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June 17, 2006, 12:32am
35
<p>There’s an interesting statement in the current Yale Alumni Magazine from Rick Levin, in which he expresses concerns about whether the standards for admission to the special student program have become too lax.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/current/q_a.html[/url] ”>http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/current/q_a.html</a> ;
Our review has raised questions whether the admissions practices of the non-degree Special Student Program have been consistent with the published criteria, let alone the standard that should prevail. In recent years, while fewer than 10 percent of the applicants to the regular undergraduate program have received offers of admission, more than three-quarters of the applicants to the non-degree program have been admitted.</p>
<p>The procedures for admitting students to the degree-granting Eli Whitney Program have been more rigorous and have resulted in somewhat greater selectivity. Yet, here too, the rate of admission seems high when compared with regular admission to Yale College; almost 30 percent of recent applicants have been admitted. It is difficult to understand why the standard for this program should be any lower than that used to judge the qualifications for regular admission to Yale College, since the same degree is granted in both cases.
He goes on to say that, effective immediately, the standard for converting from the special student program to the degree granting program will be “equivalent to that applied to candidates for regular admission to Yale College.” </p>
<p>In the same issue, there’s a separate article on the whole controversy:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/current/rahmatullah.html[/url] ”>http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/issues/current/rahmatullah.html</a></p> ;
<p>That article is generally sympathetic to Hashemi, but it does include the following interesting comment:
The administration’s public silence has left it unclear exactly who participated in the decision to admit Hashemi. Richard Shaw, who was Yale’s dean of admissions until he left for Stanford last summer, talked enthusiastically about Hashemi with the Times Magazine writer (“This is a person to be reckoned with and who could educate us about the world”) but has declined comment since. The standard process for admitting nondegree special students calls for a decision by the undergraduate admissions office. It allows for, but doesn’t require, further consultation. The Yale Alumni Magazine has learned that, as is typical with admissions decisions, neither Yale’s president nor the dean of the college took part in the decision to admit Hashemi. Yale’s president told the Yale Daily News he would not take part in deciding on Hashemi’s application to the special-student BA program.
So Levin sets a new more rigorous standard, but then says that he will “not take part in deciding” on the application. Very politically astute. ;)</p>