Legacies, full pay and donors. Misguided anger?

Applying to College
101

While this seems to be taken as an article of faith, it is not obvious that this is true. At least one study says that any difference is not statistically significant.

Legacy preference may be more of a tool to tip the admit pool toward less FA need, so that colleges can stretch their FA budget to cover what they define as “full need” to a limited number of FA-needy students without having to be need-aware. I.e. by being able to claim that they are need-blind gives them a marketing advantage, even though they will not be admitting more FA-needy students (or those with greater FA need) than otherwise. It could be that, without legacy preference, more colleges would have to be need-aware to keep the FA budget in check.

102

@theloniusmonk

Not sure we are reading the same thread. Sure some folks have hardened positions.

I am not in an existential crisis over this and only thought it might make for some thoughtful and interesting dialogue.

Especially considering how smart I find the cc crowd to be.

And it’s not my thought that all three are the same.

It’s just three financially preferential paths to school.

And not to disagree but full pay can be a big deal if you are the wait lister who loses your spot to the full pay kid.

But your Kushner example. I don’t care if he was altruistically motivated. That “whatever sized” mega gift helps a lot of others and needs.

And so we know that he wasn’t a really good student too? I don’t have any idea.

And the Obama child I am sure brings out applications from other kids who relate to her which is a good thing.

But I am not the judge of this thread. And would like to move over to the side please.

103

Personally I don’t believe any college is truly need blind otherwise they wouldn’t ask whether you are applying for FA on the common app.

104

And although results the studies have indicated little connection between legacy acceptance and giving from my personal polling of friends and family over the years…giving has gone down or is stopped completely when kids are rejected as legacies. I’ve stopped giving to my alma maters and now give to my children’s schools.

105

@CU123

With respect to the meaning of equal rights, I disagree. Equal rights means equal opportunity, not “equal treatment”.

Suppose you want to help some friends get out of a forest before a storm. If one person is in quicksand and another person is on a bicycle, giving them both a helmet is not “equal rights”. Surely you can see that it would be cruel in those circumstances to tell the person in quicksand “well I don’t know why you’re sitting there in a bunch of sand, this guy brought a bike”. Particularly not if they had arrived there not of their own will (suppose their parents dumped them in the woods in those exact places).

I do agree that people should be able to spend their own hard earned money (or inherited money, or not-hard-earned money) on private clubs and private schools. I know I do.

However I do not agree that private clubs should be able to shield revenue from taxes as non-profits, if they are not providing a true public good.

There is not equal opportunity or equal rights in the US. It’s not Harvard’s job alone to solve that problem. We have to solve that as a country.

However, they should be accountable for their charitable status. And public universities should not function as those types of clubs. That’s not what taxpayer money is for.

106

@ucbalumnus Good point. I don’t know if legacy preference matters to those who make the annual donations.

But I have seen a lot of posts, where the student doesn’t get in and the parent says they won’t get another dime from us.

And how people say they interview at select schools to help with the legacy boost. Despite thinking it never matters who they meet.

And when asked about giving behaviors in a study it’s an “article of faith” as you mention that they are telling the truth. And it’s purely about mission and not personal interest.

107

Tangentially, some of the posters here seem to assume full pay families fall into the same “hereditarily advantaged” bracket as (most) legacy and (most) donors. I’m sure some are, but there are also full pay parents who were born poor and by some combination of luck, hard work and determined savings managed to reach a point where they can give their kids advantages they never had themselves. Why resent them for it?

108

Well, it’s the Common App, which means that question is there because a large percentage of colleges find it useful. But not every college needs to use it, and some colleges that are truly need-blind may use it to send more detailed information about financial aid.

109

Oh I completely agree most colleges need to use it. My point is how can “need blind” colleges assure applicants that that information doesn’t enter into the admission process in any way? Even need blind schools must manage their FA and full pay applicants to some degree.

110

@MmeZeeZee Depends on your definition of opportunity, if you want the opportunity to do something that requires a great deal of money then you may not get that opportunity…

111

“And so we know that he wasn’t a really good student too? I don’t have any idea.”

From an article on Pro Publica:

"I also quoted administrators at Jared’s high school, who described him as a less than stellar student and expressed dismay at Harvard’s decision.

“There was no way anybody in the administrative office of the school thought he would on the merits get into Harvard,” a former official at The Frisch School in Paramus, New Jersey, told me. “His GPA did not warrant it, his SAT scores did not warrant it. We thought for sure, there was no way this was going to happen. Then, lo and behold, Jared was accepted. It was a little bit disappointing because there were at the time other kids we thought should really get in on the merits, and they did not.”

To be fair, the writer of the article is Daniel Golden, who wrote the book Price of Admission, and says in the article that his book exposed “a grubby secret of American higher education: that the rich buy their under-achieving children’s way into elite universities with massive, tax-deductible donations.” So for sure, he had a bias going in when he talked to Kushner’s high school.

“Rarely do kids tie, when considering the whole picture.”

Agree with this, no way Jared Kushner or Malia Obama were tied with anyone, they were 1 or 2 by themselves. Good luck tying with them.

112

My post said there are many legacies who would not have been admitted without their legacy status, not that they were “unqualified.” This is not a matter of opinion. The regression analyses shows that legacy boost is far more than just “may tip in a tie.”

It may be more clear to use stats metrics that most are more familiar with. The Harvard admission reader guidelines state the following for a 3 and 2 academic rating. I realize that more than stats go in to academic rating and the guidelines are just a guideline and not a strict stat cut off. However, the academic rating is highly correlated with stats, particularly for this distinction between 2 and 3 ratings.

2 academic rating – “Excellent student with superb grades and mid-to high-700 scores (33+ ACT).”
3 academic rating – “Very good student with excellent grades and mid-600 to low-700 scores (29 to 32 ACT).”

The regression analyses from both the SFFA and Harvard Office of Internal Research found legacy boost was many times stronger than the distinction between 2 and 3 academic rating listed above. Legacy wasn’t just “may tip in a tie.” Legacy boost was stronger than numerical changes on the core reader ratings, including academic and others. Specific odds ratios comparing legacy to 3->2 academic are below. The Harvard OIR found that the admissions benefit for legacy was several times stronger than the benefit from an academic rating associated with improving from “very good” to “excellent” student combined with 100-150 point increase on SAT. Both analyses were done with controls comparing students who had similar ratings in the other core categories, among many other controls.

Harvard OIR Analysis
Legacy: 11.0x odds ratio boost
Academic Rating Increases from 3 → 2: 3.7x odds ratio boost

113

However, if the donating parents merely switch to donating to the school that their kids attend (see #103), then the enrollment of non legacy students will bring in associated donations.

114

@ucbalumnus yes, assuming the parents have the financial ability and inclination to do so. As schools increase the number of FA students that impacts giving levels as well. Fortunately most of the HYPS types have endowments that are pretty much bulletproof but not all elite schools are in that situation.

115

@theloniusmonk , you pair malia Obama with Jared kushner, is there any evidence that she was a poor student? I don’t know how she did, but I would tend to asssume that a child of two very smart high achieving parents would tend to be pretty smart herself. Of course, being a double legacy at Harvard plus her last name was likely not irrelevant, and I agree her “package” was such that she was unlikely to tie with anyone.

116

@CU123 It’s other way around. Most students with high EFC families can’t afford expensive colleges.

117

@privatebanker Couldn’t they just charge the super rich a lot more? Perhaps elite colleges should look for equity of paying a fair share. If middle class families are asked for 10%, why a bigger bill from billionaires? Maybe instead of only $75k per year, they should cough up $750K.

118

Are you saying colleges should be need aware?..They would have to know each applicants’ family financials to be able to charge their customers differently.

119

No, I am saying all fill out the profile whether they have need or not. The more money you have, the more you pay. Sort of like reverse financial aid.

Keep that separate from admissions.

120

Regression, schmeegression. Not assumptions, estimates, or filling in blanks via a math formula. And not trying to clone the dictator from a nose cell: finding “certainties” via stats of matriculants.

Even focusing so intently on ratings misses the impact of qualitative and how the whole factors in decisions. You can’t evaluate w/o a view of the app itself. Who’s seen Malia’s or Jared’s? Big news excites people but doesn’t auto translate to fact.

Most kids, even top performers, struggle with the non resume aspects of the app. When H says 80% are “qualified,” it does not mean could, would, or will be finalists. The rest of their apps can sink. It’s much closer, in my estimation, to the 6x factor H noted several years ago. Roughly 12k or up given the higher levels of consideration, fewer than that to final table. One MIT rep said, on CC, that (pre New SAT) any scores with a 7 in front show capable of doing the work. But these schools ask for more than that.

No, that doesn’t prove the magic dust is wealth, legacy, or non athletic hooks. No, not all alum parents are wealthy, pay for privileges, or necessarily donate big sums, at all. Or volunteer. What they can do is transmit a deeper understanding of the college, their experiences, the environment. Any kid can learn that, but many never do.

People make similar assumptions about those who benefit from FA or diversity interests. That they can’t have merited their admits. After all, some studies showed… But who’s seen their apps? In fact, many of these kids are successful strivers. Many with more personal and community impact than our sweet comfy kids with their camps, test prep, counselors. They can outshine. And not just succeed, but impact many others, in their lives.