Exceptional talent

Regarding the Nov. 24 Point of View article by Stephen M. Farmer, vice provost for enrollment and undergraduate admissions at UNC-Chapel Hill: Farmer’s rationalization of why UNC accepts “an average of 20” student(?) athletes each year who don’t meet the requirements is carefully written and misleading. The minimum requirements placed on these students are already lower than those faced by the average children of taxpayers.

Farmer writes about those who struggle mightily to go on to succeed and then leaps to suggest the real victims here are student athletes who don’t meet the requirements even though they displace those who do. Seriously, no one can possibly say the kind of “students” recently exposed at UNC-CH were anything but talent for the basketball and football programs pretending to matriculate.

Farmer explains that “Some were unable despite their best efforts ...,” forgetting that even after cherry-picking classes, classless classes, no exams, plagiarism and a staff of advisers, tutors and ghost writers, these few “struggling” students finish their time at UNC (with or without degrees) unable to read or write at an eighth-grade level. Listen to the postgame interviews. The only “obstacle” that must be overcome is being truthful; graduation rates are down.

Jay Strong

Chapel Hill