From the elite private colleges’ point of view, legacy preference does help keep financial aid cost down and slow demographic change (in race / ethnicity). Because of that, some of the elite private colleges would still like to use it, but publicly try to give the impression of minimizing it due to unfavorable opinions of it (surveys of the general public indicate that the general public thinks as unfavorably about legacy as it does about race-based affirmative action in college admissions).
1 Like
Interesting. Having grown up in California where the UC’s don’t consider legacy, I always assumed public schools didn’t. But clearly a false assumption.
Feels wrong for schools subsidized by state taxpayers to give an advantage to legacies.
7 Likes
I don’t have strong feelings one way or another about legacy admissions though I probably lean towards feeling that they should end because they do more harm than good for colleges and their students.
However, I do think that a generational wealth argument can be made about why the offspring of recent FGLI students should have access to the legacy admissions policies of previous generations. As I understand it, the wealth gap between black, latino families and white families is many times greater than the income gap. This gap persists across all income levels. I assume this holds true for FGLI graduates of all races (their incomes may eventually become upper middle class or even high, but they do not have nearly as much accumulated wealth as the traditional graduates of elite colleges).
So even if FGLI graduates are making nearly as much money in income as their high income counterparts post-graduation, it will be likely be several generations before they catch up if not longer because historically (particularly for black families), they have been shut out of wealth generating types of employment and real estate. Thus the children of the typical FGLI alum will still be relatively disadvantaged compared to the children of previous generations of alums. So I think the argument that some of the families in the article were making was about the frustration of having the “perks” of high status taken away in the very moment that they have achieved that status.
All of that said, while I understand that argument, I am skeptical that legacy admissions would necessarily create the bump that FGLI graduates might hope. And in the case of BIPOC graduates in particular, I mostly feel as if it will just create animosity towards people of color as they become a greater proportion of legacy admits at elite schools. In other words, I am not sure that the perk is worth it.
ETA: more harm than good.
1 Like
I attend a high school with a lot of legacies, and I’ve honestly come to the conclusion that abolishing legacy preferences, while justified on principle (I do believe that they should be eliminated—don’t get me wrong), probably won’t change much admissions-wise.
Children of elite university alums are, naturally, going to be growing up in environments of high wealth, privilege, and (hopefully) academic rigor. It’s no surprise that they get admitted to elite universities at higher rates—their lives have essentially been set up for that from the beginning. Getting rid of that bump will filter some out, but I don’t think it’ll completely change how admissions work for non-legacies. Anecdotally, I know many people who get into elite universities they’re not legacies at, some of which are supposedly “more prestigious” (whatever that means).
At the same time, I will say that the sample size of legacies I know at the moment happen to be those who attend a highly rigorous boarding school (i.e. both the parents and the students themselves place high value on education), so my conclusions may not reflect the broader group at large.
5 Likes
This is a movie and media stereotype. I attended one of these elite schools as many others on this forum have. I can tell you that it was transformative, but it does not automatically propel you into high society and vast wealth. Equally false is the assumption that all First Gens are low income. Many come from wealthy families that own successful businesses. It just so happens that their parents did not attend college.
11 Likes
Making some simple assumptions based on current percentages I estimate that Amherst’s eliminating legacy admissions will lead to perhaps 10-15 additional disadvantaged and-or underrepresented students being admitted in each class.
Legacy admissions is probably not long for this world and that is a good thing, but the way that ending it is portrayed as some kind of game-changer for access and equity is frankly just weird.
4 Likes
There is always lively debate on legacy admissions on my alumni FB page when the topic comes up because of some news article. The overwhelming correlation that I see is that the younger alums tend to be against it (their idealistic fervor is still intact) but the older ones with kids about to attend tend to feel differently, lol.
16 Likes
Yes, I meant the parent who now has a kid at college was a FG when they went to school with me, or LI, or both. None of their kids are FG of course but one is still a LI family. I personally was from LI family (yet not FG), and my spouse was FG and not at all rich but definitely not full-pell-grant LI like I was. We have done extremely well and credit our institution for the majority of that success.
I have been following Cornell admissions since 2011, or the Class of 2015. You can pull up Cornell Profile Class of XX to confirm. Legacy students have represented from 14.5 to 16.8% of the incoming first year class. Athletes have been in the 5-7% range, and some of the legacies admits may be athletes but that is unknown.
Here is the profile for the Class of 2025:
On the other hand, generational wealth itself tends to increase SES differences and decrease SES mobility by giving additional advantage to the already advantaged. That can have effects on society overall that eventually become unpleasant even for the high SES – when the low SES no longer believe that the system works for them, societal and political instability are more likely (crime and other effects of lack of trust increase, political extremism like communism and racism become more appealing), and business becomes more difficult and less profitable (since highly divided societies make it difficult to appeal to everyone when appealing to some becomes negative marketing for others).
3 Likes
While not every elite college alumni becomes wealthy, and not every first-generation-to-college student is from a low income family, there is a strong enough correlation between these attributes and SES that the effect cannot be ignored when a college makes policy on the matter (at the very least, changes to admission weighting of legacy and first-generation-to-college are likely to affect financial aid expense).
1 Like
One of the wealthiest couples we know has kids that will be considered first gen. First Gen and full pay, it’s an elite school’s dream.
2 Likes
No “private” school is private, as long as they take federal funding for research, and as long as any of the tuition is being paid by federal loans, and as long as the institution is tax-exempt. Legacy should have been dispensed with over 50 years ago. Imagine what competitive college admissions would be like with no racial preferences, no recruited athletes, no legacies, no preference according to economic background.
7 Likes
It would look very very white/Asian and top 1 percent.
8 Likes
MIT has been doing it for years.
2 Likes
I don’t think you can talk about one preferred class of students (legacies) without talking about all: faculty brats, development cases, first gens, URMs, and athletes will have to be part of the conversation.
I was a lower income kid on campus. Personally, I appreciated legacy classmates, athletic teams, and an engaging, diverse student body.
Faculty brats added nothing for me and the first gen thing is meaningless - every college campus was full of first gens from the 1960s through the 1990s. It wasn’t special then. It’s not now.
3 Likes
more likely very very Asian…
2 Likes
Legacy is a red herring, at least for private colleges. MIT, with all of its vaunted no legacy admission has an extremely low social mobility index. There are so many parts of college admissions that benefit high income families, and legacy is a minor part of this.
Looking at the income distribution of Harvard legacies in their incoming classes, it is clear that legacies do not have any particular advantage unless they are wealthy. So all that getting rid of legacy will do is to have the college look for other indications of income among their applicants. So the main beneficiaries of removing legacy admissions are the small percent of non-legacies with very high income.
Since these families usually have many other very good choices for college, I do not see this as some sort of Social Justice Issue, in which disadvantaged people are being further disadvantaged by this policy.
In fact, the reason that this is even an issue is because a set of relatively high income families feel that legacy is the main reason that their kids could not, or cannot attend one of a small set of 20 or 30 colleges. The main reason that these colleges are so popular is because of the benefits provided by the wealth of these college. That wealth is the result of alumni donations, and would be substantially impacted by dropping legacy admissions.
The reason that MIT was able to remove legacy admissions is because most of their wealth comes from patents and other tech-based sources, so reduction in donations would not have nearly the same impact as it does for, say, Harvard.
All this being said, it is true that legacy should not be a consideration for any public university. The entire state supports the college, and the entire state should have the same chance at being accepted. So UMich, UVA, W&M, etc, should all be banned from using legacy in admissions. However, I do not see considering legacy for OOS applicants, the way that UNC does, to be a problem.
In any case, any decisions about getting rid of policies that may actually help disadvantaged people, like affirmative action, will not actually do anything to any policy that helps wealthy people.
Not really. It’s there to maintain the number of wealthy kids, not for any other reason. It is weak now because the turnover in the upper class of the USA is just beginning. The newly wealthy, many of whom are not White, are still not benefiting from it. However, as we see an increasing number of these new wealthy families becoming legacies themselves, they will turn around and support it.
Only colleges which are able to financially maintain themselves with less help from alumni will ever get rid of legacy considerations in admissions.
5 Likes
Tru’ that! Have corrected.
I’m glad I stayed out of this discussion, (aside from posting various social mobility rankings), because you said everything I would have liked to, only much better.