A little more candor in class profile

To the Editor:

I must comment that the article on the Yale medical school Class of 2002 [First-Year Class Brings More than Smarts to School, Winter 1999] does injury to the English language. How is it possible to write that the class represents “a broad cross section of backgrounds and interests” when more than a third were undergraduates at either Yale or Harvard? Or when “half the class is Hispanic, African American or Asian-American”? Without reference to census data, it seems to me that together those minorities constitute 25 percent or less of the American population.

Now I could care less who you admit or why, but don’t try to tell me that such a narrow admission policy is “broad.” Come on, guys, this is Yale, not some bush-league operation. Tell it straight.

Michael W.R. Davis, B.A. ’53
Royal Oak, Mich.