Washington Post Article: Top Colleges Are Sticking with Legacy Admissions

Applying to College
43

I think some of us have a nuanced position that is something like this:

Alt-1: Within a reasonably broad range of colleges, and for most people, college choice is most important for reasons other than career placement issues. Still, sometimes college choice can relate to networking effects that might make a career track difference to a minority of graduates;

Alt-2: Legacy preferences seem bad to the extent they seem like they are unnecessarily adding yet another unearned advantage to the ones that already exist, but if there is actually a good case to be made that they serve institutional goals like long-term fundraising, or indeed that sort of networking effect, maybe they are justifiable, at least given the values and goals of these institutions. But then is that really true, or just something these schools say?

I do think this sort of realism about elitism in our society and economy, and how elitist networking tends to work, in some ways leading to backing down a bit from the harshest rhetoric about legacy policies specifically. If only because it really then seems like just a small component of a much larger web of elitist policies and practices that serves to perpetuate socioeconomic advantage from one generation to the next.

But even then, you don’t have to like that this is how our society functions, just because in that context, a legacy policy might be rational for an elitist college seeking to preserve and enhance its role in such a socioeconomic system.

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44

I guess this all comes down to how small this minority really is in this discussion. If less than 1% get a benefit, it is likely a waste of time to worry about legacy admissions. If 25% of students attending ivy league (or similar) institutions receive a benefit from attending (compared to attending a state university) then it really matters. I have no idea if such a number exists, but I would love to see the data if anyone has it. To me, that is everything in this conversation.

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45

The Chetty study suggests to me it is on the order of 7% of a typical Ivy+ class. This is the combined difference when using controls for a combination of top 1% income outcomes and elite grad school attendance. See Figures 11(a) and 14(a):

The firm stuff I don’t really credit because I think that is even more deeply infected by self-selection than the other stuff.

So this implies that something like 93% of the class got no notable benefit–either they didn’t get one of these outcomes after going to the Ivy+, or they would have gotten such an outcome anyway.

By the way, I note again I am sure a lot of the people who don’t get top 1% outcomes like this simply chose another path. But again, there is not a lot of evidence that their college choice then mattered to that alternative path being available to them, controlling for other factors.

Anyway, something like 7% is a lot more than 1%, and a lot less than 25%. So . . . make of that what you will.

46

It is amazing that the SCOTUS keeps hearing cases on this topic, millions are spent every year in an attempt to get into the Ivy+ and it is all for this 7% chance.

47

I know in our case that isn’t true.

My S24 does not particularly care about most of that stuff–maybe grad school admissions, but their way of measuring that didn’t really fit his way of thinking about that. For his way of thinking, there are a variety of colleges, not least LACs, that might be as good or better for grad admissions.

But he does have one of those schools at the top of his current list . . . just for a different reason. He is interested in the quality of the experience for its own sake, what I would call its intrinsic value versus the sorts of extrinsic outcomes the Chetty study was measuring.

And one truism about Ivy+ colleges is they are very rich. That study’s definition of Ivy+ (Ivies plus Stanford, MIT, Duke, and Chicago) contains all six of the colleges with the largest endowments, and also 9, 11, 12, 15, 17, and 20. HYPSM in particular are both the top 5 by total, and the top 5 universities (excluding LACs) per capita.

That money buys nice things. My S24 also recognizes that the wealthier LACs can also buy nice things. But for those looking for a university, these are among the universities with the nicest things. And for that matter, the other ones with top 20 endowments–ND, Northwestern, WUSTL, Vanderbilt, Emory, JHU, Rice, and USC–are doing quite well in terms of student preference these days too.

Still, there are undoubtedly a lot of people who think of Ivies or Ivy+ or T20 as unique, life-changing opportunities. These people flood these colleges with applications, more and more every year.

But I wonder how well-represented those people are among the people who actually end up enrolling. I get the sense a lot of the families who actually place their kids in these colleges have more nuanced views about what that really means for their kids–and what it does not.

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48

I don’t think the point was made specifically about you or your son. This is a nationwide issue.

If experts have determined that only 7% of Ivy (and similar) graduates will receive a benefit from attending, that doesn’t seem statistically significant. 93% get no benefit.

Hopefully, that puts an end to any concern about legacy admissions and the entire brouhaha around race, income and all factors that relate to the admission practices of highly selective universities.

49

Unfortunately the college admissions process is often emotional, and not based on logic or rational thinking. We see this here on many CC threads, in a group that tends to be older, more educated and more affluent than average.

The admissions adjacent industries have plenty of reasons to continue feeding the monster.

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50

Yeah, colleges are operating in a very competitive market. They offer what is sometimes known as a differentiated product, and that inherently involves a lot of brand marketing. And it is very well recognized that appealing to emotion is one of the core aspects of most successful brand marketing campaigns.

I mean, if you just start randoming googling this issue, you will immediately come across stuff like this:

Right at the top:

Here are five strategies to consider for driving home your brand’s points of differentiation:

1. Emotional Response

This relies on providing an emotional salience that is tied to a product or service. We’ve found that brands that develop an emotional connection with their customers are often better positioned than those that provide a superior value. For example, Coke’s advertising often appeals to emotion in order to establish a stronger connection with consumers. Their “Share A Coke – Share a feeling” and ‘’Hug me’’ campaigns illustrate just two of the ways that the company uses to evoke an emotional response.

Once you understand this concept, you can see it all throughout how different colleges are trying to market themselves.

Of course the eternal pushback to these sorts of marketing strategies are the sorts of people who tried to provide unbiased reviews and other comparative information about actual value. And that can be extremely useful for consumers who seek out such information.

But the sheer money and other resources behind the marketing of the big global brands in an industry like this can be very difficult for a few willing volunteers to offset. And in fact, once people have already formed an emotional connection to a brand, indeed once they have perhaps invested their own resources into buying into that brand, or aspiring to buy into that brand, they can sometimes be downright hostile to those who suggest perhaps that brand’s perceived value is not as supported by as much actual value as they believe.

So again, we do what we can, but there are going to be limits to what we can do.
Including because people actually have to want to pierce the brand marketing and reevaluate these issues.

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51

I think it’s important to highlight that only 7% receive the kind of benefit defined by the study.

In the case of our kids, they have interest in some of these schools for reasons that have absolutely zero to do with the kind of benefit defined by the study.

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52

Yeah, I was also trying to emphasize that point above using my kid as an example. There are many other reasons someone could rationally want to go to one or more of these schools.

I do think the Chetty-type study is more relevant to people who end up in the mindset of applying to all the Ivies, or T10, or T20, or whatever.

But the kids who think in terms of individual fit, and then determine that one or more of these colleges would in fact be a good individual fit for them, may not find that sort of study relevant at all.

This circles back to legacy admissions, because the data suggests at least many of these legacy admits would just end up at another highly selective college, and would be replaced by someone who did just end up at another highly selective college. But if you are really into those 7%-type outcomes, you might think there is some sort of important issue here if a few people are bumped out of the Ivy+ to some other T20 or whatever.

If instead you just think in terms of fit–eh, maybe those legacies (not just at Ivy+ but wherever it is practiced) actually do fit that college a bit better? Understanding fit is really something the colleges themselves play an active role in defining, I am not particularly inclined to spend a lot of energy worrying about whether their institutional goals could be better served with a different legacy/fit policy. Maybe, but they are the experts in their own institution, so I am generally willing to be deferential to whatever they think makes sense for them.

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53

I don’t really know what this means.

Applicants have never taken a course at any university where they are applying, they don’t know any professors, they haven’t taken a class, they haven’t eaten the food, stayed in the dorms, dealt with the campus politics, dealt with transportation around campus, etc.

When it comes to “fit,” applicants are making an ill-informed guess based on radically incomplete information. I don’t see how this very loose concept is enough to override a private university wanting to offer an advantage for legacy applicants.

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54

Of course, for most prospective college students, the most important part of “fit” are:

  • Is it affordable?
  • Does it offer what I want to study?

But then, it does seem common for many students (or parents) for whom the above are not highly restrictive (i.e. lots of parent money, interested in typical common majors) to use prestige / selectivity as their most important “fit” criteria.

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55

So generally speaking I tend to agree with the proposition that most kids who did reasonably well in high school could probably go on to do reasonably well at a very long list of colleges. Practical issues including affordability may cut that list way down. But at least some kids could practically attend many of these colleges, and yet they can only choose one (at least to start).

OK, so actually knowing in advance at which they would do best is not possible, and similarly it is not possible to actually know in advance at which they will be happiest. But, they can learn about their options, visit if possible, and make an informed guess about which colleges would fit them in terms of being colleges where they would do well and be happy.

And while doing that is no guarantee it will work out as hoped, to me it makes sense to take your informed best bets.

I’m not sure what you mean. The two points I was making about kids who approach things this way is they may be less inclined to care about studies like the Chetty study, and that if certain colleges think that certain legacies are more likely to do well at their college by their standards for doing well, they could actually be right about that.

With the above attitude, this becomes a low stakes issue because even if that means you do not get admitted to some college because you were not a legacy (and you might get admitted, because of course they still have many non-legacy admits), eh, it is not like you knew that was going to be the best college in fact for you. It might be one of your informed best bets, but hopefully you have identified more, so no big deal.

56

Or at least common in certain circles.

I would say after affordability and availability of programs, kids should then be next considering where they at least think they will do well, and also where they think they will be happiest. This is necessarily an informed guess at best, but still, I think it makes no sense to choose a college where you do not at least anticipate both doing well and being happy. Including because happy people tend to do better, and doing well in college tends to be very helpful.

And then if you still have a longish list of colleges all of which would be affordable, have the programs you want, and at which you at least anticipate doing well and being happy . . . then maybe you can start looking at things like placement data for specific next-steps. I guess sometimes people think that prestige is a good word for that sort of question. I do not. But to the extent some general sense of how a school might help place students in next steps you think you might care about is relevant to college choice, that would be my sense of where it should appear.

Namely placement as a distinguishing factor should come after you have already made sure the colleges in question are affordable, have the programs you want, and at which you think you would do well and be happy.

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57

I think we can filter out the common sense aspects of fit:

  • No one can (or should) attend a university they can’t afford.
  • No one should attend a university that doesn’t offer their preferred course of study
  • Hate the cold? Stay away from schools like Wisconsin or Cornell.
  • Hate big cities? Avoid UChicago and NYU.
  • Do reproductive rights matter to you? Avoid UT Austin and UF.

Outside of obvious things like this, which everyone already knows, trying to deduce “fit” is a nebulous practice. It shouldn’t be part of the discussion in whether or not a private university can choose to offer legacy admissions.

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58

Whenever possible, my D sat in on courses, talked to professors, talked to other students, and ate in the dining halls when we did our college visits. She also did a summer program to make sure her top choice was really her top choice.

Totally understand that not every family can do that but everyone can do virtual visits, read the student newspaper, ask admissions to be connected to current students, read niche reviews, see what students are saying on ratemyprofessor, etc…

I think in general, legacy students have a better idea if they fit or not. My D was on our college campus multiple times growing up and she heard us talking about it constantly. She humored us with an official visit when she was applying but it confirmed to her that it was not a good fit for her. My sense is that the legacies that apply ED really know it’s the school for them.

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59

While there are plenty of students who apply with no real sense of “fit,” there are others who do have a reasonable idea of fit. Is it subjective? Sure. But that doesn’t make it invalid. You could ask students in their senior year at a college and not get agreement on the fit or pro/cons of a college. Don’t underestimate how much students can learn from older peers who who they trust and who know them who are at these schools ahead of them. Kids compare notes all the time. Some spend hours on the college’s Reddit forums where current students post. They take tours, try out the dining, opt to sit in on classes, sometimes email and strike up email exchanges with professors or club leaders, etc.

I also would not assume that a legacy student intrinsically has a more accurate sense of fit. The legacy may have a highly biased or outdated idea of the college from their parent(s). They may have been conditioned to not consider the school objectively.

60

What your daughter did is incredible, and invaluable, but it is done by such a small segment of the population of applicants that I don’t think it is relevant to whether or not the perception of “fit” in the mind of the vast majority of applicants should be a relevant consideration in private universities being able to offer a preference in legacies for admissions.

61

I’d suggest depending on the kid, the list keeps going.

Suburban is different from rural.

1500 students is different from 6000 is different from 30000.

The role of things like intercollegiate sports and Greek life can be major variables.

The official and unofficial role of religion can be a major variable.

The mix of natural sciences/math, arts, humanities, social sciences, engineering, business, and other pre-professional students can be a major variable.

Whether there are or are not graduate and professional schools at the same institution is a variable.

And so on.

So obviously legacies have a family member who is familiar with the college, its traditions, and so on. The legacies who do apply–particularly if they apply ED/REA–therefore plausibly skew better informed than non-legacy applicants about what that college experience will be like, and have implicitly made a judgment that the college in question sounds really good to them.

That’s surely not the only personal/fit factor these colleges consider, but to me it would be perfectly rational if they thought being a legacy was a positive fit factor for this or other reasons.

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62

Yeah, my S24 is a legacy at two pretty different colleges thanks to me and his mom, and one is his REA school and the other is not on his list at all. This despite both those colleges working out great for us respectively. But the experience in question was very different, and only one of those two alternatives appeals to him.

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