I want to believe, but I don’t. How many ambitious high-school students fighting for a ticket to New Haven are likely to know about this and to pull their applications because of it? Answer: not 9.7%.

Our pal, Clint Taylor, is optimistic, though.

Critics of Yale’s decision to admit former Taliban diplomat Rahmatullah Hashemi have suggested that the ensuing controversy was partially to blame for the decrease in applications to Yale this year, but the University and some college counselors claim the effect on prospective applicants was likely minimal.

Applications to Yale for the class of 2011 decreased 9.7 percent from last year’s record high of 21,101, Dean of Admissions Jeff Brenzel said last week. While Yale administrators blamed the decline on last year’s record-low acceptance rate and natural year-to-year fluctuations, critics of the University have argued that high school students may have been disillusioned by Hashemi’s enrollment…

Last spring, Clint Taylor ’96 launched a campaign and Weblog called NailYale — a name that makes reference to the rumored Taliban practice of removing the nails of women who wear noticeable nail polish — encouraging alumni to forgo donations to Yale until the University’s decision to admit Hashemi was more fully explained.

“Once [the administration] realized they had made this mistake [in admitting a Taliban representative], they didn’t come out and say we made a mistake,” Taylor said. “I think in the long run that could affect Yale, that they don’t seem to realize what they did wrong and didn’t make amends for it.”

Exit question: Are UK universities really offering doctorate degrees now in “political Islam”?