How would you test for that? Those 24 spots weren’t put in a lock box, waiting for the next legacies to come along.
I take your point to mean that dropping a college’s legacy preference does not, in and of itself, mean that other markers of inequality (ie, a family history of access to elite education) do not still give advantage. I agree, dropping legacy preference does not eliminate inequity in college admissions. But I do believe that it is a step in the right direction.
All the information we have is that the same year as legacies dropped in half, Amherst admitted its highest percentage of first-generation students.
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I think the point is that “that their percentage of legacies just about dropped in half in their first year” ≠ becoming more socioeconomically diverse. It may. It may not.
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All of these schools have targets they are trying to hit to fill different categories. Amherst has had “record” classes for first gen and racial diversity most years if not every year for a while. That’s the direction they are tending.
As far as legacies, @Mwfan1921 makes a good point. The “privileged full pay” slots have been decreasing every year, and continue to decrease. But they are still there. Mostly the “no legacy preference” means that kids of Amherst alums don’t have any preference to fill those slots anymore.
That feels more fair to me. On the one hand it is nice to build generational loyalty to a school. But as those number of slots dwindles, it becomes less fair to reserve most or all of them for legacies.
The legacies of Amherst, Williams, etc will still be just fine with or without preferences. I think it’s been a while since that got anyone in who wasn’t just as qualified as most other applicants. It just got you chosen from the pile of well qualified privileged kids who don’t always get in to any specific school, but usually still have good options on May 1
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As a grad from the Class of '74, I believe that what you get out of an education is mostly due to what you put into it. Our class Valedictorian came from an inner city public school that had very little to offer, but he was motivated to learn no matter what. I was the first person in my family to graduate from college. My father never even entered high school. Interestingly, he made an exceedingly good living in the restaurant business, and I had no need of a scholarship. He would have been more than happy for me to follow him into the restaurant business, which could have been an easier path than the one I chose to pursue a PhD in Engineering and make a living as an engineer. I’ve done quite well professionally and financially, because I, like my father, was motivated. I think that rich kids, whether legacy or not, are like what Jesus said about how hard it is for a rich man to enter heaven - like a camel going through the eye of a needle - because they don’t have the same motivation if they perceive that there life will work out regardless of whether they really try hard.
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