask UMass to do the research. You have the research team apply for the grants and win it. Does UMass have the research team doing the research on your kid's disease? do they?
No but the research team that used to do it can move to U Mass.
Then get rid of all private education from kids on up. No tax advantage dollars or research dollars for any of it including religious schools
Removing tax exempt status is not necessary because education is explicitly a tax exempt purpose unless they are illegally discriminating. That is in a law that was passed by congress.
But research funding is usually granted by the executive, it can be sent to Harvard or UNC. The law does not care.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 14:59
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:Anonymous wrote:These are private institutions with their own priorities which they have every right to. The idea that admissions is somehow hierarchical in terms of scores and grades needs to just go away. Elite schools want an interesting mix of interests and talents. They are assembling a class. The fact that a kid might have better admissions chances from having collected rare western wildflowers and being able to have a discussion on them or played violin at an incredible level, or being a top volleyball player while keeping high grades than someone at the top of their class in high school with high test scores is fine. Actually, it is more than fine.
Maybe we need to separate the undergraduate portions of these schools from the graduate portions. The grant money is actually for the grad schools and their research anyway so why pretend. Admissions to the grad schools is pretty straightforward and subject based which makes sense for them as well. The undergraduate schools could make sure that they aren't admitting a disproportionate number of their grad students from their undergraduates and the undergraduate schools can do as they please.
But they don't have a right to tax exempt status.
They don't have a right to any federal funding.
They don't have a right to any research grants.
If their private status takes away our ability to control our dollars, we should only be funding state schools. Let the private colleges fund their own research and their own student aid and their own donation incentives.
We could do that and give up the greatest basic research apparatus in the history of mankind.
Or, you could quit conflating the graduate side of the universities with the undergraduate side.
I conflate the two because they are the same. You are making an artificial distinction.
Do you intend to hold all republicans responsible for trump? Why? Can't you make the distinction between trump and the rest of the party?
The distinction isn’t artificial, it just isn’t something that you want to contemplate because it doesn’t fit your narrative. Same goes for your republican comment. I was a republican for 35 years. Anyone that voted for that POS deserves whatever shame they get. They enabled the the grifter. The backlash will be hard.
The backlash will be temporary. It always is, but the free political points from bashing DEI at colleges is permanent for the foreseeable future.
Why can't ALL the research at Harvard be done at state schools? If ALL the funding goes there, you don't think the researchers will follow?
They might and that would be fine. My issue is with demanding that institutions drop their priorities for what another group believes to be the "correct" priorities. It's just fundamentally wrong.
Harvard can keep doing what its doing but stop whining about the loss of funding.
Stop complaining about your kid dying of diseases if you don’t want to fund research
We can fund the research at U Mass or UCLA.
That's not how research works. They don't hand out the grants and ask UMass to do the research. You have the research team apply for the grants and win it. Does UMass have the research team doing the research on your kid's disease? do they?
No but the research team that used to do it can move to U Mass.
Then get rid of all private education from kids on up. No tax advantage dollars or research dollars for any of it including religious schools
Get rid of the tax payer piece of private education. Finance it yourself if you want it.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 14:57
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:These are private institutions with their own priorities which they have every right to. The idea that admissions is somehow hierarchical in terms of scores and grades needs to just go away. Elite schools want an interesting mix of interests and talents. They are assembling a class. The fact that a kid might have better admissions chances from having collected rare western wildflowers and being able to have a discussion on them or played violin at an incredible level, or being a top volleyball player while keeping high grades than someone at the top of their class in high school with high test scores is fine. Actually, it is more than fine.
Maybe we need to separate the undergraduate portions of these schools from the graduate portions. The grant money is actually for the grad schools and their research anyway so why pretend. Admissions to the grad schools is pretty straightforward and subject based which makes sense for them as well. The undergraduate schools could make sure that they aren't admitting a disproportionate number of their grad students from their undergraduates and the undergraduate schools can do as they please.
But they don't have a right to tax exempt status.
They don't have a right to any federal funding.
They don't have a right to any research grants.
If their private status takes away our ability to control our dollars, we should only be funding state schools. Let the private colleges fund their own research and their own student aid and their own donation incentives.
We could do that and give up the greatest basic research apparatus in the history of mankind.
Or, you could quit conflating the graduate side of the universities with the undergraduate side.
I conflate the two because they are the same. You are making an artificial distinction.
Do you intend to hold all republicans responsible for trump? Why? Can't you make the distinction between trump and the rest of the party?
The distinction isn’t artificial, it just isn’t something that you want to contemplate because it doesn’t fit your narrative. Same goes for your republican comment. I was a republican for 35 years. Anyone that voted for that POS deserves whatever shame they get. They enabled the the grifter. The backlash will be hard.
The backlash will be temporary. It always is, but the free political points from bashing DEI at colleges is permanent for the foreseeable future.
Why can't ALL the research at Harvard be done at state schools? If ALL the funding goes there, you don't think the researchers will follow?
They might and that would be fine. My issue is with demanding that institutions drop their priorities for what another group believes to be the "correct" priorities. It's just fundamentally wrong.
Harvard can keep doing what its doing but stop whining about the loss of funding.
Stop complaining about your kid dying of diseases if you don’t want to fund research
We can fund the research at U Mass or UCLA.
That's not how research works. They don't hand out the grants and ask UMass to do the research. You have the research team apply for the grants and win it. Does UMass have the research team doing the research on your kid's disease? do they?
No but the research team that used to do it can move to U Mass.
Then get rid of all private education from kids on up. No tax advantage dollars or research dollars for any of it including religious schools
Anonymous
04/17/2026 14:53
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:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.
Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.
The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.
The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.
People are angry about sailing?
Asians are angry about sports.
Asian here.
Lots of assumptions about asians and sports but the asians I know are not angry about sports. We have the resources to pay for sports. The poor asians don't but they probably get the FGLI preference.
We think some of these preferences are weird (giving a preference to professors kids would be considered pretty corrupt in my home country) but it doesn't bother us.
If you stack up all the preferences, the people who do NOT get a preference are native born white people who don't have the money to provide their kids an edge either through long term expensive activities or just a flat donation to institutions.
If you see an asian get really upset about testing, they probably poor or grew up poor. Testing is seen as a way to disrupt wealth and privilege in asia, here it is seen as reinforcing wealth and privilege.
Affluent asians are disproportionately alumni at some place that is worth having a legacy preference to. 5% of americans are asians, 20% of the alumni at the top schools are asian. The affluent asians might think legacy preferences are weird but we sort of like them. Stanford's recent stand against eliminating legacy preferences was met with a small sigh of relief by some families.
So nobody is actually mad about anything? Glad we cleared all that up. We’ve eliminated all the people who might have a grievance except poor whites. I don’t think they are the ones desperate to get into Yale in the first place so sounds like we’re all good here.
I can't speak for all asians. I was mad about the anti-asian discrimination, but SFFA seems to be making a difference in how people talk about being asian.
Also, it's not just poor whites gettig the shaft, its non-rich whites. A lot of the populist faction of MAGA comes from that group.
That group does not seem likely to want to send their kids off to elite private universities. They would like to destroy them as much as possible.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 14:53
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The whole attraction of yale etc is that they are full of elite rich people who net work with each other and occasionally with a smart climber who manages to get in with the net work - it has nothing to do with the actual academics - if you went to a lottery system it would just be another version of top public schools - getting rid of the network through getting rid of legacies donors etc. is missing the whole point of these sorting hats for the ultra connected and rich - which alot of our children wouldn't get the benefit of even if they got in
A lot of people see these places as stepping stones to higher academic goals.
If that were true I could respect that but I personally doubt that most middle class - uppermiddle class people whining about their kids not getting into ivies is because it denies a pathway to getting a phd in medieval architecture. they think its a pathway to status and $$
The PhD doesn't have to be in something like that.
STEM PhDs exist. Medical school exists. Law school exists.
+1, there’s many pathways in the biomedical/chemistry/r&d world you cannot access without a phd
Anonymous
04/17/2026 14:26
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The whole attraction of yale etc is that they are full of elite rich people who net work with each other and occasionally with a smart climber who manages to get in with the net work - it has nothing to do with the actual academics - if you went to a lottery system it would just be another version of top public schools - getting rid of the network through getting rid of legacies donors etc. is missing the whole point of these sorting hats for the ultra connected and rich - which alot of our children wouldn't get the benefit of even if they got in
A lot of people see these places as stepping stones to higher academic goals.
If that were true I could respect that but I personally doubt that most middle class - uppermiddle class people whining about their kids not getting into ivies is because it denies a pathway to getting a phd in medieval architecture. they think its a pathway to status and $$
The PhD doesn't have to be in something like that.
STEM PhDs exist. Medical school exists. Law school exists.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 14:24
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:Anonymous wrote:Unless Yale plans to dramatically increase in size, the only way to end the “murky admissions practices” is to be open about conducting a lottery for everyone over a certain benchmark. There is no fair way to pick a mere 2% from a pool of highly-qualified 17 year olds.
The pool of truly highly qualified applicants is much smaller than the number who appear highly qualified on paper. grade inflation, test optional, superscoring, score choice, fake ECs all make it highly difficult to separate the wheat from the chaff, turns college admissions into a cynical game of PR and marketing.
It’s not that you’re wrong, it’s that Yale and its peers have no ability to reverse grade inflation or eliminate the cynical game of PR and marketing, and their admissions offices have no ability to distinguish between the truly qualified and those who only look qualified on paper. Picking the 2% who are truly qualified from a very large pool of people who appear to be truly qualified is impossible.
Qualified for what? Yale needs to have biochem majors and math majors and history majors and drama students and hockey players on and on. You don't get that with a lottery. They can change to a lottery but it fundamentally changes lots of things about current American colleges.
And what good is freeing up science research dollars because you instituted a lottery and ending up without the students interested in pursuing the research? That makes no sense.
I see nothing in this report that indicates a lottery system is going to be used by American universities.
I could do without Hockey players.
You know what would be popular - if the ivy League together got rid of 20% of their sports. Hockey is popular, I get it. But how about moving the following from varsity/recruited sports to club sports:
Mens sailing
Women sailing
Mens skiing
Womens skiing
mens water polo
womens water polo
mens squash
womens squash
mens fencing
womens fencing
I'd also get rid of mens field hockey and women's wrestling but maybe that's too controversial
if you have sports that dont bring in 30 spectators at home, it's a club sport. treat it like one.
get rid of legacy at the same time.
get rid of the Z list.
and put in place SAT minimums.
announce it all at once.
Wouldn't it just be easier to have your kid play by the existing rules rather than trying to reshape it in your image? Get your kid into sailing, squash, water polo and fencing.
Do as much of that as you like but it has nothing to do with pursuing higher education. Makes no sense.
The school values sports. You don’t. Find a school that aliwoth your priorities.
The Yale report indicates that that ship is sailing. Has nothing to do with me. They want to get rid of things like recruiting for sailing that is angering the country. Yale probably needs research dollars more than it needs a sailing team.
People are angry about sailing?
Asians are angry about sports.
Asian here.
Lots of assumptions about asians and sports but the asians I know are not angry about sports. We have the resources to pay for sports. The poor asians don't but they probably get the FGLI preference.
We think some of these preferences are weird (giving a preference to professors kids would be considered pretty corrupt in my home country) but it doesn't bother us.
If you stack up all the preferences, the people who do NOT get a preference are native born white people who don't have the money to provide their kids an edge either through long term expensive activities or just a flat donation to institutions.
If you see an asian get really upset about testing, they probably poor or grew up poor. Testing is seen as a way to disrupt wealth and privilege in asia, here it is seen as reinforcing wealth and privilege.
Affluent asians are disproportionately alumni at some place that is worth having a legacy preference to. 5% of americans are asians, 20% of the alumni at the top schools are asian. The affluent asians might think legacy preferences are weird but we sort of like them. Stanford's recent stand against eliminating legacy preferences was met with a small sigh of relief by some families.
So nobody is actually mad about anything? Glad we cleared all that up. We’ve eliminated all the people who might have a grievance except poor whites. I don’t think they are the ones desperate to get into Yale in the first place so sounds like we’re all good here.
I can't speak for all asians. I was mad about the anti-asian discrimination, but SFFA seems to be making a difference in how people talk about being asian.
Also, it's not just poor whites gettig the shaft, its non-rich whites. A lot of the populist faction of MAGA comes from that group.
Anonymous
04/17/2026 14:23
Subject: Universities Really Are Messed Up (says Yale
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:The whole attraction of yale etc is that they are full of elite rich people who net work with each other and occasionally with a smart climber who manages to get in with the net work - it has nothing to do with the actual academics - if you went to a lottery system it would just be another version of top public schools - getting rid of the network through getting rid of legacies donors etc. is missing the whole point of these sorting hats for the ultra connected and rich - which alot of our children wouldn't get the benefit of even if they got in
A lot of people see these places as stepping stones to higher academic goals.
If that were true I could respect that but I personally doubt that most middle class - uppermiddle class people whining about their kids not getting into ivies is because it denies a pathway to getting a phd in medieval architecture. they think its a pathway to status and $$
Anonymous
04/17/2026 14:20
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: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.
There is an SAT minimum.
When top schools had kids with only top scores and no nationally ranked EC the drop out rate was high because only smart kids can’t handle being in the bottom 30% of the class and someone has to be.
I call BS. See: Caltech.
Or pretty much any school with the word tehnology in the name.
Technology has destroyed our world. Perhaps we should not have just let SAT cheaters be the ones who get into these schools.
Perhaps if we had athletes and artists we wouldn’t be in such a terrible situation,
Yeah and we could communicate via cave paintings.