"Legacy preferences for applicants to highly selective colleges are gaining renewed scrutiny in the aftermath of last year’s college admissions cheating scandal and the court battle over admissions at Harvard University. Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg’s higher education plan flirts with limiting access to federal student aid programs for colleges and universities that rely on legacy preferences.
According to a Wall Street Journal report, 56% of the nation’s top 250 institutions consider legacy in the admissions process, down from 63% in 2004. At Harvard, whose admissions deliberations are unusually transparent thanks to the legal saga, children of alumni are six times more likely to receive an acceptance letter than ordinary applicants. Although some top schools such as Johns Hopkins University have scrapped legacy preferences in the name of fairness, the practice remains common." …