<p>Why was the Andover dean so concerned about Bush's prospects at Yale? Perhaps he glanced at Bush's SAT score of 1206, above average but nowhere near the level needed for acceptance at an Ivy League school. (According to Cecil Adams, who writes the Straight Dope column, Bush's score was almost 200 points lower than the average for Yale freshmen circa 1970.) Bush's middling SAT score, incidentally, is roughly the same as that for most of the black students admitted to selective schools in a major Mellon Foundation study that began in 1976. </p>
<p>Perhaps that Andover dean also looked at Bush's "solid" grades, which may or may not have exceeded the C average he later earned at Yale. In other words, despite Bush's status as a Yale "legacy" from a very prominent and wealthy family, the dean was sufficiently naive to think he might not be admitted. </p>
<p>Back then, "affirmative action" for the sons and daughters of alumni was a major factor in admissions at Yale and other selective colleges -- and continues to be an important factor today. The children of alumni are about twice as likely to be accepted by Yale as other applicants. Whether their qualifications are twice as good, nobody seems to know. In the class of 2004, according to this interesting essay in the Yale Herald, the largest identifiable group of matriculates is from "families with some kind of Yale affiliation."</p>