@privatebanker , It would be hard to tell the factors that enter into the decision making for a particular student. Harvard says it does consider legacy and I it’s hard to believe that they’d say so if the did not. “An analysis commissioned by Students For Fair Admissions found legacy applicants were accepted at a rate of nearly 34 percent from 2009 to 2015.” (from https://www.npr.org/2018/11/04/663629750/legacy-admissions-offer-an-advantage-and-not-just-at-schools-like-harvard) But then the question is how well the student compares to those who are also close to getting in but not close enough. I would guess that a student could still be outstanding but if there are too many students who are, for one reason or another, even more eligible than the legacy but still won’t be admitted, then the advantage given the legacy won’t be enough. For the class of 2022, there were 42,749 applicants and 2,024 were accepted for about 1600 slots. So, if your daughter was stronger (as determined by Harvard’s criteria) than 35,000 of the applicants, being given a legacy leg up that allows her to leap over another 5,000 students, that puts her in competition with students who were within a couple of hundred students of getting an offer but it still would not have gotten her close enough.
In business, it happens all the time. Not hard coded but subtle and holistic like college. It’s life. And like college it only opens the door. Once inside it’s up to the person to earn the spot st school or get the job.
Marilyn Monroe said “looks are great but after two minutes you are on your own”.
That’s how I see it.
The advantage in life and in college admissions is to get an opportunity to be considered a little more carefully than the rest. It’s not to mean they are to be given anything. And certainly not stick around if you aren’t productive on your own.
Some examples from business and govt.
Major investor in a company asks for a family member to get an internship or job interview. Or person is sought after by a companies because of family background and connections .
Support candidate for election and become ambassador to Luxembourg.
(Aka major donor)
In this case it sounds unfair. But with out the investor funds perhaps no company. And no jobs for all those people or the start up fails. Which is more important in the big picture than if my kid got the one
job.
In another set of examples.
Long term employee at the plant talks to plant manager and gets son a job on the crew.
Family owned business has children and cousins work there and take over.
Alumni of school is in a position of authority at company x and gets a student from their school the big interview. (Also looked at as good thing by parents from all spectrums)
(Aka legacies) These don’t bother me either.
And in business and govt there are preferences for URM hiring/vendors and programs and initiatives for lower Income households. Which I am 100 percent ok with personally.
About 30% of public universities in the US consider legacy in admissions. So, yes, some governments do openly have legacy preferences.
Of course, legacy/nepotism is not exactly rare in business or government. Of course, it also does not look good to many (widely seen as corrupt or increasing potential for corruption).
I think this is getting off the track a bit. I understand how it works. And it’s ok.
My point was directional and less about H than some other schools actually.
And we are thrilled at current situation. And offers received. It’s all good.
My whole point of this thread was to open a dialogue because it appears that the preferences received by some benefit a larger purpose.
If you have a legacy presence it drives giving, full pay it pays the bills and large donors as well.
All three groups, drive the economic engine that allows for large numbers of students to attend great schools. Whether it’s HPYS or Clemson, Amherst or Gettysburg.
The assumption that kids from wealthy families score higher because they are tutored is flawed. Even if they have a tutor they still have to put in a lot of work/ blood sweat and tears to achieve a top score. The tutor is not sitting for the test. And there are so many great free resources for test prep now that the playing field is not as unequal as it one was. The real advantage kids from wealthier families have is oftentimes their school’s curriculum and small class size better prepare them for the concepts being tested especially in math. But the converse for these kids is that some of these high schools are extremely rigorous, grade deflation type schools and the kids really have to work quite hard to achieve success, more so than at less rigorous high schools.
I certainly agree that these sorts of preferences are present, and may even be prevalent in some businesses and government agencies. However, I would conjecture that the businesses giving these sorts of preferences aren’t on the cutting edge, or facing serious competitions, or at least trying to be the best in their field. If a government agency does this, we’d call it corruption.
@1NJParent That’s a good point regarding govt., especially hiring and contract awards at the local level.
However, large donors both Republican and Democrat end up with ambassadorships and appointments. However, they have to be generally qualified. This isn’t considered corruption but it is perhaps corrupt for sure.
Also preferences for urm contract awards and for women owned businesses, etc are not only preferential but laudable.
The analysis went in to more detail than above. After full controls (comparing applicants with similar stats, similar ratings in all categories, similar background, and similar…), both the SFFA and Harvard OIR regression analyses found a large 10-11x odds ratio for legacies. The Harvard OIR analysis found that legacy was stronger than all analyzed hooks except athlete. The SFFA analysis found legacy was stronger than Hispanic, but not as strong as Black or being on the special interest lists. Both SFFA and Harvard OIR agreed that legacy is a powerful hook. The Harvard OIR analysis found that during the classes of 2009-16, legacy applicants who had a 2 or better academic rating (upper ~half of applicants on a measure that is largely correlated with stats) had a 54% admit rate, while non-legacies with the same academic rating had a 14% admit rate
The need for fancy dorms, better heat in winter, activities, ride programs, etc, doesn’t come out of thin air. It’s due to studies on decision making and family interests. No one likes shabby dorms. And few kids are picking based purely on the academics. (Not that academics should be the only variable.)
@privatebanker I 100% believe your D is accomplished and worthy. My point over all my years on CC has been that people tend to look at stats and titles, some awards, that misguided notion of “passion,” and define admit chances without an adequate view of what the colleges look for. I believe you that your views have evolved, etc.
I don’t think I’m the only one who gets it. (I can’t predict any better than who will likely get past “first cut” and possibly intrigue adcoms, at various schools, mostly elites.) Not final decisions.
My comment about what people think merit is relates to several comments here that these colleges are anti-meritocracy. How can one say that, if they don’t understand what “merit” is to that college? It is not just about stats and your standing in your one high school.
You’re competing for a slot. Not just resting on hs laurels but showing the person you are, the drives, how you activate, thinking, etc. If one doesn’t like how any holistic does it, one is free to choose to apply to rack-and-stack colleges.
I agree, opportunity is a wonderful thing.
@hebegebe Some people pursue excellence as an end in itself, and in the right industry this may be rewarded with money.
@CU123 Well, if you are suggesting students to forget colleges they like and go for what their parents can afford then that suggestion can be applied to financial aid as well, aid which covers one student at an expensive college, can pay for many students at community colleges or state universities. No one has to attend expensive selective colleges, as you said there are good cheaper options.
Why what’s good for the goose isn’t good for the gander? Why treat teens for what their parents have or have not done in life or how much parents are willing to pay or not pay for college?Everyone pays income tax, property tax, capital gains tax etc on their income, why put another penalty on people for their money in colleges? Most importantly, why discriminate between young citizens? Every teen should have equal rights. No?
“Even if legacy, mega donors and full pay applicants receive a “bump, hook, preference, thumb on the scale or is a tie breaker”, isnt that actually ok.”
I think it’s fair criticism you received in combining legacy, full-pay and mega donors, because they’re not treated the same way. Full-pay is not a hook by any stretch, it may be a slight thumb on the scale during ED and coming off the waitlists, but that’s not a preference like legacy (Obama, Kushner) or mega-donor. The lawyer in the Harvard case in the deposition basically asked Fitzsimmons (dean of admissions), aren’t you more interested in the applicant’s family than the applicant.
Is it ok? No, it’s not, as the analysis provided in the race thread on Harvard, legacies have a 33% admit rate, to about 3% for unhooked RD applicants. That’s 11x difference for something the applicant did not earn, did nothing to get it, that’s egregious from an equality, justice, point of view. I’m not sure about the whole doing it for the greater good, do you think Charles Kushner cared about helping URMs when he made the donation to Harvard to get his kid in? No - he cared about getting his kid in.
This is going in circles. Rich person, celeb, or hooked kid gets into a tippy top and people rush to claim preference.
How do you know they weren’t qualified. Or to what extent they were?
Then the argument swings a little moralistic. How there shouldn’t be any considerations past what you think merit is, why don’t they apply with no tags? And feuled by certainty it’s unfair because someone else or some media site said so. Or xx years ago, there was some study, somewhere, that you interpret some way.
Their actual apps haven’t been released, that Iknow of. There’s just some hearsay. And a lot of conviction, but based on what? Ironically, I think OP was trying to get us to come down off our high horses and consider more than whether we “think” things should be different. Again, based on what?
A regression analysis with similar findings (in regards to legacies) by both the Plantiff’s expert and the Harvard Office of Internal Research is more than “just some hearsay.” Harvard doesn’t deny this strong legacy preference in the lawsuit. Instead Harvard claims legacy preference is one of the key reasons for discrepancy between Asian and White applicants (legacies are more likely to be White and less likely to be Asian).
“Qualified” is a vague term. There are no doubt many legacy admits who are highly qualified, including many who are more qualified than the typical Harvard admit. However, there is also a preference given to many legacy admits and are many legacies who would not been admitted without their legacy status. I’d agree that if you just choose a legacy admit at random, you’d have no way to know that particular student’s qualification and whether they’d be admitted without being a legacy. Of course one could say the same thing about for nearly all non-athlete hooks.
“are many legacies who would not been admitted without their legacy status”
No, you don’t know this means underqualified. Only that there’s a strong number at H, they get an extra look, may tip in if a tie. But not their apps. Most observers rely on 2nd or 3rd hand into.
Preference is a vague term, but loaded with the implication they “prefer” more legacies. It is not the operative term in reviewing. Rarely do kids tie, when considering the whole picture.
What gets me is the certainty among some. And how some extend it to assumptions about other hooked kids. Imo, athletes are the category to fret about. That’s where abject preference plays harder.
@privatebanker - your kiddo sounds amazing. i hope she ends ups at a school that she loves, and that loves her back.
I am completely out of the this scene with colleges. Yet i know two kids who by their grandparent’s marriage are step/half relatives with a world-renowned wealthy family; and these kids got into the school they wanted to because of a 9 figure donation. 9 figures!! The kids were nice, but never in my kids gifted classes in elementary/MS or HS. Many parents in our community were slightly frustrated with this, but what can we do? It sort of takes the fight out of us.
The private colleges and universities should be free to pick and choose as they wish but they should not benefit from Federal tax benefits (nor should the donors as they are getting a benefit) for donations.
There has been lots of talk in this thread about undeserving kids getting accepted over more deserving ones, and how the system is stacked against Merit and in favor of connections and the “Old Boy Network”. But I also have read thread after thread on CC asking, “How strong are the Alumni connections for school X?”. And nobody blinks an eye when someone responds that they got preference for a job because a fellow alumnus was in a position to help. Isn’t this essentially legacy, just after admission instead of before? Sometimes it’s easy to see the privilege of others but difficult to see your own (and I’m guilty as charged).
@Riversider Equal rights to me means equal treatment, which does not include being able to do everything that a person with more money is able to do. I for one would not be very happy if I couldn’t spend my hard earned income on my own children.
I can understand the frustration but if that family donated $100million or more to a school think of what that means to the school as a whole? For example, in one of the articles posted previously in this thread Charles Johnson donated $250million to Yale as part of the construction of the new residential colleges. If his grandchild is accepted to Yale partly or completely because of this gift one is that really unfair? And as mentioned previously, what about athletes that are accepted with stats below what is required of non-athletes? Athletes bring in money as well and since ultimately colleges are a business, although they may have genuine intentions of leveling the playing field they are never going to turn away the children, grandchildren or other family member of a mega-donor.