If a tree falls in a forest . . .
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UVa gives a legacy boost only for OOS applicants - or did as of last year, I havenāt checked again recently. I believe this is true for UNC-CH also, though I didnāt follow that process as closely b/c D22 did not apply.
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From their FAQ:
What is a legacy? How does legacy status affect admission?
A legacy is a student whose parent, step-parent, or adoptive parent has a degree from UVA. Legacy status is acknowledged in our review process. Legacies residing outside of Virginia pay the out-of-state tuition rate.
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Interesting - this does not comport with what we were told in the alumni association liaison process, and I believe I have read otherwise from Dean J on social media as well. But this passage is certainly phrased to allow for broader consideration.
ETA: I donāt mean to be critical of Dean J at all - it is of course possible that I misunderstood something that I read in the past, or that policies have changed.
Neither would Harvard, apparently. Out of 400,000 alumni, only about 30,000 bother to give to the Annual Fund.
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āOnlyā 120,000 of those are Harvard College/Radcliffe alums, which I believe is the sole qualification for legacy status. Itād be interesting to see what the breakdown of that 30,000 is, although anecdotally I donāt think they actually look at the amount of parent giving.
Nice Picture:
Wesleyan University: Top US college says it will end ālegacyā admissions - BBC News
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doing away with legacy is a policy decision. the question is whether significant donors (legacy or not) will be subject to the same policy?
Big donors are their own separate category for admission.
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Iād love to see all admission preferences go away, but the numbers of applicants who enjoy D (donors) or C (children of faculty and staff) preferences are tiny, in comparison to the numbers with L (legacies), or even A (athletes) preferences.
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My question is whether these legacy changes mean anything in terms of actual admission impact. They say that they will not give preference to legacies, but they donāt say anything about donors. There is a lot of overlap in those two groups. My assumption has always been that legacy didnāt get you much if the parents were not donating at least some amount of money and/or involved in other ways.
So if someone has parents that are legacy and donate not a huge amount but something, canāt the schools just use that to factor into admission? In essence they can say they eliminated their legacy policy but de facto kept it in place.
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IMO, this is a lot of optics and there is no way the donor preference is going away.
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Exactly. At elite and near elite schools, mere legacy status (i.e., legacy status that doesnāt include large monetary donations) is nowhere near as big a bump as many (including the media) assume. The unhooked average excellent student from an overrepresented geographic area isnāt getting into Princeton because his mom (who gives the school $200 a year) graduated from there back in 1991. Will these schools get rid of admissions preferences for applicantās whose parents/grandparents are big time donors? Donāt bet on it.
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Iām not sure this is true at a true donor level that would move the needle in admissionsā¦which is 8 figures minimum. I doubt there is any data on this. Regardless, I think every one of Ken Griffinās kids should get to go to Harvard, where they will be full pay of course. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/04/kenneth-c-griffin-makes-gift-of-300-million-to-fas/
Itās also been my understanding that generally legacy and donor kids have not had lower stats on average than the rest of their given class. I believe the Harvard data show that with regard to legacyā¦but Iām sure @data10 knows.
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I think recruited athlete and donor are generally much bigger thumbs on the scale than legacy on its own, and legacy matters most when it exists in combination with the applicant also meeting another institutional priority (as in your legacy-but-simultaneously-big-donor example).
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I am thinking more about the legacy whose parent has been giving $1000 a year for the past 25 years. The donation by itself is not enough by a long shot. But at a school that gives a legacy advantage, that kid may get one.
Now letās say the school eliminates the legacy policy. Do you think that kid is still going to get a preference? It would be a way for schools to say they are eliminating legacy policy, but still provide an advantage to the alumni they care about.
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Many years ago, the development officer who covered me told me that there were basically 3 buckets. The unsupported legacy (parent did little in the way of contributions and volunteering, like admissions interviewing); the boosted legacy where the development office was allowed to put 1 support letter in the file based on amount and consistency of donations as well as other volunteer work; and three the truly big donors or potential donors, who did not need to be alums.
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Helpful insight. So I am thinking that the letter from the development office still goes in for the second and third bucket. Who else beside alumni give small amounts every year for a long time or do interviews? And since the first bucket probably only received marginal help, removing the legacy policy does not change much.
Thus the decision is about optics (which has been pointed out), but optics to alumni as well. The college needs to determine how to eliminate legacy to get the positive public press while somehow signaling to alumni that they should still donate to get their kids in.
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One has to look at both sides of the equation. Donations are a very critical financial support for universities to provide scholarships and financial aid, fund professorships, grow and develop the academic offeringsā¦ these are benefits which are subsequently shared by all students. So the only choice for universities is to either have an investment team which didnāt stop generating outsize returns, or indeed a development office that brings outsize donations, if not both. Itās not a credible strategy to seek significant financial donations without giving donors a very real hook.
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