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College Comment
Ban Slots for Sports?
April
2002
by Jacob Remes '02
Jacob
Remes is a columnist for the Yale
Daily News, from which this article was adapted.
Thirty-five
students a year might not seem like a lot. But when 12,887 students apply to Yale for only 1,352 positions
-- as was the case last year -- 35 starts to seem like a big chunk.
Thirty-five is the
number of admittances the football team gets under current Ivy League policy.
These are 35 people admitted each year to Yale who might not otherwise get in.
Thirty-five places that the admissions office cannot give to those it might
deem more qualified.
Why should football -- or
any sport, for that matter -- get such rights? Athletics is the only extracurricular
activity that gets such privileges at Yale. It is time for this anachronistic
policy to end.
Supporters often argue
that varsity sports add to the life of the college, that the student athlete epitomizes the Yale Man (or Yale Woman), and that football players are good
students as well as sportsmen. All this may well be true. But it does not make
athletics special.
Dwight Hall does not
approach the admissions office with a list of 35 applicants it wants admitted.
The Singing Group Council does not recruit. The history department cannot pick
out the most promising high school historians and guarantee their admission.
Community servants
and activists, singers, and those who are exceptionally devoted to their studies enhance the life of the college; they represent the values that Yale tries to
inculcate in its students; and they are as good at their studies as they are
at other activities.
But in
the admissions office, only athletes are special.
The privilege of athletics
does not end at the admissions office. Officially, dean's excuses can be given
for four reasons: illness, the death of a family member, religious holidays,
and, in the words of the Blue Book, "varsity intercollegiate events." You cannot
get an excuse because you're in a play. You cannot get an excuse because you're
tutoring. You cannot get an excuse because you're publishing a newspaper or
a magazine. Only sports count.
Suggesting that sports
not be given a special status is not the same as suggesting that Yale abolish
its athletics program. Indeed, having athletes does improve Yale. Diversity
of interests is every bit as important as gender, racial, and economic diversity.
Few people suggest that as a group, football players -- or other athletes -- are
less able to contribute to Yale than others. But athletes should be required
to meet the same standards as all other applicants and students. If the 35 students
that the football staff demands cannot get admitted without that special priority,
they should not be at Yale. If athletes cannot deal with their classes and their extracurricular activity, they should give up their games or they should suffer
bad grades -- just like every other over-committed Yalie.
Jocelyn
Lippert '04 reported recently in the Yale
Daily News that the Ivy League was considering reducing
the number of football admittance slots. Yale ought to lead the
charge at the Ivy League to do away with such reserved spots altogether,
and for all sports.  |
