Stanford’s Reputation and Prestige

While I am a strong advocate, as well as a former attendee, of the small, independent, liberal arts college, I sure don’t buy all this malarkey that you have elected to espouse for Stanford University (May 7).

Stanford, for years has earned itself a reputation as a haven for rich, spoiled, San Francisco kids, most of whom are just delaying the process of growing up for another four years. It has been, perhaps, the near absence of quality colleges in the Bay Area that have caused gifts to flow to Stanford as voluminously as they have.

The artificially created premium placed on entry into Stanford has caused its admissions people to take a most unjudicious course in their selection of high school seniors.

This policy, consisting of being super selective, taking only those with perfect academic records and extensive participation in extracurricular activities, really isn’t all that productive in the real world.

Many of our leaders were rather mediocre at one time or another. It would be interesting to monitor the progress of a selected (I didn’t say select) group of ordinary “C+” students who just made it into one of the “lesser” colleges, during the thirty years or so after graduation.

WAYNE RIVES

El Toro