4 comments to April 15 Zoom

• John Hatch

  April 19, 2021 at 9:55 am · Reply

  Well done, well prepared. Thank you!

• Bill Weber

  April 19, 2021 at 4:04 pm · Reply

  I enjoyed the Zoom last Thursday night and wished I could have spoken, but it appeared my audio was not on properly. All I wanted to do was talk about my 49 years on the ASC and some experiences with the 6-8 interviews I and my partner, Jon Homuth,’66, did each year in this sparsely populated part of upstate NY with no major high schools.

  After I resigned from the Directorship, Jon left a few years later and it appears there is no replacement for us in ASC area 1208. I purposely left Ithaca out on my area because I felt the Yalies at Cornell should be “pulling their weight” for Yale; I have no idea if any of them ever did.

  I had the usual disappointments with rejections of seemingly great candidates, but I did get some acceptances over the years which were gratifying and sensible. I was able to discuss many candidates with my rep in the admissions office and remember a lively discussion I had with him about a young lady who had spent the first 10 years of her life in a yurt in Mongolia. She appeared to be academically qualified and the point I tried to make was that she would be an interesting addition to the campus. He did not think her ethnic diversity and very different upbringing was significant enough to add her to the Yale scene.

  Another comment I wanted to make was that I have always thought Yale should admit a few capable students from non-metro areas that do not offer the expanded educational opportunities of the larger metro schools. The policy of mainly accepting only the very best and brightest leaves out a portion of the population that could easily be late bloomers contributing to our society. A few of the high school principals I dealt with lamented the fact that they could not offer the same opportunities the larger schools could.

  Overall I believe Yale is doing a great job in student selection and the students I have seen there at our reunions seem to be everything great about the youngsters Yale has on campus. We cannot mirror the student body of our era and because of today’s society, that is a good thing!

  Does anyone recall Jonathan Holloway who spoke to us at our last reunion? I stayed in touch with him after he moved to Northwestern and we had some lively discussions about Stanford, Yale and Northwestern. Now that he is President of Rutgers, I am glad to have known him and reflect on his career at Yale and afterwards.

  Best regards, Bill Weber

• Roman Weil

  April 21, 2021 at 2:18 pm · Reply

  I have thought that Yale does not penalize students for the failings of their high schools to offer advanced courses. If the students take the most advanced offerings available, the admissions staff, I believe, gives full credit. Woe betide the students who take less than the most advanced. I know a kid in the rising College Class of 2025 who attended a weak rural high school in central Washington State who exhausted its math offerings by the end of sophomore year. The school arranged for some on-line math to keep his brain engaged. Harvard and Williams offered early action admission partly, I think because he is an athlete, but the lack of advanced courses at the school didn’t affect things. I have no way of knowing that Yale, too, looks at the students’ facing the challenges available, not the ones unavailable. They tell us they that do.

  On another of Bill’s topics. I met, through Quora, last spring a high school senior from Genesee NY who had been accepted to both Princeton and Yale and who was seeking guidance as to where to go. Through my network at Berkeley College, I found a current student with his interests from nearby him and got him inculcated. Princeton offered no such services. He chose Yale. Post hoc; ergo propter hoc, I’m sure; he told me so. He hadn’t had ASC contact. Bill, send me your email and I’ll introduce the guy, who says he has no regrets about his choice.

  Roman.Weil@gmail.com

• Al Chambers

  April 22, 2021 at 1:00 am · Reply

  It was good to see you, Bill, at the first evening program for Yale62.org. Thanks for your years of interest and support of the website and your interesting observations.

  I share your sense about the extraordinary competition for admission to Yale. The six applicants that I interviewed virtually this year for admission to the Class of 2025, as a member of the Southeast Michigan ASC, were so impressive. Yet, they were met by Deny or Wait List when they looked earlier this month, with hope and anticipation, at the online notification from Yale. I think and hope they all will ‘land” well.

  I am sorry that you were not recognized at the Admissions and Covid session. We asked that classmates use the Chat function to let us know they had a question or a comment. I apparently didn’t explain it well enough because when the good turnout of 30 or so classmates didn’t respond, we switched to calling on those whose hand was raised but missed you. We think it is possible that many classmates may not be comfortable with the Chat function or the Blue Hand or raised hand tools that are part of the powerful Zoom technology. Overall, it seemed like a good discussion and classmates stayed through the entire one-hour program.