Six out of D1’s class of 122 were admitted to Stanford. They were all legacies. And all perfectly qualified, as were many more in her class who were not admitted. Wasn’t particularly astounding, and I personally didn’t hear any buzz about it being unfair. For what that’s worth, which probably isn’t much.
Legacies get an advantage in admissions. Athletes get an advantage in admissions. Life is all about advantages - identifying the ones that can help and figuring out ways to exploit them. This is not a complaint. It simply reflects reality. There’s no reason that this statement should cause any defensiveness - MOST kids applying to elite colleges have enjoyed tremendous advantages bestowed on them by their parents. Even those recruited athletes, with few exceptions, had parents who spent a TON of money along with a TON of time helping them succeed and helping them to translate that sports success in the college admissions process.
If legacies do not need this hook to get admitted, then eliminate the hook. Not all elite colleges use this hook because it reflects ONLY the parent, not the applicant. One can never even hope to remove all of the applicant’s advantage that stems from his parents, but legacy advantage would be a start.
In another world, any other situation - legacy favoritism would be deemed discriminatory and would be eliminated.
Legacy favoritism IS WHAT IT IS. No more. No less. But you cannot claim in any way, shape, or form, that it is fair because it is a “hook” in the admissions process that is based 100% on parental accomplishment and is EASILY removed from the admissions decision process. It is the college’s choice to continue to use it. In my view, it speaks poorly of those colleges. And it is not just used at elite colleges - many state universities favor legacies as well - the same state universities that now will no longer consider race in admissions because admissions should be based on merit. Hahahaha.
Race is still considered in admissions at my Flagship, and it was recently upheld by SCOTUS. Doesn’t that pretty much set a precedent for all state schools who want to improve diversity?
It seems to me that this thread is concerned about the legacy preference at HYPS – but there are some schools which are grappling with difficult decisions about legacy preferences in light of their (relatively) recent rise to the top in the rankings – schools like Duke, Vanderbilt, Wash U SL, etc. For instance, when I went to Duke in the mid-80s, it had just recently cracked the top 10 & was still pretty much unheard of on the west coast (only 40 Californians in my class of about 1600). There seemed to be a fair number of legacy kids – but the vast majority were from NC – but legacy & family ties were a part of Duke’s history & vibe – and up until the early 80s, Duke frankly wasn’t that selective, so “legacy pull” was really not a big deal since most kids were accepted (at least compared to now). So, because Duke always favored legacies, I think that Duke gives legacies more weight than some more established top 10 schools (Ivies). For Duke, the family connection still matters to the institutional mission.
When a state university uses legacy as a preference in admissions it is implicitly stating that its mission is to perpetuate the existing advantaged class (of college graduates) rather than offer those from the current disadvantaged class the opportunity to move up.
Examples of state flagship universities that use legacy in admissions:
Alabama
Florida
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
North Carolina
Penn State
Stony Brook
Virginia
Wisconsin
Some that do not:
Arizona
California
Georgia
Hawaii
Illinois
Iowa
Texas
Washington
@Nrdsb4 Considering race in admissions has been banned by many states via ballot initiatives, mostly initiated by the same fellow who pushed it through in California. Some states realized only after the fact that forbidding race to be considered as a factor while continuing to favor legacies seemed, well, a tad hypocritical.
@Steglitz90 I agree that concerns about legacy favoritism grows as acceptance rates fall. At schools like Duke, the legacy advantage probably contributed to its growing national reputation. Now? Everybody knows it is amazing!
When looking just at the ED admissions cycle (where some elite schools offer this “boost”) and seeing the total numbers, well, that is where it really becomes real.
Looking at Cornell’s ED cycle a year ago - Out of 1327 admitted students, 192 (14.4%) were athletes and 302 (22.8%) were legacies. So while the overall percent accepted was 27.4%, for those without these useful “hooks,” the acceptance rate was 19%.
Talking about these numbers does not say anything about fairness or relative qualifications. It just speaks to the power of the “hook” and the resulting substantially diminished chances for those without either of these two hooks.
“Race is still considered in admissions at my Flagship, and it was recently upheld by SCOTUS. Doesn’t that pretty much set a precedent for all state schools who want to improve diversity?”
Not in every state. SCOTUS did uphold UT’s admissions practice earlier this year. But back in 2014, SCOTUS also upheld the validity of state enacted bans on using race in admissions.
So by state law, three of the most selective public ivies (UCB, UCLA, UM) can’t use race.
Some further thoughts on why you might see significant legacy preference:
- Current and future revenues: legacies are by definition relatives (generally children) of alumni, and alumni have a good likelihood of being high-SES. If they're high-SES, they're also likely to be significant donors, and the kids are likely to be full payers. Four years of full tuition, room and board at a place like Harvard costs about $260,000 these days. If the parents are high-SES and in their prime earning years, they might have already contributed significantly, and their future lifetime contributions and bequests could amount to hundreds of thousands more.
Accordingly, turning down a high-SES legacy in favor of a full scholarship student could mean that the university is effectively making a bet of a half-million dollars or more on the latter student (if the alumni family is disappointed enough at being turned away that they cease contributing). For this reason alone, I would expect the university to give highly-qualified, high-SES legacies a very good look - and, again, there are many more highly-qualified high-SES legacy applicants than can be admitted (including some who are recruitable athletes or have other hooks), so it’s not a major compromise on the university’s part.
Beyond this, though, it very much suits the university for the alumni to believe that legacy status and family donations give their children an edge. If the alumni didn’t believe that, I firmly believe they wouldn’t volunteer or contribute in anything like the degree that they do, which would have major negative financial and other consequences for the university. And it’s not just a mercenary calculation on the part of the alumni - they contribute time and money because they feel like part of the university family.
Accordingly, I think schools like Harvard calculate that they have to admit a certain number of legacies or it will send the signal that legacy status doesn’t mean much. Having primary legacies at ~15% of the class (as currently) is probably about right, in that an overwhelming number of those admitted aren’t legacies, but legacies are meaningfully more likely to be admitted than the average applicant.
I haven’t read the Hurwitz paper and don’t know if he controlled for SES or financial aid awarded; I don’t think he could have been able to control for history of family donations of time and money.
- Yield: This is an important consideration for universities, because yield is a proxy for desirability, it affects third-party rankings and if a university under-admits and has to go to the wait list, the likelihood that the person admitted from the wait list will accept the offer is significantly lower than if they'd been admitted along with everyone else. Harvard's overall yield is about 80%; I would estimate that the yield on the legacies it accepts is >90%. When they admit more legacies, they know yield increases, all else equal.
- Historical continuity: This is obviously impossible to quantify (and some undoubtedly will scoff at it) but it adds to the university's mystique and allure, as perceived internally and externally, when someone's family has been sending their children to Harvard for generations (I know some who have been doing so since before the Revolution). If the children are highly talented, and the family has been generous, so much the better.
“Legacy favoritism IS WHAT IT IS. No more. No less. But you cannot claim in any way, shape, or form, that it is fair because it is a “hook” in the admissions process that is based 100% on parental accomplishment and is EASILY removed from the admissions decision process.”
Legacy certainly relies on parentage. So obviously does race. So does athletic ability to a great degree (both in terms of inherited talent and also resources to develop the talent). So does intelligence and high academic stats to a large degree (for both talent and development). So does low SES.
To me, the most legit preference by far is for low SES. The data on how big that disadvantage is compelling.
I put all the rest in the same bucket – legacy, athletes, race not tied to low-SES, developmental. If a school wants to use them to meet institutional objectives (diversity, strong community, financial solvency, school spirit and winning teams, etc.) go ahead.
Hmm, interesting and confusing all at once.
Apologize for getting off track. Back to wealth/legacy concerns.
The most interesting aspect of the Hurwitz study was trying to measure applicant quality by where else an applicant who applied to multiple schools got admitted or rejected(think the Harvard legacy who got rejected by Princeton and Columbia). To at least some extent, that should control for SES/financial aid. What he didn’t attempt to do is differentiate between middle class legacies who donate not at all or very little and rich legacies who have a history of donating a lot of money to the university.
@profdad2021 1 any of those legacies also athletes? And just how wealthy were they any way?
I would assume that an up-to-snuff Harvard legacy would be less likely to get into Princeton or Columbia, as the other colleges would assume that she would be less likely to yield to other colleges, were she to be accepted by Harvard.
Early Decision is useful in that respect for legacies to signal true devotion.
Now, it’s funny that “wealthy” on this thread has slid from billionaire to garden-variety legacies and athletes.
“It seems like you are just making stuff up now. Attrition at schools of these caliber is almost nonexistent. And where there is an injury on a Division 3 sports team, the player remains on the team and rehabs. The team doesn’t just dump them and expand with new recruits. Amherst and Williams admissions won’t do that. This isn’t SEC football.”
JHS is right on this one. Lots of kids playing lower tier non-scholarship college sports drop off their teams (but stay at the school) after a couple of years. Injuries, lack of playing time, waning or changing interests. Since there’s no athletic scholarships involved, kids are free to drop the team but keep the school. So the coaches do have to assume that they will have lost a chunk of their freshman recruiting class by senior year. So 30% of all students being athletes may equal 35 or 40% of the frosh.
“Race is still considered in admissions at my Flagship, and it was recently upheld by SCOTUS. Doesn’t that pretty much set a precedent for all state schools who want to improve diversity?”
All that SCOTUS held was that race COULD be used in admissions. It didn’t say it had to be. It didn’t say a state couldn’t prohibit its use, like certain states have.
@northwesty I still don’t see how that leads to an assumption that the coaches get to recruit as many people as they want to make up for predicted attrition. If your soccer or lacrosse team loses a couple of players, its still a full team - there are just a couple less players on the bench. If your track or swimming team loses a couple, you just have less competitors in a couple of events.
Either way, it’s still not close to “over half the class.” Amherst, Williams and Wesleyan are limited to 66 athletic tips or slots per year, total. The coaches do not have the pull to get another 150 “roster fillers” in above that.
@ThankYouforHelp @northwesty got my point right. I was not talking about attrition from the college, I was talking about attrition from the team. Many kids I know who played Division III sports did not remain on their teams all four years unless they were absolute stars, and in some cases not even then.
@nrdsb4 - and in the UCs at least, they can’t use gender either. And then, to make matters more complicated on the gender side, they overweight SAT math scores for engineering admissions, which overweights the male admits, so you perpetuate the cycle. It is similar to the problem with legacies. Were the college classes of 20 - 30 years ago comprised of a broad cross-section of the American demographic, the issue of legacies wouldn’t be that big. You’d want to offset the advantage with perhaps a “leg up” to a % of immigrant applicants (as they are less likely to have legacy status) but otherwise it wouldn’t be a big deal. But the issue with legacies, for the most part, since Americans tend to marry in the same ethnicity and SES, is that you have the tendency to perpetuate a class make-up that looks like 30 years ago. And that class had a certain tendency to look like the class 20-30 years before that. And for top schools like the ivies, every legacy admit lessen the spots for kids from socio-economic situations that could best use the benefit of an ivy.
That said, I’m hoping my kid gets the benefit of my legacy! (at least I’m honest…)
“And for top schools like the ivies, every legacy admit lessen the spots for kids from socio-economic situations that could best use the benefit of an ivy.”
Harvard’s class is about 13% legacy (most of whom are going to be full pay). Then there’s a small number of high donor dollar dev admits as well. 20% of Harvard students attend for free. 50% get scholarships and 100% graduate debt free.
If you dial back the dev and legacy spots, you would think that (with fewer dollars coming in) fewer poor kids would be able to afford to attend rather than more. All in, seems like Harvard is doing an admirable job on this.
The one that puzzles me is why Harvard allocates so many seats to athletes. But they know Harvard better than I do.