Education: Yale Knows Best

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For a year, 40 Yale freshmen had been put on an academic diet. They were given no choice of courses, only the nutritious table d'hóte (mathematics, literature, philosophy, science and a language) that Yale picked out for them. Last week Yale announced that the 40 freshmen had done three points better than their expected grades (based on prep-school marks and scholastic aptitude tests), while the rest of the class, choosing cafeteria-style whatever electives they wanted, had done only what was expected of them.

Result: more Yale freshmen and sophomores will probably be put on the diet next fall.