As Linda Richmond used to say, “Discuss.”
https://wapo.st/48vdPOv
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This was, of course, the original purpose of “holistic” admissions, instituted throughout the Ivy league to keep Jewish boys out, and WASP boys in. Shame on the schools that have insisted on perpetuating legacy admissions all these decades, even now.
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I can understand the concern about public schools that continue to use legacy, but why anyone cares what some private schools do is beyond me. Personally, I would eliminate athletic preference first, but private colleges can value what they choose.
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There’s been too much publicity around the subject lately and they don’t want to leave the appearance that they are giving in to public pressure. I give them a year as the pressure builds from within their own stakeholders.
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If these colleges think a legacy preference gives them an edge in furthering their long-term institutional goals, they may well see if they can wait out the PR storm. The public is fickle, and already this may be tailing off from “scandal” level toward just the usual grumbling.
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Eliminate legacy preferences so other upper middle class kids have a better chance at elite colleges. What better way to achieve equity and inclusion?
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Based on data from our area, legacy is far less of a boost than recruited athlete, and is mostly an ED factor, among the schools listed in the article(both those that have legacy preference and those highlighted as not: the athletic boost remains large in both groups). I don’t see it going away soon, especially as the “legacy” population is far more diverse now than even 5-7 years ago, and continues to become a more diverse population(ie more former pell grant kids, first gens, racial &religious diversity, etc).
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Racial and religious diversity of current legacy applicants will resemble the racial and religious diversity of the college’s students of a generation ago, rather than the racial and religious diversity of either applicants or students overall today at the college. Legacies are by definition not first generation to college, and legacies for highly selective private colleges (that feed to Wall Street and other high paid jobs) are much less likely than the overall applicant pool to be Pell grant eligible.
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True, but a generation ago is now within the window of time in which these colleges were intentionally seeking out diverse classes, including in ways that are now forbidden by the Supreme Court.
And other prominent criteria do not just select for a demographically-representative subpopulation either.
So I actually don’t know the answer to the following question–which would be closer to these colleges’ ideal student mix: a group of legacies with 33/34 ACTs, or a group of non-legacies with 35/36 ACTs?
Of course they are likely going to do what the Supreme Court allowed and use individualized stories to help create more diverse classes. But in the battle of high numbers/average excellent kids specifically, I am not sure legacy as a factor will not actually help them hit their overall diversity goals.
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I was a pell grant kid. My husband was a first gen. We are white. There werent big promoted plans to get us back in the mid 90s, and there wasn’t support or the term”FGLI”—in fact most of us tried to hide the fact we were poor, yet many very rich people I met tried to hide that too! There was already a system of grants to replace all loans for all NC residents for Pell kids and maybe other low income, and they had been promoting it for a few years. That’s why I got to go to Duke. A friend I later met in medical school at Duke went through an ivy on almost all grants—she told me they sought out low income kids across the nation, especially the region close to the school. It was definitely already changing rapidly from all rich white kids. There was lots of talk that year and the year before that Duke and other schools were becoming more and more racially diverse and my classes were indeed more diverse than my large public HS(which had 70% minorities yet only 5% in the gifted/AP track). Those 90s college kids are sending kids now. In fact, just a quick count of Duke legacy matriculants in our wider region that I know the past few years: 2 kids have low income &/or first gen parents, 2 other kids are non-caucasian, 3 are from typical privileged white backgrounds. These are all distinct families not overlaps/siblings. And among these 7 legacy kids, at least 2 are on financial aid. Obviously the ones with FG parents arent FG now, but they may be more likely to be from diverse backgrounds when the whole former-FG legacy pool is considered
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They may not all be low-income either.
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Very true! My family is a great example of that! But my point is the legacy matriculants today have overall more economic and racial diversity than they did even less than 10 yrs ago, because we are just now entering the phase where the first years of socioeconomic and racial diversity initiatives in the 90s are having children entering college.
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Exactly. I have heard reps from more than one school say they are getting significant pushback from parents who were in these groups, something along the lines of ‘now that we are in the position to benefit from legacy admission, you are thinking of taking it away?’
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Why assume legacy applicants have inferior stats?
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Yes, but the legacy applicants today should not be low income like their parents were. Otherwise, the institutions are not doing a good job of social mobility of their parents, yes?
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Many highly rejective schools don’t do well on many of the social mobility ‘rankings’. Some of those schools would also say social mobility is not one of their primary objectives.
Can’t gift rankings tables in WSJ (many community library systems have free online access for card holders): Best U.S. Colleges for Social Mobility - WSJ.com
The WSJ/College Pulse Social Mobility ranking lists colleges in order of how much they enhance their students’ social mobility. It rewards universities that take in the highest proportion of students coming from lower-income families, while maintaining high graduation rates and having a positive impact on graduate salaries and minimizing the costs of attending the college. The ranking was developed and executed in collaboration with our research partners College Pulse and Statista. See the full methodology below.
Top 20:
CSU-LA
UC Merced
Berea
Fresno Pacific U
CSU-Northridge
CSU-Fresno
Baruch
UIC
FIU
CSU-Sacramento
CSU-Pomona
U La Verne
Albion College
CSU-Long Beach
CSU-Monterey Bay
Montclair State
CSU-San Marcos
NJIT
SFSU
UT El Paso
USNWR:
USNWR LACs:
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The top schools are up there for social mobility. Wasn’t that the emphasis of the US News rankings this year???
Social mobility factors are not the primary factors in USNWR rankings (there is also no agreement on what the ‘best’ measures of social mobility are, or how to measure them most accurately). Here’s the methodology: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings
This is all lip service for alumni fundraising. It will never be what it used to be. Little tip on the scale if that.
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28% on financial aid is a lot lower than the 57% of all Duke undergraduates on financial aid. Seems like this makes the argument that legacies skew higher in money and preferring them seems to be a way to reduce financial aid expense.
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