The Titan Sub Disaster And The Ivy Con

There's an intriguing counterpoint in the Discovery documentary Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster between the charismatic, patrician Stockton Rush and the more workaday Josh Gates, host of Expedition Unknown, who visits OceanGate in Everett, WA in an effort to produce an episode of his show based on Rush's project.

He recounts that after the visit, he felt so uncomfortable about Rush's slapdash approach to safety that he called the Discovery CEO and, as he put it, "fell on his sword", apologizing that even though money had been put into producing the episode, he was convinced something bad was going to happen, and he didn't want to put the show or Discovery in the position of appearing to publicize or endorse OceanGate. Clearly this was a prudent move.

So why has Princeton been so eager to promote Stockton Rush, before and after the Titan tragedy, especially when Josh Gates and Discovery foresaw a real downside to any potential link? A web search on "Stockton Rush" brings up several official Princeton eulogies, such as Big Dreams and Daring Marked the Life of Stockton Rush ’84 Princeton friends are mourning ‘Tock’ Rush, who died last week on a Titanic expedition. Oh, he was "Tock" Rush, I get it. Let's dig a little deeper:

Stockton Rush graduated from Princeton University in 1984 with a B.S.E. in mechanical and aerospace engineering (MAE), maintaining a Princeton tradition that goes back to the beginning of the institution. His father, Richard “Tok” Rush, graduated from Princeton. Their predecessor, another Richard Stockton, was one of Princeton’s first graduates in 1748 and went on to sign the Declaration of Independence. His father, Robert Stockton, donated land in Princeton, New Jersey, to draw the college from its original location in Newark. Stockton’s son, Richard “Ben” Rush, would follow in his father’s footsteps with an MAE degree from Princeton in 2011, with a thesis on a robotic arm for a submersible vehicle.

He was a legacy. Those who follow this blog will recognize that legacies, the children of alumni, are a major exception to the perceived merit-based admissions policies of elite universities. According to the Daily Princetonian,

Opponents of legacy admissions have cited the high percentage legacy students make up in a class and the fact that a higher proportion of legacy applicants are admitted. Admissions data from Harvard, revealed by the affirmative action case, showed that between 2010 and 2015, legacy applicants had an acceptance rate of 33 percent (compared to the overall rate of 6 percent). The Class of 2022 at Princeton had a legacy admission rate of 31.7 percent. In the same ‘Inquirer’ interview, Eisgruber stated that “12.5 [percent] of students are children of alumni.”

This source puts Princeton's overall admissions rate for the class of 2028 at 4.62%. In other words, if you're a legacy, your chances of being admitted are more than six times greater than if you're just applying on the basis of grades, SATs, and extracurriculars. But the set-aside for legacies, as I've been pointing out here, is just one of perhaps two dozen that were, according to Jerome Karabel and Alan Dershowitz, originally developed to limit admissions of Jews without the need for a specific Jewish quota.

In other words, if elite-school admissions were based exclusively on merit -- traditionally meaning grades, SATs, and extracurriculars -- there'd be too many Jews and Asians, and not as many slots for the upper class. But each of the set-asides adds up. These include foreign students, who pay full freight, 20-30% at the ivies, a big set-aside indeed.

Then there are preppies; recruited athletes, including those for upper-class sports like rowing, fencing, and lacrosse; students from the plains and Rocky Mountain states; DEI candidates; and children of celebrities, politicians, and major donors. If you go looking for the percentages of each such set-aside in typical Ivy entering classes, you'll get something like 80% who've come in via set-asides. This has me questioning how Princeton comes up with an "overall" admissions rate of 4.62% if as many as 80% of its students come in via set-asides where the rate is much higher.

And here's where we get to the heart of the Ivy con: the perception that the Ivies admit only the best and brightest. In Harvard's defense, for instance, Catharine B. Hill, former president of Vassar College and provost of Williams College, writes,

At Harvard, about 25% of students are international. For institutions that are educating graduate students in Ph.D. programs, the goal is to train the next generation of researchers to contribute to making discoveries to solve the world’s challenging problems.

. . . Harvard historically has used its best judgment to recruit and educate the next generation of America’s and the world’s skilled workforce and innovators. And it has been tremendously successful in this endeavor so far.

Really? Here's another version of the same line:

Since the postwar era, America’s best universities have led the world. Harvard, Princeton, MIT, CalTech — these elite universities are the foundation of the American scientific supremacy that has in turn fueled decades of economic growth. But also, by virtue of their unparalleled ability to attract the best minds from around the world, these schools have given the US the educational privilege of being the magnet of global academic excellence.

. . . The ability to attract the best of the best, especially in the sciences, is what makes Harvard Harvard, which in turn has helped make the United States the United States.

The fact is that, if you look at the typical makeup of an Ivy entering class, well under half has been admitted purely on merit. But the universities use this relatively small group to promote an illusion of excellence: they're recruiting and educating the next generation of blah blah blah! They're the magnet of global academic blah blah blah! That may be so, but it applies to well under half of any entering class. The rest are, let's face it, well-bred coasters and con artists like "Tock" Rush.

Mike Rowe tells Chris Cuomo: "The Ivy League has beclowned themselves and Harvard has led the be-clowning." pic.twitter.com/6cMwTU4DZS

— JOSH DUNLAP (@JDunlap1974) May 29, 2025

It intrigues me that the low-to-middlebrow Discovery Channel and Josh Gates had enough insight to see past the Ivy glitz and glamour of "Tock" Rush, recognize the high potential threat to their reputations, and move to avert it, while the Ivies themselves don't seem able to look after the threats they themselves pose to their continued existence, by allowing people like Rush to use their brand to promote their own con games.