We all want to improve the K-12 system. We all want to reduce poverty. If we can’t agree on a solution to the problems in K-12, I doubt we’ll be able to agree on a solution to the problem of poverty.
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As I noted earlier getting rid of the legacy bump will have no effect on SES diversity. The top schools are already hitting their SES diversity targets. If high SES legacy admits are reduced they will be replaced with other high SES admits with no significantly better stats. And a significant group of alumni will be turned off. The alumni base is important for contributions and other non financial support. Otherwise why do these schools sponsor strong alumni associations?
In the early 1960s Yale’s admits were 30%+ undergraduate legacy Now it hovers around 10% (14% if you include graduate legacy) The reason for the decline is complex but admitting more public school kids plus aiming for high achievers as measured by statistics is probably part of it
But it is not fair to let birth be a factor one can argue. Is it fair for high SES students to have a disproportionately high percentage representation in the student body ? That high status is all due to one’s parents. So let’s have a limit on high status SES students in order to be “fair”.
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I have no idea what “SES diversity” is and why should I care if the legacy bump will make an effect on it. The legacy bump is unfair and runs against meritocracy.
Is there any DATA that alumni participation will change if the legacy is removed? Or just speculations?
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Do you mean they have some SES-based targets/quotas they have to meet? So they just fill their low-SES bucket with a few Pell recipients because those are the numbers they need to report (to USNews, etc.) and can brag about?
Of course they like to brag about it. And about meeting full financial need too. But they will inevitably be skewed toward high SES students as long as they value high achievers.
I just don’t see what you want to achieve by getting rid of the legacy bump -level the playing field for other high SES students ? I think we have bigger issues to worry about
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The reason to get rid of an unfair rule is to allow all applicants to compete on their own merits. Fair competitions make our schools better and our society/economy more productive.
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Yes, Caltech is happy to accept students from any background,race,gender as long as they are prepared and can pay. Talent may be blind, but they are not need blind. Caltech is very active in obtaining donations from both alumni and the local rich non-alumni. That helps to sponsor a few LI students each year.
Perhaps the Ivies should spend more time courting the rich non-alumni. Then they could then remove the legacy admission bump without hurting their bottom lines. Of course, it is not just money that those legacies bring to the table.
Caltech is need blind and the ability to pay isn’t a criterion. In the same article that I linked to earlier, its president also states:
In fact, if you apply to Caltech, you don’t even need to submit an FA application (for both domestic and international students) until you’re accepted because its FA application deadline comes after acceptances have been announced.
I’m sure they do. They even offer large donors a much greater admission hook. Again, whether they need to or not is a separate question. Caltech, for example, does NOT offer its donors such preferences:
https://www.admissions.caltech.edu/apply/first-year-freshman-applicants/application-requirements
Going back to the original question, I think it is likely that legacy admissions will be eliminated from many colleges if the Supreme Court rules against Harvard in the affirmative action case, but I think it will be a matter of optics not because it will necessarily make competition fairer or result in a “better” student body whatever that means.
I did just go look at Harvard college’s mission though, and while there is a lot of language (my italics) in there that could potentially justify their commitment to admitting FGLI students and increasing the racial and socioeconomic diversity of the students and faculty, there is nothing stated in the mission and vision that justifies keeping legacy admissions. In fact, the line about “a more just, fair, and promising world” suggests that legacy preferences are in fact counter to the college’s stated mission. So while other parts of their holistic admissions policies support the mission, I am not sure that legacy preferences do unless the argument is made that they bring in the money needed “to create and sustain the [financial] conditions that enable all Harvard College students to experience an unparalleled educational journey”
Thus, I think the optics of having legacy admissions combined with the potential reduction in the number under-represented minorities on elite campuses (post-Supreme Court decision) will push Harvard and probably other colleges to eliminate legacies. I doubt the elimination of the bump will change the student body composition in any meaningful way. But that is fine. I can’t imagine either celebrating (much) or mourning (much) the elimination of legacy preferences at Harvard or any other college.
Mission & Vision
Our mission to educate future leaders is woven throughout the Harvard College experience, inspiring every member of our community to strive toward a more just, fair, and promising world.
The mission of Harvard College is to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society. We do this through our commitment to the transformative power of a liberal arts and sciences education.
Beginning in the classroom with exposure to new ideas, new ways of understanding, and new ways of knowing, students embark on a journey of intellectual transformation. Through a diverse living environment, where students live with people who are studying different topics, who come from different walks of life and have evolving identities, intellectual transformation is deepened and conditions for social transformation are created. From this we hope that students will begin to fashion their lives by gaining a sense of what they want to do with their gifts and talents, assessing their values and interests, and learning how they can best serve the world.
Harvard College sets the standard for residential liberal arts and sciences education. We have committed to creating and sustaining the conditions that enable all Harvard College students to experience an unparalleled educational journey that is intellectually, socially, and personally transformative.
ETA: I am quite cynical about flowery mission statements by the way, but I will note that launching graduates into the 1% is nowhere to be found in the above mission. Nevertheless, I am quite sure it is a goal of plenty of Harvard’s students and applicants! 
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I do not think so, because I do not see the legal basis for this. Affirmative action has been challenged because it supposedly treats applicants differently based on race, and race is a protected class. Non-legacy is not a protected class.
I do not think that the argument that White people are more highly represented among the legacies and therefore it’s indirectly racist will work. My feeling is that this SCOTUS will not consider anything to be racist unless it explicitly mentions race. They have already upheld laws that disproportionally affect minorities, because there is no explicit reference to race.
I may well be wrong, though.
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^This^
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Right, but to clarify, I wasn’t suggesting that SCOTUS will try to overturn legacy admissions. I am suggesting that the colleges themselves will stop giving a legacy bump because of pressure from their current students and because the optics of the college continuing to admit wealthy legacies while their student body becomes whiter and richer will look too unfair even if eliminating those policies is unlikely to restore the racial diversity lost post affirmative action. In other words, I think legacy admissions will be problematic from a public relations point of view not from a legal point of view. And at least for Harvard (I haven’t looked at other colleges’ missions), there is not much in the mission to support the idea legacy admissions while there is plenty to support the idea of affirmative action.
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Across all “elite” colleges, the students body is becoming progressively less White, and the income diversity is probably staying the same. In most of the “elite” colleges that have legacy admissions, fewer than 50% of the incoming students who are American citizens or permanent residents are non-Hispanic White. This a continuing trend.
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Yet notwithstanding the mission statement, LADC preference is strong at Harvard. I expect Harvard and others like it will find a way to maintain both the legacy bump and the stated commitment to diversity. Staying test optional may be a way to keep both high reported overall stats and flexibility to assure desired social diversity
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Getting rid of legacy won’t achieve this though.
There will still be other hooked students, and unhooked affluent students will still have an advantage in admissions. It is not a coincidence that 40% to 50%+ of the classes at selective schools/the type of school where a legacy bump has value are full pay students.
The non-legacy students who take the place of legacy students will likely look similar in terms of stats and ability to pay. If legacy pref is eliminated, selective schools will just admit each other’s legacies. Which happens now to some degree because legacy preference has already been diminished at many schools (and some have already eliminated it as discussed above), and highly selective legacy students with competitive stats generally do well in college admissions.
I continue to maintain that the vast majority of legacies have competitive stats, and the ones who don’t are hooked in another way (athlete, development, URM). People seem to be forgetting that most legacies are denied admission at their legacy school.
Lastly I am not advocating to keep legacy admission. But the post-legacy admit class is likely to look the same as it did before. The difference will be that these schools swapped some legacy students.
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Getting rid of legacy preferences will make elite college admissions fairer. You’re correct that we need to get rid of other unfair rules too.
Yes, they already enjoy too many advantages in having attended better K-12 schools, ability to hire professional college admission counselors, essay coaches, etc. Why give them another advantage?
Here’s another unfair rule: why should applicants be asked to check the box to indicate whether they plan to apply for financial aid, if the college is need blind? This is what makes some posters cynical about the need-blindness at some of these elite colleges. Also, if colleges eliminate legacy preferences, there’s no reason to ask applicants where (not if) their parents attended college, is there?
We don’t know that. If some of these legacy admits got in because of their legacy status, their replacements presumably would be more qualified, would they not?
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Yes, I think that you are right. It is likely that the colleges will tweak their policies in order to do what they want anyway. But I would imagine they will have to at least change some of their methods if they are worried about being sued again if they are perceived as taking race into account in admissions.
As for whether student demographics will change, I guess that I am not sure. I understand the trend is towards more BIPOC students at elite universities. Presumably post-Supreme court decision, there will be more Asian-American students admitted, which strikes me as a good outcome. At the same time, while I don’t know the current stats, I remember clearly that the numbers of black and latino students dropped quite a bit in California public universities after the voters banned affirmative action, an outcome which I personally consider problematic. On the other hand, it is nearly twenty years later so perhaps there will not be the same result at Harvard (assuming SCOTUS rules against it) in 2023 in beyond as there was in California in the mid-1990s.
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A colleague of mine who used to be an AO at a need blind T-10 school told me they (the readers and admissions committee) don’t see whether or not the applicant applied for financial aid. The checkbox is used to initiate the aid process with the FA office. Having the admissions office and FA office work (independently) in parallel saves time.
I believe this practice isn’t universal. If it were, there would be no need for this check box. I believe AOs at most colleges do receive this information.
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Doesn’t the financial aid office know this when they receive the CSS and other documents for an applicant? I am not sure why they need the box on the common app.
However, I think the box is needed if colleges remain committed to admitting FGLI students, which they might be able to do legally even if affirmative action is banned. Or at least I thought that they will still be able to take FGLI status into account. Despite writing as if I know what I am talking about, all my information is either anecdotal or gathered from New York Times articles. So I don’t know the ins and outs of the court case at all.
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