Some of the lunatics have taken over the asylum. It will pass. DS is concerned that it might deter qualified candidates from applying.
@IxnayBob I wondered if some may have hesitations but I honestly think this knee jerk reaction on the part of some students is a larger problem at many universities. Again what I’ve seen of recent puts my banana slug days in Santa Cruz to shame. What happened to striving for some level of open discourse sans yelling profanities.
Things often times get uncomfortable when heavy issues are at play but this seems beyond ridiculous…
One of DS’s friends wrote what I consider a very balanced Guest Opinion piece for YDN, http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2015/11/10/faber-for-yale-vs-racism/
@lxnaybob Bravo! A very thoughtful and pragmatic approach. I hope the masses are still taking time to read and consider the larger picture.
I’m not at all opposed to discussing this here, but here is a link to another thread devoted to it.
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1828617-yale-is-imploding-over-a-halloween-email-p1.html
This partisan world is so strange and seemingly counterproductive. Over and over I see people being outraged over bad behavior - and they react with bad behavior of their own. But it seems if one mentions the offense of the reaction, one is blasted for not taking the issue seriously enough, which is often not true at all.
I think the issue will recede–the march they had over it yesterday sounds like it was more of a love-fest than a rage-fest, so that’s a good sign. The discussion on the Parent’s Forum goes into it in more detail.
Haha - as my son awaits his SCEA decision, he is hoping it will deter qualified candidates from applying. He also said last night that it will give him a great topic for his alumni interview - if his alumni interview is ever scheduled.
@baltimoreguy, if you don’t mind saying, and if he’s discussed it, how does this all appear to an applicant and his parent?
@Community2605 I’ve purposeful stayed away from that thread as it is quickly digressing into some serious nastiness…:-/
My kiddo has been watching all this from afar. It did prompt a fruitful discussion in our home. He was pretty taken aback by the video of the student screaming #%%*!!! at her housing Master.
But he doesn’t regret his decision to make Yale his home.
@tonymom - I only came to that thread about a day “late” but it was already 7 pages into the discussion, so I don’t know all the ins and outs of that conversation. My son is far removed from the discussions on campus, it seems. And he is the type to respond to the fray with absolute silence, as there appears to be no welcome mat for thoughtful reflection, only outrage. How sad. No one has ever changed their mind about anything because they’ve been screamed at/cursed at/shamed. And the “Overheard at Yale” FB page is a disaster this week.
He is a pretty liberal kid, and was disappointed to see students from his side of the political spectrum demonstrate such total intolerance of the views of others (particularly when those views weren’t necessarily objectionable to begin with). He also thought the conduct of the student toward the professor in the video was completely out of line.
But he said he can’t really understand what it’s like to be subjected to racist treatment and as a result, he can’t issue a blanket judgment about whether or not their reaction was merited. He was also very impressed with how the professor comported himself in the heat of the moment and thought it would be cool to be in an environment that is home to such vigorous debate of contemporary societal issues.
As a parent, I thought it was the kind of thing that happens on college campuses all the time. If it hadn’t been Yale (or Harvard) and there hadn’t been a video, it wouldn’t have even been a blip on the screen. But when you combine the video with the Yale name, it becomes irresistible social media fodder and a chance to bash elite educational institutions as bastions of liberalism gone amok and pontificate on “what’s wrong with kids today.”
My DS sent me this last night and I loved it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kizOjQ-XD7U
My sophomore D was front and center at the March yesterday as the activist she was raised to be. I actually saw her on CNN this morning which made my day!! As an African American alumni (Yale Class of 82), it is somewhat disheartening to see that my kid is experiencing many of the same things I did 35 years ago. So much for a post-racial America. As an alumni, I could prepare her for what was coming and teach her to take the good with the bad.
I am wondering though, as I do interviews with African American students, how I am going to address this subject with them and their parents. If I feel it is still the right fit for my own child, I can tell them honestly that I think it will be okay for theirs. Though I am sure this will not deter anyone from applying and I still think Yale, with its flaws, is a far superior school to almost anywhere else (and I am not just talking academics).
@Tperry1982 Thank you for your insight, honestly it’s reassuring. I have a freshman and I’m curious if your sense is that your daughter experiencing the same things that you did 35 years ago means that there is something institutionally wrong with Yale.
No. There is something institutionally wrong with America. Yale is not a vacuum or a bubble and it draws its students from the real world. You can test for intelligence. I believe they do a much better job than most schools could ever begin to do. The students are happy. Even the minority ones.
@mmDad1965 We have season tickets and prepaid parking at lot D. We have done both the tailgate with a grill and the kind with just lunchmeat and snacks. You are more than welcome to join us if you want company. It will only be my husband and self (no little boys this trip because they get bored too fast). They do allow alcohol at the parking lot. And for the most part the cars around us have been friendly. I do see that most of the larger groups are people that met up there and set up a combined spread. As for events that are going on at the school, the concert I knew about and my daughter has asked not to come home that night but to stay the rest of the weekend because there are fun student events going on but they were student events and not parent ones. To be honest, I didn’t really feel that there were a lot of fun parent events for even parent weekend. LOL. We had more fun at bulldog days in that regard.
As for the news and media and attentions to what is going on campus right now-
I live in CT so of course its all over our news, on the front page of the Hartford Courant and therefore also all over my social media feed. I asked my daughter what it was like on campus and she said it was very tense the first two days and that she and her roommates were not walking anywhere alone. There were little pop up demonstrations and groups of very tense students in clusters here and there. But she said that during and after that “Day of Resilience” march, the climate became one of love and support and now she is nowhere near as stressed about it. She actually said that she is proud of where the students are on all of this. The media hype seems to be much more dramatized at this point because it was a tenuous situation before the media even knew about it. Today they were making a big deal on our local news about the closed door meeting that was held last night and the topics that were discussed. She didn’t even mention it and she is very active on campus so take that for whatever its worth.
@wchatar2 I don’t think that it is meritocracy at all. I believe that you have to have a merit standard to be considered but that you have to have done much more with your life than study to get there. When I say that they made different choices along the way, included in that is simply applying. It is entirely possible that many of her peers from HS could have been academically suited to attend. But most did not even apply to see if what they did beyond class was enough to make the cut. To have her feel punished by parents and peers that didn’t even try is not acceptable.
We are well aware that in some ways she won the lottery of colleges but she also was accepted to almost all of the others she applied to including another Ivy so its not about name dropping. She worked really hard to become who she is her whole life, not just in high school. Yes there was a certain level of merit to even be considered but you also had to do something more. Although capable of that, many of those we know never even tried. I am not willing to hide her accomplishment so that they can feel better about themselves. I would rather encourage future kids behind her to become more than just a scholar and take the chance.
On a side note of the same topic, she and I were talking about her friends that came from prep and feeder schools and how odd it is that they consistently have kids from the same school attending Yale. This is an entirely new situation for us think about because we do not come from that world. In that kind of social environment, I can see where it would be frustrating for parents and students to see others excited about where they were attending this early on. Many go to these schools for the sole purpose of getting into the more selective colleges. I still don’t feel that we should be any less proud to have a Yale sticker on our car along side of any other college our kids attend. I’m simply a proud parent.
I know this has been discussed here before but the time was not of concern to me so I didn’t pay attention. My son always flies in/out of Hartford but this time he’s coming home next sunday for turkey break out of JFK. I know he can take metro north to NYC, but then what?
Tons of options from either train station to JFK. Packing lighter will help – trust me – I’ve had to lug too much stuff at Penn Station before – not fun