I think it’s so unfortunate how judge-y and critical the public can be. Yes, while it is true that, on average, recruited athletes have lower academic levels of achievement than non-athletic recruits at the ivies, it is absolutely true that some of the recruits are near the top of their class. What a shame so many people have snide thoughts and comments; those brilliant student-athletes are unfairly assumed to be “dumber” than their classmates, which can hurt.
Legacy is even trickier. I have close knowledge of 1 ivy’s admission information (more than published), and know that at that particular school, the legacies have higher academic performance than the overall student body. Now, that is to be expected, as having a parent with an Ivy League degree probably means the student grew up far wealthier than average with associated benefits, or at least had the benefit of a well-educated parent speaking with them their whole life. So many of those children may not have gotten in without their legacy status because there is a higher expectation for non-URM, wealthier students (which seems appropriate), but as a group, they still exceed the student body average. They are NOT idiots, not in the least, and even though they enjoy a boost, still 80% of the legacy kids get rejected—they are not shoo-ins. And within that group, there are also stars who are amazingly brilliant and would get in without the legacy hook.
This judginess and shaming Especially irritates me as I believe it had a direct affect on my life ;-). My own daughter was a rockstar student with amazing ECs, etc. She applied to 6 ivies and got into 5. One of those was my alma mater, her only hook. It very well could have been her favorite, but I am certain a big hunk of the reason she chose to go elsewhere is because people can be so nasty making assumptions, and she felt that if she went where she was a legacy, she would be branded as undeserving. Now maybe she should have more spine than that, and shouldn’t care what people think. But there really does seem to be an awful lot of venom spewed on people with hooks, and I believe people should think of the kids’ feelings before they put that nastiness out there. This also applies to URM, and other hooks as well. Please don’t assume they had the lowest academic levels.
As for me, I think it would be great if they would abolish legacy preference (as for development cases, I actually don’t mind if 5-20 super rich kids get in and the school benefits immensely because of it). I think it would benefit the legacy students overall more NOT to have a hook—people would be less nasty. If there was no legacy preference, my daughter might be at my alma mater, which would have been a great thing to share.