Yale students, if they're still anything like they were when I graduated a few short years ago, likely aren't overly concerned with the college admissions scandal that dominated the news this past spring, even as Lifetime releases its TV-movie based on the events and Felicity Huffman walks free after having served her eleven days in jail. Instead, Yale students will be focused on their classes, fulfilling their language requirements, agonizing as early as November about their plans for the following summer, and scrambling to join the various clubs that, like so many activities on campuses, require a surprisingly vigorous application process. For the newly arrived freshmen, who are, by now, probably starting to feel a bit more at home on campus, there is also probably still that lingering sense in the back of their heads that they made it: that they were admitted from the record 36,829 who applied for a spot in the class of 2023 to a school considered among the most prestigious in the world.
The college admissions scandal produced a number of thoughtful takes, from the recent inquiry suggesting that most admissions officers will still take applicants' words at face value—to Yale lecturer and Atlantic editor Graeme Wood's observations on the arguably outsized role of athletics in American higher education (“Anyone who is not American, watching these indictments of parents who allegedly paid to get their kids designated as soccer players and sailors so they could get into Stanford and Yale, will wonder why playing soccer or sailing should help you get into Stanford or Yale”). However, despite all of the hand-wringing about the scandal and the numerous proposed solutions—with only a few exceptions—the end goal was rarely questioned. It was still assumed that for the average young person, going to a school like Harvard or Yale or Duke was something to be overwhelming desired—and to lose one of those few coveted spots to someone whose parents had pulled strings was very unfortunate indeed.
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