“Elite universities offer several excuses for legacy preferences. None hold up.” …
Agree completely. (And in a reverse, my D won’t apply to the Ivy I attended because she hates the thought she’d be accepted partly for that reason.)
I never understood this ‘elite’ moniker when entry is by means other than academic excellence. Ability to pay full ride I would say trumps legacy. What would really be interesting is what proportion of legacy admits don’t pay full ride.
Perhaps the biggest issue here is the use of legacy preference by public universities, which implies that state policy is to entrench (with education subsidies) an inherited aristocracy over offering educational opportunities for all who live in the state.
Examples of states with public universities that use “relation with alumnus” in admissions: CT, DE, FL, MA, MI, MN, NC, NY, PA, SC, VT, WI.
Agree with @ucbalumnus. Absolutely wrong for public universities to use this as a factor in admissions. Not sure about the other Virginia colleges, but UVA considers legacy status.
UNC-CH only uses legacy for OOS applicants and since only 18% of the student body is from OOS it’s not that widely used. They probably found they get better yield and more full pay from OOS legacies.
I have a hard time believing that donations tied to legacy aren’t a factor, especially in conjunction with the lower scores. But that’s just anecdotally and from having worked in Alumni Relations earlier in my career. That number just seems off to me.
I definitely agree that public universities should not use legacy as an admissions criteria.
I won’t encourage fragbot Jr to apply to Penn but I think legacy preferences ought to continue as they are elegant. I have a co-worker who has three generations of Tufts graduates (one grandparent, mom&dad met there, and their son) and their daughter (“the smartest of all of us,” according to her dad; I’ve no barometer on the truth of it.) didn’t get it and ended up at University of Virginia instead. While I’ve no opinion on her qualifications, it is elegant to have a family history like that with a school and it’s kind of sad that she didn’t continue the tradition.
Regarding the article in question, while it’s clear legacy has some effect (in particular for ED), it’s not like the accepted candidates are unreasonable admits. I’d expect that to be restricted to athletic (our local high schools’ Naviance plots for Stanford have a couple of anomalies that I’d bet my own money are recruited athletes) and development admits.
It seems reasonable to me that donations play a factor. The article admits that there has been little research on the topic. Regards the one study that was mentioned, I wonder how their “Controlling for the wealth of the alumni…” influenced their conclusions. In hard dollars it seems reasonable that alumni contributions are higher. Also, and this is totally anecdotal, every one of the campuses we visited (14) mentioned the large (some huuuuuge) contributions from alumni.
I received a letter from my public school specifically stating that legacies would not be given a boost. Do you think I believe that the child of the governor, a senator, a big donor, a sport star wouldn’t be given preference?
This is a little over the top. I wouldn’t call the student body at the University of South Carolina rich enough to be an aristocracy. Unlike Yale, your legacies at most of these state schools won’t have a trust fund.
However, the legacies are all kids of college graduates, which puts them all in the more advantaged third of the population. In a public university context, what purpose does it serve to give them an additional unearned advantage when they are already within the more advantaged group?
Or give them an additional unearned advantage over other kids of college graduates whose parents happened to attend other colleges?
The author appears to assume that legacies (presumably mostly at least UMC) would be replaced by students from lower on the socioeconomic ladder rather than similar placed non-legacies, but I don’t see any evidence to support that assumption.
Lots of things about the admissions process could be reasonably described as unfair. Recruited athletes? Why should the ability to play a game make a difference? At many elite schools, men are admitted at higher rates than women, presumably in an attempt to get close to a 50/50 gender balance in the face of an applicant pool that has more women than men. Let’s face it, that’s affirmative action for men and they hardly need the help. ED provides real value to both students and colleges, but favors the people who don’t need to compare aid packages. The use of significant merit aid by some schools presumably reduces the dollars available for need based aid, making it harder for poorer students to attend or to finish. Etc, etc.
And very likely, legacy admits shuffle a certain stratum of students among schools in a particular way, but without those preferences, the same cohort would likely be in the same group of schools. To be more specific and perhaps clearer, let’s take my son. He’s a legacy at Columbia and Wesleyan. Let’s say he picks one and applies ED (remember, at most of these places, the legacy is bump is said to really only help in the early rounds) and gets in. And let’s say that being a legacy helped, that he got admitted over other similarly qualified students because he was a legacy. If he was good enough to get into Wesleyan or Columbia (they lower standards for athletes, not legacies), chances are he’d get into schools other schools of similar caliber. Eliminate legacy preference. So maybe he ends up at Penn or Amherst, instead, because he’s qualified and they’re not admitting legacies either.
Has a relative who went to the school doesn’t necessarily equal admitted as a legacy preference. That 29% of the Harvard class of 2021 has a relative who went to Harvard doesn’t mean that 29% of the class got a legacy bump in admissions. Apples and oranges. You don’t get a legacy bump because your sister went to Harvard undergrad or your mother went to Harvard med school.
I know legacy preferences are a superficially easy target, but I could spend all day poking holes in the assumption that eliminating legacy preferences would necessarily open up significant numbers of spaces for disadvantaged students, rather than just mostly reshuffling the same group of advantaged students among competitive schools.
Why oh why is this being brought up again, when the last long thread pointing fingers at legacy hasn’t left memory?
The author breathes “inequality in education.” Do we need to add fuel to the fire…again?
He argues for class based affirmative action without, it seems, understanding the role lower SES does play. Today.
Try to see through his unfounded and inflammatory opinions.
Even if the only effect of legacy preference was that reshuffling (and that seems to be an argument specific to super-selective privates, not other schools like many public universities), the fact that legacy preference advantages students at their parents’ colleges and disadvantages them at other colleges may cause the distribution of students to be less optimal for the students. E.g. what if the Columbia legacy really preferred Penn, but, due to legacy preference, got into Columbia (because of his/her own legacy status) but not Penn (because other applicants with legacy status got bumped ahead of him/her)? And vice-versa for a Penn legacy who really preferred Columbia…
It’s not that mechanical. “Preference” implies they *prefer * a class of legacies. Not.
You still need to, so to say, run faster and jump higher than others. Nothing says a middling legacy will get in, using your example, to either Columbia or Penn.
I wish we could shift the energy to athletic bumps. But I guess so many like their college teams, can’t get fired up the way they do when some guy shouts “aristocracy!!”
"Ability to pay full ride I would say trumps legacy. "
Disagree with this. There are tons of families that can afford to be full pay. It’s not a rarity. At selective schools with healthy endowments, being full pay provides little advantage. Yes, there are lots of them enrolled but lots also apply.
I believe that the one way in which legacy should give someone a leg up is in demonstrated interest. If your parents met at this school and you’ve been going to the football games all your life and you have a bedspread in the school colors, then you’ve obviously got a demonstrated interest and are very likely to attend if admitted. I can see colleges concerned about yield percentages weighing that factor pretty heavily.
Have a look at this thread, folks - will save a lot of time: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1980224-are-legacy-preferences-dead-or-at-least-over-rated-p1.html
At least athletic skill is earned (by the student) to some degree, unlike legacy status. In any case, what is the argument in favor of public universities using legacy status as a preference factor in admissions?