But that legacy applicant would have all of that helpful local knowledge about the school even if the school didn’t give a boost to legacy applicants.
If the legacy kids are otherwise such great applicants in terms of qualifications and fit, why do the schools feel the need to give them the extra boost?
Why do the schools give an extra advantage to a group that is already going to be highly advantaged to start?
I have my hypothesis. $$$
Donations. And a chance to reward alumni who contribute a lot of their time. Plus the fact that “messing around with legacies” gives them a better quality student for some reason…possibly self-selection.
Mean scores from the study: no legacy group CR-679 M-686; primary legacy group CR-700 M-695. The legacy scores have a tighter dispersion with a Std Dev. of about 75 compared to 84 for non-legacies. Those are two different populations, and especially so when you consider the portion of them that is going to fall into the right tail, from which many of these schools draw three quarters of their matriculants.
The study also shows that the numbers expressing the advantage for legacies drop materially when he does some kind of control for SAT, race, gender, and athlete status. Not sure how he does this, but it makes a difference.
He also uses a concept of secondary legacy, which he defines to be a sibling, or grandchild, niece, nephew, of a graduate, or a graduate degree holder. This include sons and daughters of graduate degree holders. This category seems to receive a rather strong preference as well. Which is interesting because he had 5258 primary legacies, but almost 2.5x that in secondary legacies in the study.
Northwesty - did you miss my answer? It’s probably some combination of tradition / community, hoped-for-eventual-donations, and maybe an attempt to suss out full pay (among those adcoms who aren’t bright enough to recognize that Kenilwork+New Trier likely equals full pay).
But given that the vast majority of legacies are the plain vanilla ones, not donating libraries and science wings but at most sending a kid full-pay and maybe a few hundred bucks over the years, it seems evident that it’s about tradition / community. That feels very obvious to me. I think it’s cool when there is a family where all or many of them went to XYZ and have strong feelings about it.
How do you explain the legacy rejects- a kid who gets rejected from Brown but accepted at Penn and Dartmouth? (full pay btw). A double legacy rejected from Penn but accetped at JHU?
And Northwesty- if it were all about money, an Adcom’s life would be immeasurably easier. Kid applying from Choate; last summer’s job was lifeguard at a beach club in the Hampton’s. Another kid applying from Choate; last summer’s job was shift supervisor at a Kansas Fried Chicken in the Bronx.
This stuff isn’t rocket science.
Note that I didn’t include WUSTL or Oberlin. My sense is that few Minnesotans apply to those schools. Oberlin actually draws more from the Northeast than from the Midwest; if I’m not mistaken there are more New Yorkers than Ohioans in its student body, and once you get beyond Ohio, Michigan, and the Chicago area it has very limited draw in the rest of the Midwest. And I think most Minnesotans don’t think of St Louis as being in the same region, perhaps because we have long memories going back to the Dred Scott case.
Just for the fun of it, here are the numbers of Minnesota freshmen who enrolled in various in-state, in-region, and out-of-region colleges and universities in 2010.
In-state: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 3,450, St. Olaf 416, Carleton 100, Macalester 70
In-region: University of Wisconsin-Madison 738, Northwestern 78, Notre Dame 55, WUSTL 37, University of Chicago 33, University of Michigan 32, Oberlin 14, Case Western 10, Grinnell 8 (this is an anomaly; more typically 20-30)
Out-of-region: Boston University 39, Harvard 34, Boston College 32, USC 29, NYU 28, Dartmouth 22, Northeastern 20, Stanford 18, Tufts 18, Wellesley 16, Georgetown 15, MIT 15, Princeton 15, Cornell 14, Yale 14, Brown 13, Columbia 13, Duke 13, Johns Hopkins 13, Vanderbilt 13, Carnegie Mellon 12, Penn 11, Bowdoin 10, Colby 9, Colgate 9, Hamilton 9, Middlebury 9, UC Berkeley 9, Amherst 8, Pomona 7, Smith 7, Wesleyan 7, Mount Holyoke 6, Rice 6, Vassar 6, Wake Forest 6, Brandeis 5, Davidson 5, Emory 5, Barnard 4, Bates 4, Swarthmore 4, UNC Chapel Hill 4, Claremont McKenna 3, Williams 3, Haverford 2, University of Virginia 1
And by way of contrast, comparable figures for Massachusetts 2010 freshmen:
In-state: UMass Amherst 3,319, Boston University 865, Northeastern 770, Boston College 559, Tufts 259, Harvard 219, Brandeis 142, Smith 116, MIT 99, Mount Holyoke 84, Williams 67, Wellesley 66, Amherst 53,
In-region (Northeast): NYU 184, Brown 168, Cornell 141, Bates 124, Colby 113, Penn 104, Dartmouth 96, Georgetown 89, Bowdoin 86, Wesleyan 75, Yale 71, Carnegie Mellon 68, Colgate 68, Middlebury 68, Johns Hopkins 65, Vassar 54, Princeton 53, Hamilton 52, Columbia 50, Barnard 28, Haverford 23, Swarthmore 18
Out-of-region: University of Michigan 80, Northwestern 69, WUSTL 65, Wake Forest 61, Notre Dame 53, USC 49, Emory 48, Oberlin 48, University of Chicago 46, Vanderbilt 46, Duke 41, University of Wisconsin-Madison 37, Stanford 31, University of Virginia 30, Case Western 23, UC Berkeley 20, Davidson 17, Grinnell 13, Rice 12, UNC Chapel Hill 12, Pomona 9, Claremont McKenna 7
Conclusions: Very few Minnesotans get much past Chicago or South Bend for college, and in fact, surprisingly few get even that far. Massachusetts sends more kids to many Midwestern schools (Chicago, Michigan, Case Western, Oberlin) than Minnesota does. And Massachusetts students are much more heavily invested in elite private education, and private education in general, than are Minnesotans. Like students everywhere, most Massachusetts residents stay pretty close to home for college, though that gives them an attractive array of top private schools. But they’re also more willing to travel out-of-region for high quality private education than are Minnesotans, and even for high-quality public education. It’s telling that a leading public institution, the University of Michigan, actually draws more Massachusetts residents than any out-of-region elite private school. My principal conclusion, though, is that the market for higher education is much more regional than a lot of the chatter on CC would have you believe.
There isn’t an assumption legacies are auto-fits. PG’s keyword is “articulate.” I’ve got to think posters here remember Hunt’s recent thread about “it.” No one looks at page two (or whatever it is) and sees one or both parents graduated, then just checks scores to make sure they’re ok. (Or zip or which prep, to fuss about wealth.) It’s a whole review of the application. I really don’t expect this group of posters to agree.
Btw, per the NYT article, “Among the 30 colleges, the legacy advantage varied enormously: one college was more than 15 times as likely to accept legacy applicants, while at another, the effect was insignificant.” Not sure what value comes from using averages.
And how do we think he assessed “character?” With an adcom from each school at his side or ?
There can be several reasons for a legacy reject and I’m not comfortable treading on any feelings. But the app is key, incl activities, writing and LoRs. And the interview, if the school offers that.
Looking, my question was hypothetical. Of course there are dozens of possible reasons for a legacy rejection, just as there are dozens of possible reasons for a non-legacy rejection. Including of course, the fact that the kid who played the piccolo whose parents went to Brown was applying during a cycle where they were really and truly looking for a cellist- but Penn needed a piccolo.
But I’m the one who doesn’t believe that legacy (in the absence of something very special in addition) means a whole heck of a lot. And I really don’t believe it’s a workaround to attract full pay parents, given how easy it is to read an application and suss out which kids live in New Canaan and which kids live in Trenton, NJ. Doesn’t require Sherlock Holmes to see the home address…
Ok, blossom and I agree. But some seem in a rush to proclaim all sorts of things, often based on quantifiables.
And I’m one who doesn’t see this as looking for New Canaan.
There might be a bit of overthinking going on here. Legacies are important. Alums donate and they serve as ambassadors and gorilla marketers for their schools. I live in an area that is lousy with USC grads. They donate, they go to every football game, they talk relentlessly about their Trojan-ness and all the glory that comes along with it. This type of behavior has done wonders for USC. But the minute one of their kids gets denied admission (and that seems to be happening a lot) the flags come down, the money stops flowing, and they stop talking about being a Trojan for life.
The easiest way to offend someone on a permanent basis is to tell them that their child isn’t good enough.
“if it were all about money, an Adcom’s life would be immeasurably easier.”
The folks reading the apps don’t make those policies; they only implement the policies they are told to implement.
The BOT and/or the Dean of Admissions decides that (i) “our policy is to boost legacies”, (ii) “our policy is that we do early decision” and (iii) “our policy is admissions are need blind.” They tell the app readers to follow those policies. So the app readers aren’t told to screen for Greenwich addresses and thus those readers don’t in fact screen for Greenwich.
They are told to screen for legacies and to do ED. Which are policies that are demonstrated to increase tuition revenue and yield. But maybe that’s just a happy coincidence and not the intent of those policies…
Well if your original 5% chance turns to 15% because you are a legacy, there is still probably so much noise in the results that these things are bound to happen. I still haven’t seen a legacy not get into at least one other college that is equally or even more selective than the college they are a legacy for. I think most of them have the “it”. And the legacies I know who didn’t get in, were generally a little wobbly, either with scores, grades or that extra something.
I didn’t realize the legacy advantage in that study varied so wildly. That really does mean the averages are pretty meaningless. All I know about Harvard and legacy is the “thumb on the scale” article, ( http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/05/a-thumb-on-the-scale.html ) now ten years old. The results aren’t actually that different. For a student with good SAT scores the chance was increase by 25 percentage points - ie from say 10% to 35%.
I was amused by this though:
Also the article says they saw no evidence of intentional gaming of the need blind system. Rather it’s that the pool of low SES kids is too small and the fact that their scores and grades are likely to be slightly lower than average that is keeping them from being accepted.
Of course, this can also happen if the college admits an underqualified legacy child who then flunks out.
I think the colleges realize this. They may be more likely to admit a well-qualified legacy than a similarly qualified non-legacy kid, but they don’t seem to be admitting legacy kids who don’t belong at their schools. At least, not any more.
Oh, yes. I’m a Cornell grad, and though I’m not as gung ho about the school as your USC grad neighbors are about their alma mater, I love the place. I love it even more now that my daughter has gone there, too. If she had not been admitted, I think my enthusiasm for Cornell would have been greatly dampened.
Someone I know very well had what I think is an interesting legacy situation at a top school which I will not name (HYPM). The father is well off, but not donating a building wealthy, but he is very well known and respected in his field (think federal judge) and has been involved with the university in many ways for 40 years and has made the school very proud. Has donated regularly but increments of about $10,000 or less per year, but he provided his name and expertise to the school, as well as provided opportunities for students. First child was straight out rejected, despite being very close to the range and, arguably, within the range on scores/grades, but lacking the something extra. The dad was angry, but the child found a good fit and was happy. The second child was less in the range of scores/grades and had absolutely nothing extra. would never have been a credible candidate. Waitlisted. Dad was very upset and called the president of the institution (really) and explained that he respected the decision and, in fact, would have made the same decision on the basis of fairness, but that the decision was so painful to him that going forth he would have to minimize his involvement and would be donating/participating with his law school at another institution. I watched CC for reference to waitlist movement at that school carefully because within 48 hours of that phone call, the student got in off the wait list and accepted the spot. Happily, it has been a smashing academic, social and personal success so far. The parent knows that he pulled strings and it bothers his principles, but as he says, for his own kid he would do anything. The child knows that dad pulled those strings and he didn’t earn the spot. He has been grateful and humble about it.
From the Harvard Crimson (2011):
Another quote from Dean Fitzsimmons:
You might ask why the schools need to SAY that legacies get a boost.
I also think it’s a combination of factors, including tradition, connections, and money. I also suspect that the boost really isn’t as great as some people think, and that it primarily amounts to increasing the odds that an applicant will get into this particular selective school–for applicants who will likely get into several selective schools.
Hunt – I think the schools SAY they give legacies a boost because that is their policy and that is in fact what they do.
I read the studies as showing that the boost is greater than what the schools say and imply that they do. Characterizing the boost as like a “feather on the scale” or a “tie-breaker” may be accurate. But it is misleading because that boost would actually be quite large statistically in the context of schools with single digit acceptance rates and many thousands of extremely well qualified admissible applicants. In that context, getting a boost of 20-30 percentage points is really big, even though it is far from a guarantee of admission.
That boost may be smaller than what a lot of people think because most people don’t understand how this really works in today’s environment. The legacy practices of the 1940s through 1960s are long gone. But the non-legacy admission standards of these schools from that era are also long gone. My guess is that the amount of boost has probably stayed pretty constant over the years. Legacies today have to be a lot smarter than in the old days because non-legacies have to be similarly smarter today as well. In the 70-80s when The Donald attended there, Penn had an overall acceptance rate slightly over 40% and the average SAT score was 1230. Standards for legacies likely have moved in lockstep with non-legacy standards.
As to why schools continue to do it. Most people would say money and I would agree with that. But the objective facts say that the dollars involved for most beneficiaries will be more often tuition dollars rather than donations (which is what most think the policy is all about).
At the schools with the strongest brands, they can probably leverage their legacy program to accomplish multiple objectives – tuition dollars, donation dollars and incenting alumni engagement through volunteering, interviews and community outreach. What gets measured, after all, gets managed. If I were running a school, I’d be in favor of legacy admissions since it makes good business sense.
At somewhat lesser schools (like mine) it seems to be more of a policy that will tend to produce higher yield from fuller payors. Especially since my school does not do ED (which is clearly about yielding full payors).
Don’t forget that you have to recenter the scores. I know my 1973 verbal score would be 60 points higher.
The studies may shroud themselves in numbers and number theory, but they are still from somewhat afar. As even Espenshade said, they were not looking at the full range of variables or the making of the final composition of the class. Not looking through adcoms’ eyes. Not looking from the perspective of what the individual colleges value and need, the tweaks they make. Something can appear to be so…and yet not provide a full picture. Not all studies shed absolute light. Economists and ss researchers know that. And so should we.
I would ask, nw, why you think you know how this works, beyond studies. Are you involved, either with admissions or what the broad pool of top performers is really like, their level of thinking? Because one has to assume, it seems to me, that all applicants and all applications are pretty equal, to fuss over some legacy advantage. Perhaps that’s an assumption that needs to be tested, before declaring the Eureka moment.
“Not all studies shed absolute light.”
LF – if this is your standard, then I guess there’s nothing to talk about on this or any other topic. It seems you are not convinced of anything by the available data. I am.
Cheers.
Several people made the point upthread that Hurwitz found wide variation among schools in the size of the legacy advantage in admissions, making the average legacy advantage among the schools in his study a fairly meaningless statistic. That seems right to me. But it also suggests that at schools where statistically there’s a large legacy advantage, it really is just legacy status itself and not some special qualities of legacy applicants that is doing the heavy lifting; if it was just the quality of the candidates, you’d expect less variance among schools. (I know the parents of successful legacy applicants don’t want to hear this, but there it is).
It would be interesting if someone could confirm this by comparing patterns of legacy admissions at schools that don’t consider legacy status in the admission process with those that do consider it. If it’s really just that legacy admits are superior candidates, they should be admitted at similar rates at both sets of schools. (Though it might be hard to construct such a study, because schools that don’t consider legacy status probably don’t keep records on who is a legacy and who isn’t).
I’m not sure how many highly selective private colleges and universities don’t consider legacy status. MIT and Caltech are two that don’t. It’s worth noting that the percentage of full-pays at MIT (41.4%) and Caltech (49.7%) is well within the range of full-pays at HYPS (ranging from a low of 38.9% at Harvard to a high of 50.7% at Stanford)—so if HYPS are using legacy status as a filter for affluence as northwesty suggests, they apparently needn’t bother.
What’s rather more striking, though, is the difference in racial composition of the student bodies. Caltech is 43.8% Asian, MIT is 24.6% Asian. HYPS range from 16.6% Asian (Y) to 20.1% Asian §. It’s not just that Caltech is in Asian-heavy California; Stanford is only 19.7% Asian, yet UC Berkeley, a highly selective public university across the Bay from Stanford that doesn’t consider legacy in admissions, is 35.1% Asian. And MIT and Harvard share the same town, yet MIT’s figure of 24.6% Asian is well above (31% higher than) Harvard’s figure of 18.8% Asian. By similar margins, HYPS are whiter than MIT and Caltech. Perhaps this is partly driven by student preferences; it may be that math, science, and engineering are particularly attractive to Asian students, so STEM-heavy schools like MIT and Caltech are particularly attractive to Asian students. But Stanford is pretty STEM-heavy, too. If you think about it, it’s hard to believe legacy doesn’t play some role here. The demographics of the country have changed a lot in a generation. Legacy preferences would tend to cause elite college admissions to lag those demographic changes, locking in a preference for applicants from a pool that largely reflects the demographics of the previous generation.