Amherst to stop offering legacy preference in admissions

MWolf
Tue, 14 Dec 2021 17:20:24 +0000

This matches the data indicating that the one who mostly benefit from their legacy status are the wealthiest alumni families.

Harvard publishes their data on their incoming class, including the income classes of their admitted legacies. Until their Class of 2023, when they added “prefer not tell” to the choices for incoming legacies, almost 70% of the legacies were from families making more than $250,000 a year, or the top 5% (in 2019), while 46.4% come from families making more than $500,00 a year, or the top 1%. Only 12% were from families that make less than $125,000, so maybe 10% from the bottom 80% by income. Looking at the Chetty analysis, about 42% of Harvard graduates end up in the top 5%, 21% end up in the top 1%, and 35% end up in the bottom 80%.

So the wealthiest legacies are about 6X as likely to attend Harvard as the middle class legacies, and, even assuming that at least half of the poorest alumni improved their SES, their kids are being accepted at a small fraction of the rate f the wealthiest legacies

So yes, it definitely seems that legacy status at Harvard is only really meaningful if the family is very wealthy, and almost certainly, are serious donors.

As an aside, it also demonstrates that claims that Harvard prefers legacies because these kids are somehow more prepared for Harvard.

As a second aside - why are Harvard alumni who aren’t super wealthy donating their money top Harvard? I mean, they have these vast resources of wealth, and hundreds of super wealthy donors who want their names on buildings and their kids at Harvard. While that $25 may be very little to a reasonably well off family, Harvard needs that money a LOT less than you do. It’s as though you are giving Bill Gates $25 to help him buy coffee.

Harvard accepting that donation is as though Gates takes your $25 and says “thank you, every little bit helps”.