If legacy applicants as a group are as well credentialed or better credentialed (credentialed as defined by the university) then why do universities deploy a legacy preference (defined differently at different schools) at all?
As my anecdotes demonstrate, not all alum children are treated equally in the eyes of the admissions office. Legacy admissions as it’s actually practiced - a huge advantage to the unqualified kids of large donors/celebrities/alums who maneuver to obtain high profile alumni posts - and little to no advantage to other alums is unfair - even to the vast bulk of actual alums who don’t have the wealth or connections to play this game. (And here I limit my observation to the Ivies about which there’s much public data.)
My answer to my own question is that legacy admissions are designed to help only the few alums while giving the impression of helping many alums to the benefit of the university. See above.
I have answered your question several times and this will be my last.
The legacies generally fall in the 25/75 percentiles, making them like most other Emory students.
You know fairly well that most Emory students aren’t automatics and all in that 25/75 group have a 30% to 60% chance of getting in. Many qualified students, unfortunately, are not admitted to Emory. This same group, as @bernie12 points out, often get into other elite schools such as Wash U, JHU, etc. Some get into Emory who don’t get into those schools. The legacies fit into this subset, but get the legacy push to Emory. Many are motivated to attend Emory and benefit by applying ED as well and you are aware that ED1s get an additional push.
These are kids whose applications are similar to those who are admitted and those who are rejected. You don’t trust the Admissions Committee or the Dean of Admissions. That’s your call. I’d like to think they aren’t going to admit people they believe don’t belong.
Because they believe it’s in their best interest. You may agree or disagree but that’s why they do.
You seem awfully exercised about this. Do you fundamentally believe that legacy preferences give a tip to people who otherwise aren’t qualified for admissions? By and large, I don’t. While I would agree for developmental admits, I also understand that developmental admits by their very nature are anomalous enough that they don’t really matter.
You are conflating two things–legacy preferences which are usually a minor tip (at my alma mater, they are clear that it only helps if you are willing to apply ED) and developmental admits who often appear like a quid pro quo (BTW: I’m okay with this as only a moronic college president would bite the hand of a large donor).
“But as a group, low-income first gens have established a beachhead. They have claimed real estate (at Brown and Penn, literal centers) and are methodically labeling the barriers they wish to dismantle. As a group last year, they got top colleges to waive application fees without making students detail family hardships, which they found humiliating. Next up: Get elite colleges to eliminate legacy admissions.”
Just so I’m clear, they have “barriers they wish to dismantle”. So they are they for dismantling the preferences given to them, or just others? Or are they fighting to take away preferences for minorities, first generation college students, athletes, etc. along with legacy preferences? I’m a teacher (didn’t attend Emory) and my son chose Emory with eyes open… are there a lot of rich kids at Emory, yes - as I’m sure there are at most private universities - but you know that going in. If a university sees a benefit in preferences for all of these areas - isn’t that a good thing? Although I find it disingenuous to fight against preferences given to others unless you are fighting to eliminate all - including the ones given to you.
@nightstalker160 Good points. If it were a mathematical equation, these folks would like the formula to change to always get the results they wanted, but not allow anyone else to add their data into the equation as that would be “unfair”, “unjust” etc. @ljberkow Agree. No AO is going to allow people in who are not qualified. There are many legacy candidates whose scores at any university make them viable candidates.
Telling stories about a single rich boy/girl legacy candidate who did not belong at some prestigious university does not make the story true for all the rest. Nor do stories about one professors opinions about any type of candidate. They are one person’s opinion. Single data points do not create a basis for making decisions. I’m tired of folks who are open to their preferences but will not allow others to have preferences as well. It’s really silly.
Either we leave hooks, or they all are eliminated and it becomes more if a numbers game. They are building a class, and like race, culture, region and socio economics, continuity of relationship with the school is a part of what some schools want.
I’m sure there are as many unqualified URM or first gen admitted as legacy kids that slip in. It happens now and then that they don’t end up performing or living up to the task. (Again, legacy, not big donor. I can’t imagine the big donor admits amount to many.). Overall, those groups all do well.
As for the legacy and donations: a school is always courting the big donors, but their bread and butter are the rank and file alum who give a few hundred a year. If their kids go, so will they. And maybe mom and dad will bump up to a few thousand a year. This is how they get those huge endowments. And those huge endowments are how they pay the first gen FA.
There is absolutely nothing new in that Washington Post article. First Generation and URM have made a great deal of progress on areas that directly impact themselves. Emory has increased Questbridge participation and also has its own Essence of Emory program. The Post article mentions the progress at Brown, but certainly not Brown’s opposition to first generation when it comes to legacy admissions. As long as these universities continue down the positive road they have taken, legacy admissions will be positively impacted by these schools being diverse because the alumni will be diverse.
I agree with @nightstalker160 you want your cake and want to eat it too. The only people really impacted by the legacy would be the bottom 6% of the favorable demographic applications. These are the people with whom the OP and friends are most concerned. Instead of being accepted to Emory, the horrors, they may have to go to another top school. Stop the madness!!!
Interesting methodology. Hurwitz compared admissions rates for applicants at their parents’ (or other relatives’) alma mater v. admission rates for the same applicants at other elites for which there was no legacy connection. This was intended to control for qualifications. Because the same individual’s admissions results were being compared at comparably selective universities (but for the factor of legacy), the impact of legacy could be teased out.
E.g. Johnny’s dad graduated from Harvard. He applies to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford. How does Johnny do? Is he admitted to Harvard but denied at Princeton, Yale and Stanford? This analysis was carried out for many thousands of applicants.
Hurwitz did not track alumni donations.
Hurwitz did not identify individual institutions by name.
The conclusions:
The impact of legacy status varies wildly between different institutions from essentially no impact to a 17x greater chance of admissions. I believe I predicted this in several earlier posts in this thread.
Legacy admits with higher SAT scores gain a greater legacy advantage.
Primary legacies (parents are alums) gain a greater advantage than secondary legacies.
Part of the advantage to primary legacies is conferred when they apply early.
"In this paper, I have shown that, among the sampled colleges, the odds of
admission for a legacy student are 3.13 times that of a non-legacy student. This estimated
legacy admissions advantage is similar in magnitude to that obtained by Espenshade,
Chung, and Walling (2004)." (p. 31)
"Using conditional logistic regression, I find considerably less variation in the
estimated legacy admissions advantage across the academic abilities spectrum than did
Espenshade, Chung and Walling (2004). The narrow range of estimated legacy
admissions advantages strongly contradicts the widely held notion that legacy status
serves as a tip factor, only helping academically exceptional applicants on the borderline
between acceptance and rejection." (p. 32)
There’s quite a bit more. The paper’s 48 pages long.