@waddups :
- Soheils is right that I was joking, although there is a serious point there. Twelve years ago or so Yale admitted a very impressive Afghani refugee who had largely taught himself English and advanced mathematics under very primitive conditions. Several influential alumni who had met him were privately funding his tuition. It became public that as a teenager he had served as a special assistant/translator to a high-ranking Taliban official for 7-8 months, something he had fully disclosed to Yale and to his benefactors. (They took it merely as confirmation that everyone who had ever met the guy had been bowled over by how smart he was.) Nevertheless, there was a huge furor, and Yale ultimately had to rescind his admission.
I think with a candidate from Iran, colleges will be cautious about vetting him or her to avoid that kind of situation.
- On what basis do you conclude that I am ignorant and/or unsophisticated about Hezbollah? I may actually agree with you, or at least not disagree anywhere near as much as you have assumed. That doesn't change the hard truth in my joke: No mainstream U.S. college will knowingly admit and fund an applicant associated with Hezbollah. Is that really good policy? Should it be more nuanced? Reasonable people could debate that (but on some other website, not this one).
One of the great things about the University of Chicago, by the way, is that it’s one of the few places in the country where I can imagine people having a reasoned debate about Hezbollah. At most universities, including the most famous ones, any attempt to do that would immediately devolve into grandstanding, shouting, and sloganeering by both sides. But at Chicago, the culture of discussion that is both rigorous and respectful generally rejects ideologues of any stripe.