I think the assumption by many, especially those not interested in sports and critical of sports is that athletes get much more of a special treatment than they do. And the perception of many sports boosters is that BYU falls down precisely because they won’t do more the way other Universities do.

Opaque admission procedures also provide cover to admit students who otherwise might not get in. Think children of donors (our knee-jerk reaction is to hate such admission, but all of us who attended college benefited greatly from the largess of wealthy and not-so-wealthy donors), athletes (I’m in no way denigrating all athletes, but, especially in revenue sports, the average SAT/ACT score and GPA for athletes tends to be lower than the average for the matriculating class – my college experience was greatly enriched by student athletes), and non-traditional students (their experiences don’t easily break down into neat numbers like grades and test scores, but I benefited greatly from studying alongside them).

My favorite myth is if you apply for a spring/summer enrollment instead of fall, your odds of acceptance are higher. I know families who have used this tactic. Their students were accepted and in my neighborhood it affirmed the myth driving more households to conjecture this approach might be the way to go.

When acceptance / non-acceptance letters are mailed, wild speculation starts all over again for why or why not. It’s an intense process and experience. In fact, I can’t believe the emotional calorie burn I see around me as families with high school seniors start the application process each fall.

My question is this: Why isn’t the church simply transparent so the process and past statistics are known? Aside from the church still being a black box by tradition and mindset, is there a strategic disadvantage to publishing the admittance evaluation process and prior years’ data?

To all: Personally, I’m a so-called native of BYU’s home state, and even being LDS, an Eagle scout, and serving an LDS mission I did not feel impelled to attend BYU. I figured I’d leave BYU to students who felt their own situation and lack of quality, affordable college/university warranted attending BYU. I do not have anything against BYU, I think I understand its value to a pre-internet global church. I just don’t feel that it is anything particularly special compared to any other private university, espescially compared with Westminster in Salt Lake City.

Put the pitchforks down please, y’all, I’m sure we can work this out. :)

I thought my colleague was right. I still do.

So Becky, regardless of your numbers, you owed no one any apologies (and especially no one from Utah or southern Idaho).