APRIL 25 • 2024 | 9
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admissions is that elite
schools care infinitely more
about their matriculation
rates (that is, the percentage
of accepted students who
actually decide to attend)
than their actual acceptance
rates. Nirvana for an
admissions department is
a low rate of acceptance,
coupled with a high rate
of matriculation. After all,
what’s the point of being
the most selective school
on the West Coast if most
of your admitted students
end up heading east to your
competition?
What does this mean
for us? Well, if you’re a
student who’s been accepted
to one or more of these
storied institutions (mazel
tov) — or a proud parent
or grandparent of such a
student (mazel tov) — it
might be time for you to
reach out to the dean of
students of said school and
politely inquire into what
the hell is going on and
what the administration
plans on doing about it.
For most colleges, the
deadline for accepted
students to commit to
attend is May 1. As a result,
this is one of the few times
in the admissions cycle
that students and their
families have a measure of
leverage. If, for example,
students admitted to both
the University of North
Carolina in Chapel Hill
(which pratfalled its way
to an F) and Duke (which
scored an impressive B),
decided to move en masse
to Durham and become
Blue Devils, then UNC
administrators — and the
boards that oversee them
— would be stocking up
on antacids and headache
powder. As they should.
If you’re a donor to a
school that received a
dunce cap from the ADL,
you have several choices.
The easier one would be
reducing or stopping your
gift in protest. A more
challenging, but perhaps
more satisfying, option
would be trying to fix the
campus from within, by
joining one of the boards
mentioned above. Or do
both. However you decide,
know that your voice
matters. So use it.
More than a century ago,
Justice Louis D. Brandeis
(the namesake of one
of the two high-scoring
campuses) famously wrote
that sunlight was the best
disinfectant. That principle
still holds true; Americans,
as a nation, will cut out
the rot of antisemitism
when it is properly
illuminated. This recently
was demonstrated by the
congressional grilling of
several university presidents
regarding antisemitism on
campus and, shortly after,
the ignominious dismissal
of two of them.
With its report, ADL has
focused spotlights all over
the country. What happens
next largely is up to us.
David Gemunder has served on
the boards of several national
organizations that combat
antisemitism, including Hillel
International, the Secure Community
Network and the Alpha Epsilon Pi
Foundation.
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