YaleCoursesThe History of Yale College Admissions - Purposes of College Education, Lecture 11
YaleCourses
Admissions History 0:00
Yale’s admissions history is treated as a live and controversial subject, with most attention on the twentieth century and only brief nods to earlier and later periods. The lecture names religion, race, and gender as the main changes to follow, and it warns that older Yale leaders sometimes said offensive things. It also points to the 1960s as the decade when holistic admissions took shape.
Brewster and Clark 11:36
Kingman Brewster and the young admissions director Inky Clark drove the shift. Brewster’s 1967 letter set out the criteria still discussed today: future leadership, good use of Yale’s academic and nonacademic resources, effort to stretch one’s abilities, and concern for others. The speaker calls Clark a major figure in Yale’s history and says later gains in access and financial aid built on the changes they made.
Brewster and Tobin 16:01
Brewster links admissions to moral concern, variety, and equality of opportunity. He says Yale must admit students from many backgrounds or people will lose faith in the American system. He also argues that reform matters because the 1960s already feel unstable, with riots, Vietnam, and campus unrest making elites fear the system may not hold.
Admissions priorities 20:04
Tobin’s memo presses a different view. He wants admissions neutral about future careers, so it does not favor only business, politics, or other prominent paths over the academic student. He separates academic potential from leadership potential, then asks for a mix of both. He also questions overuse of athletics and extracurriculars, while supporting science students, geographic range, minority inclusion, legacy admissions, and coeducation.
Immigration and quotas 31:04
By the 1920s Yale was taking in more than 800 students a year, while its housing system still lagged behind. The real issue was no longer whether a student met the bar, but how to choose among many qualified applicants. In 1926 Jewish enrollment passed 13 percent, and a dean set a 10 percent quota that held through about 1966. Public school recruiting was cut back, private school students rose to 81 percent by 1930, and “character” often meant white Protestant.
Postwar change and reform 36:37
After the war, Yale was seen as a rich man’s school and slipped behind Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, and Berkeley in academic standing. William Clyde DeVane asked for greater intellectual eminence, and later reports named “character” and “leadership” as covers for favoritism toward rich, Christian, Anglo-Saxon, and prep school applicants. In 1966 Yale announced need-blind admissions, ended the Jewish quota, and moved toward a more merit-based policy, even as legacy preference and other old habits remained.
Signs of change 47:04
Private-school students fell from 56 percent in 1960 to 39 percent in 1967, and legacies dropped from 28 percent in 1961 to 14 percent in 1967. The speaker then points to later progress: Bart Giamatti rose from a family with a laborer grandfather to university president, and Yale later chose Jewish presidents.
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