Schools admit legacies because it is in their own best interest, for whatever reasons they perceive (e.g., fundraising to support financial aid). Schools don’t craft their classes to be fair to applicants; they admit the applicants they want the most, for their own reasons.
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<p>There’s an implication there that schools’ interests often don’t coincide with fairness to applicants. I would contend that the only “fairness” is what the schools want from their applicants. Is it fair that a smarter student gets rejected in favor of a better design student at RISD? Yes, because that’s what they’re looking for. Is it fair that a great leader, opinionated student interested in politics gets rejected at Caltech? Yes, because he/she’s not what they’re looking for. You see where I’m going… fair is defined by the schools themselves. People tend to get their own opinions about what the schools should be looking for and call any deviations unfair, but the fact is at the end of the day that the only arbiters of fair are the schools themselves.</p>
<p>I agree with that possibility,vossron, and noted it once years ago in another similar thread, but it falls far short of what is normally thought of as a preference. </p>
<p>And of course it is completely at odds with the complaint of allowing less qualified alum offspring to take people’s places.</p>
<p>I do not believe what Yale says. Do you?
I do believe what they report re:admissions rates for legacy applicants against admissions rates for applicants overall, if they report it. That’s about it. I’d love to see an independent third party confirm the rest. I’d also love to see the figures leaving out recruited athletes and URMs.
The implication of what Yale says in their statement is that they positively discriminate against legacies. Do you believe that’s true?</p>
<p>In general, yes, but schools do promote their best features, and may not mention the worst. Schools’ peers generally won’t tolerate flat-out lies.</p>
<p>danas, based on my experience and that of my friends, no, I don’t believe Yale discriminates against legacies any more than it discriminates against other well-to-do people from the Northeast, etc.: The competition is tougher and the standards are higher. Lots of those people get admitted, because on the whole they have what Yale (or Harvard, etc.) want, and they want Yale back. But when Yale takes a risk on a student, it’s not going to be a legacy. Being a legacy is probably akin to being from New Jersey: there will be lots of admissions, but you’d better look perfect.</p>
<p>If I were inclined to look for the falsehood, it would be in the suggestion that there is any legacy preference at all. The ephemeral notion of a legacy preference keeps the spigots open on alumni donations for decades, and that is clearly in the university’s interest. If the facts are that the university does not in fact have a preference (apart from a megadonor preference), but that it admits a high percentage of legacy applicants anyway, why wouldn’t it pretend to have a preference if that raises more money?</p>
<p>I have written before, and probably will again, about a friend’s conversation with a high-ranking admissions person at Harvard, who told him that Harvard only gave lip service to a legacy preference, and that they had checked the numbers and Harvard admitted Yale and Princeton legacies at the same rate it admitted its own legacies.</p>
<p>Based on a sample size of three I think there is a slight legacy preference at Harvard, but that the legacies accepted are more than qualified. Not sure how many kids applied from my son’s class, but two were accepted and one was weightlisted. Valedictorian (legacy at Yale) was accepted. Number four in the class was waitlisted, but accepted at Princeton. Number eight, our son was accepted. His test scores, included an 800 in CR and 800s on all his SAT2s. His ECs included state level medals at Science Olympiad every year and work and research experience involving computer programming.</p>
BTW something similar happens with respect to women at MIT. They get better grades at MIT despite slightly lower stats. It doesn’t stop the grumbling from the high stat boys though. :)</p>