<p>I was admitted to Yale in 1974. While it WAS much less competitive back then, it was still very competitive, much more so than Michigan or NYU today. If someone wasn’t at or near the top of his or her high school class at a strong high school, there was usually a pretty clear reason for admission – special talent (at a national level), sports recruit, developmental recruit, affirmative action, significant EC achievements. Not everyone was a NMS, but there were lots of them. There were also lots of non-Protestants and non-whites. Men significantly outnumbered women. There were very few G.W. Bush types, and lots of them were actually pretty miserable; they had a hard time. My class did include one child of a future President, and one bona fide Kennedy. I don’t know if either was miserable, though, since I didn’t know either of them.</p>
<p>Re George W., it is impossible to overstate how important his father was. At the time, George H.W. Bush had not yet run for President, or been selected Vice President. He was a two-term congressman from Houston who had headed up the CIA for a few years, and was serving a term as chair of the Republican Party. But at Yale he was a total celebrity – the biggest of BMOCs, team captain, student government leader, Bonesman, very involved with the university. It isn’t remotely surprising that his idiot son (and nonididot sons) were accepted there.</p>
<p>Also, there were 40-something kids from Andover in my class. They went DEEP into the class at Andover.</p>