In my opinion, an individual who strongly disagrees with legacy admissions should put their money where their mouth is and not apply to any college that uses legacy admissions.
I don’t care about the whole “it’s not fair because people who graduate from Harvard/Yale/Princeton get more perks in life out of it.” There are hundreds of other fabulous institutions of higher learning instead.
IF, however, one’s definition of “success and the good life” is getting a Wall Street investment banking job, ok… then yeah…graduating from an Ivy League institution likely gives you a leg up. EVEN WITHOUT legacy admissions at those places, your odds are extremely low of getting admitted anyway.
I don’t understand what the big deal is about USC. It’s not the only college in the country. Heck, back in the Stone Age when I went to college, we used to call USC “University of Spoiled Children” and nobody thought very much of it. Of course, in the years since, USC played the admissions game like University of Chicago has in order to climb the ratings ladder and all of us students & parents fell for it.