The Right Stuff: Harvard admissions and the SAT

It is fascinating to read about the brouhaha over Harvard admissions and the SAT and see no mention of Catholic applicants.   Many years ago elite schools like Harvard and Yale selected most of their students from the ranks of exclusive preparatory schools that catered to affluent Protestants.  In the 1930s, Harvard's president James Conant thought it would be a good idea to recruit talent from outside those ranks.   He may have looked around and decided there should be some neighborhood kids at Harvard,  as in, if you people cook for us,  your children should be able to go to school with us.   And so it came to pass that my uncle, Robert Regan, the son of a trolley car conductor and a native-Gaeilge speaking washer woman, "passed" Conant's SAT test and won a scholarship to Harvard.  Uncle Rob joined Navy ROTC at Harvard and became a naval aviator who fought in the ferocious air battles of WW2 from the South Pacific to the Sea of Japan, winning the Navy Cross and many other medals.   Later he joined the ranks of Navy test pilots, chronicled in Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff.  It is ironic today that the SAT test,  which was intended to diversify our elite schools,  may now become a means for making them overly exclusive again.   I think it is a good thing for elite schools to make sure they have room for the "neighborhood" kids, the children of the people who cook their meals, cut their lawns and wash their clothes.   If the SAT no longer serves that purpose, then the elite schools should find other ways to determine who has The Right Stuff.