Where does that say they examined applications? If you’re quibbling about “matriculants,” fine. But that doesn’t prove that legacy adds a 160 point boost.
Not going looking for his interview(s) now. But sharing this:
“Espenshade’s data deliberately over-simplifies the college admissions process by excluding most of the criteria upon which admissions officers base admissions decisions. By considering only applicant GPA and SAT score, Espenshade necessarily places total (and determinative) weight on these two quantifiable metrics alone.”
Espenshade’s studies may have flaws but it’s conclusions are pretty much de-facto information in the college admissions process, the 160 pt legacy boost, the 340(?) pt boost for URMs and the 140 point penalty for Asians. I think CNN was the first that presented this info (Fareed Zarkaria) so at this point if you want to challenge Espenshade, go tell Fareed and CNN that it’s a highly flawed study and see if they’ll present that. Fareed won’t for sure as he’s on record that Asians are discriminated against and the top schools have soft quotas for Asians, but maybe you can get Frank Bruni who covers higher ed and comes on cable shows to debunk Espenshade’s methodology.
At this point Espenshade’s perception of the college admissions process is reality.
Wow, it’s “reality,” when he never saw apps, essays, ECs, LoRs, etc, never discussed reviews, processes or goals with adcoms? (And the colleges of students examined were not named?) But Zakaria and various interest groups say it, so it’s true? And you say Zakaria states there are quotas, so there are?
Not to mention, it’s based on “applications for admission during the 1980s and the fall semesters of 1993 and 1997?” 20-30 years ago. Lol.
Espenshade, himself, has said, no smoking gun.
And this is now off track.
Whenever I read a thread on legacy, I always think about an article on legacy admissions in the NYT from a few years ago (https://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/29/legacy-2/) and the quote by former dean of undergraduate admissions at Yale (Jeffrey B. Brenzel) that “there couldn’t be a 160 point increase at Yale since the average SAT score is close to 1500 (out of a total of 1600)”.
Without getting into a discussion of the merit of the Espenshade study here, note that SAT scores were considerably lower in the past when the study was done.
Scores have been increasing because of more attempts in recent years, as well as the onset of superscoring.
My Grandfather, father (who met my mom at a fraternity party there), my husband and I (met there freshman year) and then our son all attended the same private University. Son was recruited athlete. I grew up attending football games and meeting my parent’s college friends, all of whom had a connection to the school. This is our family school, very dear to our collective hearts. Many of my friends at this school were legacies, too, and uniformly proud to be carrying on the tradition. I have volunteered for our school in admissions for over 30 years and believe that when the school gives a nudge to legacies, it’s goal is to continue the family-like connection between legacy families, creating a stronger alumni network for all graduates. I also believe that the admissions office wants very smart, happy kids who are engagers–to continue creating new legacy families. My alma mater is known for its supportive alumni network and legacy grads who are part of a longer family tradition are often the most willing to help that new college grad with networking, etc. Its about pride, though it goes without saying that if you have muti-genrational pride in your alma mater, you are more likely to support the school financially. This wonderful school has also made great strides, under new leadership, to increase diversity on campus and to meet 100% of student need in financial aid. My feeling is that a mix of legacy students and first generation students fosters a vibrant, continuing tradition of loyalty to the school.
Some people would like to have all such preferences removed.
Even otherwise, there are differences:
Legacy (and relation to big donor or celebrity, etc.) are completely unearned by the student, and correlate to already being advantaged.
Recruited athlete is at least partially earned by the student.
URM is also completely unearned, but correlates to being disadvantaged. (Not everyone is, and some who find consideration of URM acceptable would prefer it to be consideration in context of the individual applicant, not a blanket preference.)
For those who would like to see college admissions become more merit based, legacy and relation to donor or celebrity are the most obvious anti-merit preferences to remove.
For public universities, whose mission is nominally to increase access to higher education for state residents, additional preferences to the already advantaged (e.g. legacy preference) go against such a mission. Note that some states have eliminated URM preference but have kept legacy preference.
Why should universities recruit athletes, giving them an advantage over higher academic achievers? Simply because their athletic capabilities are “partially earned”?
“More important, “primary legacy” candidates (sons and daughters, as opposed to siblings, nephews, nieces or grandchildren) saw a whopping 45 percentage point increase in the chances of admission.”
I didn’t read the study, but in the past studies showing this did not adjust for the quality of the applicant. So, legacies were accepted at a higher rate, but were also higher quality applicants, so it was not clear how much of that was attributable to legacy.
For example, MIT does not consider legacy, but I would bet that legacy applicants are admitted at a higher rate. What does that really mean?
Universities don’t care in the abstract about what’s “earned” or “unearned”, except insofar as it helps them gauge what a given applicant is going to be able to accomplish, in one sphere or another, while they’re in college and afterward, and how and to what degree that benefits the university (and the other students there, of course).
You can “earn” success in whatever way, and at whatever level, but that’s no guarantee any university’s going to care. If a kid spends many years of his/her life perfecting some skill, and achieves recognition at a national level, the weight this will carry with a university is going to depend on whether that skill is likely to have significant practical benefit to the university directly and/or if it’s a marker of character traits or other attributes that the university believes indicate enough potential for the applicant that they should be offered a spot. The university’s view is also going to be colored by the degree to which the university needs/values the skill set, how many other applicants have it, the effect having a person with these skills is going to have on the rest of the students and what everything else in the application looks like.
Private universities admit the class that they feel best suits their interests and helps them fulfill their mission. The wording of these mission statements varies, but, as a practical matter, they generally come down to educating society’s future leaders, which is a very broad mandate that in the real world is accomplished by trying to satisfy many constituencies in admitting students and aggregating as much teaching, research and financial resources as possible. Any attempts by outsiders to impose a hierarchy of needs on a private university and deciding for them who the ought to admit are missing the point, in my view.
I suspect that legacy admissions - when it comes to very selective colleges and universities who admit 4% or 8% of applicants - probably benefits certain legacies over others.
Does a student whose mother or father is an alum at one of those colleges and attends a random suburban public high school get the same advantage as a legacy student who attends a connected private high school with a tuition over $40,000/year that sends its affluent students to top colleges regularly?
And does the legacy student at the connected private get any advantage in admissions over the non-legacy students in that same connected private?
My own theory is that the advantage that those students receive is not that they are “unqualified” and get in. They all hit the bar that makes them qualified to attend those very selective colleges and universities (just like Jared Kushner hit that bar). But are they the MOST outstanding? Or are there hundreds of students with even better stats that get rejected from a college that admits a legacy or connected student?
My unscientific observation of college admissions in the US (except at colleges like MIT/Cal Tech/Berkeley) is that the unconnected students from public schools who are admitted to the most selective colleges are stand outs. All of them. In a few cases they are stand outs in athletics but mostly academics. The students who aren’t stand outs who are truly excellent students without some superstar quality might get lucky and get in, but they are far more likely to get rejected despite excellent statistics. But students with the same statistics (or even lower) who are at connected privates - especially if they are legacies - are far more likely to get admitted. Perhaps that is the advantage this article recognizes.
If US colleges did away with legacy admissions you would see a situation that is similar to what you see in England. I know quite a few people who graduated from Oxford and Cambridge. They have very smart and accomplished children. However, most of those very smart children ended up at excellent red brick universities and not at Oxford or Cambridge like their parents. Some of their children – but a small percentage – did end up at Oxford or Cambridge and every one of those students was not just very smart but a superstar. But the rest of the very smart students who were legacies but weren’t superstars had no advantage in admissions and ended up in other very good universities.
The study I would like to see is to look at the students who are admitted to the most selective US universities who are legacies or attend connected private schools and compare them to the top 10% of unconnected random public school students who were turned down. Some will be very deserving of their seat. Some will have been admitted despite not having the academic accomplishments of the top students who are turned down.
I don’t know what my opinion is about whether this is a good or bad thing, but that is what I believe the legacy advantage is really about.
So, that’s where @ucbalumnus’s interest in publics comes in, as, in theory, they have a mandate to support their constituencies first and a number are not holistic.
My interest is mostly in top privates. While legacy status isn’t technically “earned,” the admit is, (based on that college’s standards and expectations.) And not all legacies are privileged. It’s important to separate them from mega donor kids (who still need to meet expectations, there’s just a little give. But ime, donor admits is too small a number, in a given year, to lose sleep over.)
Ucb, people also need to realize URMs aren’t a “blanket preference” at top colleges. They, too have to meet expectations. Nor is the issue their disadvantages. It’s how they developed strengths and successes, despite their family situation.
This is a difficult subject to argue partly because HYP may handle it differently than a small private. At the end of the day, it still comes down to correlation vs causality. Legacy students of top schools are more likely to be genetically gifted in academics and be given academic support and challenges throughout life. They likely grew up expecting to go to a top college and worked accordingly.
Is that fair? Not necessarily but not because of a bump in admissions because a parent attended the school (and many schools only count legacy based on parents).
My wife and I graduated from state U’s not in the top 100 but our kids grew up with many similar advantages as a child of a Harvard grad. My personality that has always leaned to thorough research and long term planning helped us have a jump on the process on everything from researching schools to taking SAT/ACT early based on a strategy. We did not push our daughter to a single college. She didn’t do a single activity or academic endeavor with her resume or application in mind. We did not pay for one minute of SAT prep and in fact our D probably studied less than 20 hours total outside of practice tests.
We did start test taking in Fall of junior year and space them out so she could adapt and never be stressed to last minute test taking. We did encourage learning from birth including math and reading before formal schooling. We did have a solid strategy of reaches, matches, and merit to ease the stress of the process. Our D did start her essays early giving her time to groom them before the application deadlines. Most importantly, she would have been equally happy at the state U on a near full ride as she is at Harvard where she was blessed to be accepted - again without a legacy bump.
We’ve met legacy parents at Harvard and other than the name on their undergrad diploma, there are striking similarities to us as parents. And I would argue our kids did partly win the lottery because they could have just as easily been rejected with the same stats/ECs/essays. I agree with the studies. My D is likely to be successful because of her traits, not the college name on the diploma.
I believe that parents educated in the process is more important than financial status. I feel for the students posting on here whose parents are ignorant of modern costs, obsessed with prestige or their alma mater for junior, or worse don’t engage until October of senior year if the goal is anything other than State U in a noncompetitive state. The student can and should be engaged but parental support is still important.
There have been several references to athletes with the comment that they at least partially earned their spot. Did a legacy with a 3.85 and 1480 not work as hard as the student with a 4.0 and 1550?
What is fair? That’s a tough question. Is it fair that a student with legacy has a bump over one who doesn’t? What about a student born in Cambridge vs the inner city? U.S. vs poverty stricken country? Human nature is to compare to someone who had it easier rather than someone who had it harder.
Is it even possible to design a system that is completely fair?
Harvard Professor Michael Sandel teaches a class entitled “Justice.” The entire course is available free and is worth your time but here are two lectures particularly pertinent to this discussion. In the second one, he challenges Harvard student’s whether they deserve their spot in the class.
^ I disagree with it being an east coast thing. I know 7 kids who are freshmen at Stanford this year. Six are legacies and the other 1 was a recruited athlete. Also, at USC, legacies who are on the borderline get offered the Trojan Transfer Plan, where they are almost guaranteed a spot after satisfactory performance for a year at another school.
Hurwitz showed legacies have a substantial advantage in admissions. Is that fair, no, but isn’t the chance to mingle with the elites part of the draw of places like HYPS?
“Why should universities recruit athletes, giving them an advantage over higher academic achievers? Simply because their athletic capabilities are “partially earned”?”
Partially earned? I definitely earned my full ride through the years of training, injuries, blood sweat, and tears that were left on the court. I remember all the sacrifices made because of the time I put in to being the best at my sport. It’s a shame that people enjoy watching collegiate sports, but are real quick to question whether those same athletes deserve to even be at those colleges.
Giftedness is not just academic. It is defined as:
"Children and youth with outstanding talent who perform or show the potential for performing at remarkably high levels of accomplishment when compared with others of their age, experience, or environment.”
– US Department of Education, 1993
This definition of giftedness is the broadest and most comprehensive and is used by many school districts. It speaks of talent, which includes all areas of a child’s life: academic, artistic, ATHLETIC, and social. Most schools limit their definition and their programs to academics, but it is important to focus on performance and accomplishment. It is not enough to just have the talent; you must be using that talent to achieve at remarkably high levels.
And can I just say, collegiate athletes represent the top 10% of high school athletes. This is just as important as top 10% in gpa, class rank, and standardized testing.