My grandmother was a 50-year alumna of the University of Michigan, dutifully sending in a $50 check every year on her salary as a school teacher/librarian. Those checks helped me get into Michigan. They no doubt also helped my two children get in, as well as a nephew. In the process, the economic profile of my family has risen significantly, with these three kids leading the way. No one in my family doubts the university's contribution to our well-being. But I guess because the NYT is more concerned about the Ivy League and the hideously warped social competition there, which the Times has almost certainly helped promote over time, they would punish families like mine, who are of much lesser means. Here's a solution -- what doesn't the times stop hiring so many reporters and editors from the Ivy League and more from the Big Ten? Probably make you a better newspaper.
77
I'm reading regular work from one of your writers whose principal qualification to discuss the material he covers seems to be excellent connections.
If legacies were expunged from The Times staff I suspect you'd have some conspicuous vacancies.
60
Legacy admissions are to provide a legal way to buy your kid's admission, although many of them are very qualified. Then again, the real point is that you go to Ha-vard to be able to rub elbows with the right people, who can grease your wheels after graduation.
Most people are not limited by the University they attend, but by their own interests and ability to work and study hard while there. That said, when private schools get state money... they should not allow a back door "buy my kid's way in" policy. Everyone knows this happens, with Jared and Don being prime examples. The only thing that limits such admissions is the lowering of a a private school's academic reputation when a certain critical mass is exceeded.
(Their mathematicians know very well what that mass is.)
11
Legacy admission is the tip of the iceberg, isn’t it? Under ‘conservative’ rule, the United States as a whole is ‘an affirmative action program for successful families,’ mostly white ‘Christian’ families.
Our tax structure favors the concentration of wealth, particularly since marginal tax rates were slashed — supposedly justified by the aptly named ‘Laffer Curve’ and the Big Lie that ‘tax cuts pay for themselves,’ adopted in the Reagan era and dominant ever since.
Passive investments — wealth generating more wealth — are granted favored tax treatment. We permit vast accumulations of wealth to pass from generation to generation relatively untouched by taxation — see, e.g., Donald J. Trump, a man whose track record as a reckless, improvident, megalomaniacal businessman indicates he likely would be living under a bridge had he not inherited millions. And the conservative establishment continues to dream of abolishing estate taxes altogether by dint of another big lie — that it is necessary to save ‘family farms’ and ‘small family businesses,’ when as it is estates of less than $10 million or more are untouched by federal estate tax.
Add discriminatory zoning laws and redlining, selective enforcement of criminal laws, the power of money in politics post-Citizens United, voter suppression and gerrymandering (now with the imprimatur of the ‘conservative’ Supreme Court) and you’ve cooked up a recipe for the persistent concentration of wealth and power, fully risen and baked.
27
The purpose of legacy admissions is to maximize endowments.
The purpose of favoring athletes is to generate revenue from the entertainment value they provide.
The purpose of favoring children of political leaders is elevate branding and influence.
Also schools favor international students because they pay full tuition.
Education or fairness is not a primary agenda.
Shaming private schools to become merit based is unlikely to work. How about taxing donations to private colleges? Why should a donation to Harvard, with a $38 billion endowment, be tax exempt?
Please recognize the fact that focus of this article is a small group of elite universities. Even if they overnight changed to be 100% merit based or completely filled with underprivileged, it will not help the rest of 99% of young people to reach their maximum potential.
22
My niece and nephew asked me for my info re college they were applying to--I think I was clear at least the first time that I was a bad student back then and never gave the school any money--I cannot imagine that I could possibly be advantageous!
I do think their is a bit of ladder-pulling now that schools are more diverse.
What if the legacy student easily meets the standards for admission but is proud to go to the school their family members had great experiences with? If your kid goes to the state school
that you did, they are "legacy"technically, right? Should we be
clarifying this to say admissions where this one factor and
connection tips the scale in a highly competitive program?
Lots of colleges across the country are alive and well because
they have repeat customers from family members who are
proud alums.
19
This article seems to assume that taking race into consideration in admissions is just. I just went to hear a student from Gaza speak in the U.S. about self-education. That student had been arduous about learning, and determined to use acquired knowledge to contribute to society. I think striving to learn and how deeply one values knowledge and understanding and achievement ought to be the dominant considerations, and how deeply one has already devoted oneself to learning before college. Race and ethnicity ought to be irrelevant. Try as you may to argue against individual student merit, and go for group characteristics, you are harming our society by not making dedication and achievement the most significant factors. No matter what one's social circumstances, a young person can choose to strive for learning.
16
I attended an undergraduate school that few outside of my region or heritage religion have heard of, but I did graduate work at two Ivies and then taught at a variety of small colleges and state universities.
It was the first Ivy that I met an undergraduate who considered his rejection by another Ivy to be the defining tragedy of his young life.
There were brilliant and mediocre students at all of the schools, although the Ivies offered cultural opportunities that the smaller and state colleges couldn't match. I doubt, however, that the status-obsessed parents who MUST get their child into an Ivy are thinking about art galleries or seeing drama students who later become world-famous actors or attending concerts by internationally renowned classical musicians.
They're thinking about bragging rights and making "connections" that will help their offspring in the job market. There is something to that. For example, I have seen the names of students who wrote for one Ivy's so-so campus newspaper with bylines in major magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times.
But if neither status nor outstanding cultural opportunities are a concern, a serious student can get a good education just about anywhere. The best students--in any college--have a genuine interest in one or more academic subjects, good study habits, and a willingness to ask their professors for help or enrichment when they need it.
13
Absolutely agree with this editorial. If the legacy student is deserving of a spot then they’ll get in anyway. Why are the commenter (many legacy parents) defending the indefensible? Because they know that their progeny might not make the cut without it. The comments here are not at all what I would have expected because this practice defies common sense. You want to live in a more equal society? Then give a little toward the common cause.
To those who say “Get rid of legacy prerences when you get rid of affirmative action” as if they were the same thing, I am pretty dumbfounded that you cannot see the difference.
16
It always seemed that, for my students, getting accepted to a school was more important than actually attending. Then there was that massive divide between going to college and having the discipline to put forth the effort to be able to stay in college. I actually had a student who applied and was accepted to the U of Colorado. She asked me where it was. I told her Boulder and her response was, yeah, where’s that? It was my experience in the last few years of teaching high school that most of my 18 year old seniors had no clue as to what awaited them out there 600 miles from home for the first time. There are no legacy admissions at our local community colleges. What they do offer is an affordable education with teachers who are more interested in kids than in topping the university faculty pecking order, a few familiar faces in most classes, and a chance to get a little order and more experienced in the shallow end of the college experience before jumping off the 30 meter platform into the deep end.
11
Ultimately, the error is that our culture allows the richly funded perks that come with acceptance into a challenging educational program with the assumption that the students deserve a boost for being skilled enough to pass a test. Rationally, those who failed the test deserve that boost and those who passed the test deserve the challenging curriculum. College is supposed to be dedicated to optimizing the student's learning, not elevating egos or sustaining legacies.
3
Oboes, Guatemala, and university acceptance scandals: How are these things connected? What is this situation, and where, if anywhere, can we go from here? See http://worksnewage.blogspot.com/2019/04/admissions-at-top-colleges-oboes.html.
This seems at first blush to be a fair and considered assertion, but it fails in several dimensions including constructively, economically and logically. But if one really cares to follow the Editor's argument to its more rational conclusion, then their expository headline should read rather, "End College Admissions." That is, "legacy" filters, while seemingly elitist or discriminatory, are merely part of a much larger "discriminatory" framework that colleges and universities maintain, even propagate and reinforce, through the larger admissions selection construct. They are discriminatory, per se. So, instead, why have any admissions process at all? Why shouldn't Yale or Chicago (both making millions off application fees) hold instead a lottery? Why shouldn't Harvard or Texas, Stanford or Berkeley, accept broad batch applications from simplified one-page application forms, on a random basis? Wouldn't that be a much more real, tangible, meaningful "equity" solution? Why have any barriers at all, other than basic qualifications (a HS diploma or equivalent)? Answer that question, and then the ""Legacy" issue becomes more clear, and in its proper context. To mix or conflate it otherwise with affirmative action or broader social justice ideology, sounds like a cause and a remedy, but is just more political opportunism that avoids deeper institutional challenges, and, and more creative solutions. End the college admissions game. Period. Regards.
8
If we end legacy admissions for Whites, then we should end Affirmative Action admissions for Blacks.
19
"Consideration of race in admissions can be defended not only as a remedy for past injustices but also as an imperative for schools seeking to represent the population at large."
What about remedy for past injustices against Chinese-Americans whose ancestors suffered through the Chinese Exclusion Act, or Japanese-Americans whose families suffered though American concentration camps and lost everything? Both of those groups, solely because they are Asian, would be penalized under our current system of considering race.
Also, should the NBA and NFL represent the population at large as well?
19
@Sarah Johnson
Confounded by Chinese Americans whose ancestors were excluded by the Asian exclusion act, and the Japanese WWII internment issue. With regards to the latter group, they received economic reparations for their suffering, (not enough though), and an official Government apology. As American descendants of enslaved Africans, we can only wish, so far, for similar remedies as the Japanese for example. For the Black descendants of American slavery and Jim Crowism are offered up is hostile sentiments of the Newt Gindrichs of this nation when asking for similar redress.
Further as a group, most Asians, even those newly arrived since the 1965 Hart-Geller immigration reform act, are privy to federal government SBA set-side-asides (AA) contracting to name one national program. Certainly there are state and local set-a-sides programs too. I have not been able to grasp the notion that you qualify for these programs even though your 'disadvantagedness' occurred in their home countries.
As to the NFL / NBA ....Meh. what about table tennis or golf.
5
If this were current practice, who knows if the Obama and Clinton offspring would have been admitted to Harvard and Stanford.
15
@kwb
none of those kids were legacies
7
@GMooG
Barack and Michelle Obama went to Harvard Law School, I assume that one is considered a legacy when a parent attends any part of Harvard University, not just Harvard College.
But who wouldn't want two bright former First Children like Malia and Chelsea? Think about their experiences and the people they know. I don't have any inside information, but the fact that Sasha is not going to an Ivy League school but to Michigan despite having parents who went to Harvard and Princeton may indicate that admission is not automatic. Of course, she may simply have wanted a different kind of educational environment.
7
The good old white boy network is alive and well in every walk of life, especially in New York State. I was accepted to Cornell University back in the 80s but I did not fit in to the rich, entitled WASP and Jewish American Princess culture. As a farm kid accepted into the "AG school" I was viewed as not worthy of this crew. I quit after two years of disillusionment with the lack of diversity. Many years later, I face the same issues in the workplace (education). Sad.
6
That was not my Cornell experience. Graduating in the late 1970’s, Cornell provided me as an Indiana high school student the opportunity and financial help to graduate as one of the 5 woman chemical engineers in a class of more than 80. And No, I was not a legacy. I am grateful beyond measure for those 4 years.
18
@Suzanne Conklin Smith
Unlike the other Ivy's, Cornell's founding principle was fairness in pursuit of academic excellence. Though it was far from perfect, it was the first to admit both men and women (many decades ahead of the other Ivy's) and the first to attempt fairness with regard to race or religion (again, many decades before the other Ivy's). Again, far from perfect, but a better attempt was made.
8
@Suzanne Conklin Smith (At some point, it might be you since it keeps happening...)
9
Like racial preferences, legacy preferences are one of the only advantages in our deeply unfair admissions process that are not directly tied to wealth. In most cases it’s not even that much of an advantage—my own “top-20” college told me it adds less than five points to my children’s admissions chances. That’s something, but not much, especially when compared to the many advantages conferred by wealth.
At most colleges, if you need financial aid your legacy or racial status matters little; full payers come first. That is why for most of us in America’s middle rungs, admission to top-50 colleges means so much more than status, they’re the only schools that are able to give the level of financial aid necessary to make college affordable.
So, as legacies, my children have a slightly better shot at an affordable college option than many other kids. But if I had remained a Wall Street lawyer rather than becoming a high-school teacher I could have done so much more—"connected" prep schools, mission trips to Zambia, private coaches for rowing or FOGO and Kushner-sized contributions of hard cash.
If the Times really wants an admissions system that is not so clearly rigged for the benefit of wealth, there are much larger iniquities to address before legacy status, one of the only advantages available to families of modest means. As a teacher I already had to shoulder the blame for America’s financial crisis, must you blame me for America’s warped admissions system, too?
6
This is a question, not a viewpoint. I am wondering if eliminating legacy admissions would actually end up benefitting first generation college students or other students who need a boost. Is there the potential that colleges would just swap one privileged student paying full tuition for another of the same type and then they might also lose the benefit of the added donations on top of that? For example, wealthy student A's parents went to Dartmouth, wealthy student B's parents went to Harvard, and not wealthy student C is a first generation student who will need financial aid. The students are academically similar. As a business, Dartmouth decides they need a mix of full paying and financial aid students. If legacy is not a factor, I am wondering - are all of these students in the same bucket in the admissions process or if Dartmouth doesn't know that student A's parents went there, do they end up just admitting wealthy student B in place of wealthy legacy student A because this is a spot they need for a full paying student? In other words, is student C being compared to other first generation students while wealthy students A and B are compared to each other? Will eliminating legacy really solve the problem being identified or will it just shuffle around the children of alumni between other elite institutions while at the same time eliminating the intergenerational ties that colleges say helps with their fundraising, volunteer network, and spirit?
6
"Would ending legacy preference equate to pulling up the ladder ahead of a more diverse group of students who could leverage their legacy status?
Not in the least. Consideration of race in admissions can be defended not only as a remedy for past injustices but also as an imperative for schools seeking to represent the population at large."
So, are you saying that the off-spring of alumni who are members of underrepresented groups are deserving of preference merely because of their race? These students grew up with many advantages that the vast majority of students do not have, is giving preference to them really adding to diversity at the college in any meaningful way? Isn't the preference you're suggesting just extending preference to the already privileged?
5
My children went to an elite private high school in San Francisco. At the parent parties near the end of senior year, whenever a parent said their kid was going to Stanford, I would ask "what year did you graduate from there?" I had better than a 90% hit rate. For the most part, those kids were nowhere near the top of the class. One parent actually told me that when his first son did not get in he asked Stanford what to do. They said, "give more money." He did, and his second flunky kid got in.
It is a travesty. Contrast that to UC Berkeley. Aside from a few recruited athletes, it uses a pure merit based system. Legacy means nothing. The result is that there is only one thing you can say about someone going to Berkeley: they must be smart. With Stanford it is impossible to say.
10
@Douglas Evans
Berkeley is a public institution. And since we're on the topic of unfair advantages, why should athletes receive a boost?
11
Legacy admission represents another advantage of the advantaged, and should be stopped. Equally important is the admission process itself. If a body of students can be identified, all of whom have qualifications to attend that university, a lottery should settle who gets admitted and who does not.
4
There are valid reasons to continue "legacy admissions," i.e. admitting candidates whose parents have attended the same college before them.
Students from legacy families know what to expect from their college experience, what will be expected of them, and how best to take advantage of the institution's resources to accomplish their academic, personal, and career objectives.
Admittance to an elite college is no guarantee of success in life, just as a degree from a less prestigious university does not condemn one to failure. There are plenty of clunkers with Ivy League degrees, just as there are many successful individuals who attended lesser schools.
I'm thinking of one of my classmates at an elite college in the Boston area, now an eminent oncologist whose son is following in his footsteps both at college and in a medical career. This young fellow has a lifetime of clinical care, research, and teaching ahead of him, and will undoubtedly make a profound contribution to the medical field.
A "legacy admit"? Sure it is! But admittance of this talented young scientist will benefit him, his class, the college, the medical profession, and society at large.
7
@Walker is the counterpoint also true, i.e. if a non-legacy student were to be admitted, she wouldn't be an asset to her peers and the community at large? I wish people would listen to themselves when making these arguments; I mean really listen from the perspective of someone who is not a legacy student, or parent.
11
The New York Times favors straight up racial discrimination in admissions. So it has no moral authority to criticize legacy preferences.
In fact, the NYT's only qualm about getting rid of legacy admissions is that the harm won't fall 100% on white people.
Why is the NYT so overtly anti-white in everything it writes? And why does it think that's ok?
15
"Little wonder that American universities are a global outlier when it comes to legacy preference. Oxford and Cambridge Universities, for instance, gave up the practice decades ago."
That's true. But Oxford and Cambridge also abstain from affirmative action - even though England abolished slavery only about 30 years earlier than did America. The simple fact is that America is an aberration. In most of the world, college applications are a pure meritocracy based almost entirely on grades and their version of the standardized test. Top students get admitted. Pure and simple. Liberals love to lionize European government policies - such as their expansive welfare state. Well, why not likewise emulate their college admission policies ?
23
Several years ago my wife and I along with our daughter were visiting family in Boston, and decided to visit Boston University. Just minutes after stepping onto the campus for a look around we were approached by a gentleman who said that he was one of the dean’s. He wanted to know if our daughter was a student at BU and we replied that we were just visiting from SoCal. He immediately went into name drop mode and mentioned a particular student from our area currently enrolled who comes from a very affluent family (multi-billionaires). We found it odd that he would name drop that student out of thousands enrolled, who we happen to know quite well, as our daughter was very close with her for a number of years having attended the same private school. We wondered why he didn’t mention a “regular” student? Was he trying to impress us? We’re convinced that money talks when it comes to gaining admission to many colleges and universities. Corruption is ingrained in our society and in college and university admissions decisions. I don’t see it changing anytime soon.
5
@Richard
Or maybe it looked like your family came from the same socioeconomic stratum as the student the dean brought up. As your daughter went to the same school as the student, it sounds like he guessed correctly.
17
Legacy admissions I feel is incorrect. It definitely amounts to injustice. If the children of Alumini of IVY colleges are really intelligent, they shouldn’t find difficulty in getting admission into that particular college on merit basis. If they are average or below average, their admission into IVY college certainly amounts to injustice to other merit students, who are deprived of admission.
7
While you're at it, why not get rid of "faculty brat" admissions? No reason that the children of professors should have an automatic "in" to the institutions at which their parents teach. It's nepotism, really--and I thought we don't believe in that anymore!
13
@BHB
I don't believe they are automatically accepted, but I think that children of Ivy League professors can attend any Ivy League school tuition-free. That's a terrific perk. I'm not sure I'm against it because not every academic is wealthy.
8
So it is ok to give applicants an advantage just because they were born a certain race, but not ok if they were born to a graduate? How about no preferences? Just focus on the merits of the applicants themselves. Wouldn't that be the most fair?
14
While we’re at it, could we also do away with all forms of nepotism after the kids graduate from college? One can dream.
3
The Common App seems to be in cahoots with the elite colleges. This application specifically asks for the parents' educational level and name of college they attended.
2
@GE
I applied to college in the mid-1970s and the applications all asked that. I'm sure that applications requested that information many decades earlier. It's questions that emerged in the 1920s asking whether one was white, Christian, one's parents' nationalities, and about name changes that were problematic.
1
Legacy college admissions practice is just another way for the school to attract and hold benefactors. Has anyone looked at the relationship between amount of alumni donations to their alma mater and the ability of their progeny to gain admission? If not, it should be studied.
2
I am of two minds on the issue.
Public universities and colleges should not be able to bias admissions for legacies , but private schools should be allowed to as long as the selection process and criteria are openly shared. Otherwise, you can bias in favor of families that have attended before, but you have to be up front and open about it. Sunlight is the best disinfectant and applicants will know if the playing field is tilted. It is not the proper role of government to tell a private institution that they can not give favored status to the children of alumni.
Students can get a sound education at many fine schools away from the Ivy League. Penn gave us Trump and Harvard and Yale Dubya Bush. Our highly political and inept Supreme Court is stacked with Harvard grads. That alone should dispel any notions that these schools are the cream of the crop.
9
Hereditary admission to any school, society, bridge group, quilting bee et ad nauseam is anathema to democracy.
Franklin wrote: "all descending Honours are wrong and absurd; [and] the Honour of virtuous Actions appertains only to him that performs them, and is in its nature incommunicable."
Long live good old mediocrity and integrity!
2
Frankly, all these applications should be blind applications. No mention of parents school, no zip codes, no names, just an assigned number. I realize that isn't the perfect way to do this but maybe a step toward making the process more equitable? I don't know...
7
Legacy admissions is a way perpetuating the class structure. Education at elite institutions almost always guarantees preferential treatment for coveted jobs. I am reminded of a book by Owen Latimore that read about 70 years ago about the Chinese civil service system that required passage of an exam which only children of the elite could pass because only their families could pay for the requisite education. Abolish or diminish legacy admission in order to increase equality!
1
I've known quite a few people who were legacy admits at Ivy League schools and it was always an unspoken doubt among their circle of friends whether they could have gotten in on their own merits. Usually they were not as well respected as others who went to modest schools and did well on their own anyway. There is a new shame associated with wealth and legacy and I find it so refreshing and welcome. People who live off the money of their parents, grandparents or, yes, spouse, don't deserve the admiration and regard those who work their way through life receive. If you take the easy road, whether with your trust fund or your legacy admissions or living off a working spouse, be prepared for the new American disdain. Times have changed, thankfully.
7
@Tintin
Do you feel the same way about those who get in because of the color of their skin, or the race of their parents?
5
@GMooG Yes. I think admissions preferences based on race, rather than SES disadvantage, are a terrible idea. Race and gender should be removed from the consideration. Economic hardship should be weighted heavily in favor of the applicant.
8
End all admissions to anyone who does not have the academic credentials and high enough test scores to gain admission on their own intellectual merit. The piece is yet another verse in a never-ending chapter to admit primarily blacks, hispanics, and a litany of self-identified oppressed groups (meaning anything but white). New York Times, stop this charade. To fail to do so only proves the point that the paper of record really does not believe that minority students can make the grade.
14
Wait, without legacy admissions how will lazy entitled white kids get into elite schools? They will have to resort to crazy schemes like paying someone to take their SAT's for them. D'oh!
5
I went to college in my 30’s, explicitly so that my children would have both the good example and a chance at legacy admission to Reed College.
Of course, since I was first generation and we had no family money and my fresh new degree ran smack into the 2008 financial crisis, I was back to waiting tables at night- while my children were home alone in middle school not studying.
Needless to say, they did not earn grades equal to even applying.
No tutors, no money for sports and “enrichment” activities, not much evening supervision.
I paid the rent, but my children are now budtenders.
7
The only people defending legacy admissions besides the college administrators receiving buckets of tax deductible cash for their institutions are grads with academically mediocre kids. While understandable, this should not be allowed unless the institutions are willing to forego government funding of all sorts including research grants. Good article.
4
The editors seem to be confused. If, as they seem to allege, legacy college admissions serve no practical purpose and may be anachronistic, then why do they continue to exist? Have they comprehensively interviewed those colleges, that continue to maintain legacy admissions, asking why with statistics?
I would add to their investigations: why the number of foreign students, who can pay full tuition, is increasing? If the efficient capitalistic market is working, then why not increase the number of elite colleges to meet the demand? Or is there a DeBeers diamond value management version of academia?
7
Does Harvard education influence the DNA of the children? If so, does both parents should attend Harvard? Harvard thinking in their admissions may be both is preferable, but one is better than none. Such highly reputed schools have such a low thinking in admissions is mind boggling. Only, legacy students can explain that stupidity.
2
Why keep bashing GWBush? I was not a supporter of his, tho he now seems like such a good man compared to DT.
I believe the vaunted Al Gore did not surpass GWB in grades.
If legacies are such a necessary evil, set a bar. $2m in donations, and publish a list of the legacies admitted.
5
Reality is that in a pile of job applicants with equal degrees and GPAs, the ones with degrees from prestigious institutions get selected for interviews more often than ones with community colleges and less prestigious state schools.
Until we find a way to change the ultimate economic payoffs, all of this focus on meritocracy in admissions college and prestigious high schools, is just so much pipe dreaming. Parents and applicants will use every lever to get a resume that will result in a successful career.
Over the years, I have gotten interviews that friends from state and Black-colleges did not get. Yes, I looked at "employability" of degrees while guiding my daughter in school choices.
Merit (talent, skill, perseverance, etc.) is not a reliable determinant of outcomes. My exit from high school in the very competitive environment of the mid-70's came with grades (valedictorian) and SAT scores (99th percentile) competitive enough for five Ivy and NYU acceptances. NYU put more money on the table, so I went there. Did my Afro-Latina heritage or legacy status at NYU tip the scales? I would like to say, "No," but I know somewhere along the line, it may have been considered. I did not have money to up my chances, I was glad to use whatever I had, including multiple relatives who went to NYU.
Knowing what I know now, I might decide to borrow a little more money to pay for one of those Ivy opportunities I turned down.
9
Legacy admissions in private colleges won't go away. Those donations are necessary to keep the institutions going and to provide institutional financial aid (as several comments have indicated).
As far as state colleges funded by tax dollars, there should be full equality in the selection/admission process.
3
While it's hard to disagree with your goal, the fact is that if zero applicants were admitted by the legacy system the advantages most of these kids have means the great majority would be admitted to elite colleges anyway - maybe just not to the exact one they wanted.
Further, the numbers of people involved are small, so the number of 'worthy' applicants admitted instead would have no impact on any measurable social outcome.
I agree with other writers that the editorial board should focus its attention on actions that will have a real and lasting impact - like better funding for public universities (two of which I have attended).
11
What about the "mediocre applicant" who got in because they are an athlete? How many wealthy fencers, rowers, water polo players etc. get into their colleges based solely on their academic merits? Get rid of the legacy admissions and sports privileges.
6
How many of the thousands with perfect/ near perfect test scores and academic transcripts are also national level athletes? More than apparently you realize. Why wouldn’t an elite college want them?
4
Expect a vicious backlash from Dear Jared, Editorial Board, for promoting this decidedly undemocratic, anti-American policy. This is pernicious, social engineering from the Fake News!
1
Racism is the foundation of this country. Elites have a better education from preschool to their acceptance into the school of their parents choice. Even if the child cant get in based on grades someone will open the door for them.
Student uses affirmative action to get into an elite school and a white person is bent all out of shape even if the students has better grades than there white counterparts. however an ignorant legacy student who happens to be white gets into a great school its ok because it is one of their own. Legacy leads to Ed.D programs and great jobs.
There should be no poor white people in this country, there is always a door open for them. Look at Trump, I rest my case and the rest of the GOP politicians and their supporters. Have to love the interviews at the Trump hate festivals, totally clueless in their responses. Legacy ignorance is bliss.
1
I will believe and wholeheartedly support this argument from the editorial board when they can assure us readers that zero of editors’ children were direct beneficiaries of this “affirmative action for rich people.”
I’d also like to know how many of NYT children were given unearned jobs by other members of the elite. This too is affirmative action for the wealthy, if not outright nepotism.
For those of us who have applied “cold” to various institutions and jobs and watched our seats be filled with the mediocre, entitled offspring of either wealthy alumni or wealthy international students “of color,” this is all a bit unconvincing.
20
Will the New York Times rightly lead the way and publish the names of the children of senior executives who are or have been legacy admissions to Ivy League colleges? Will the Times also publish the names of children of connected politicians or donors known to have been admitted to Ivy League colleges? The investigation could start with the children of US senators and members of the House of Representatives, then extend to the children of millionaire businessmen, and finally take up the children of mere celebrities.
9
I notice that the clever, mortarboard festooned metaphorical “tree” accompanying the editorial is leafless, and probably dead as a door nail. How true for the outdated, merit-less concept of legacy admissions.
1
You highlight Harvard and MIT as examples of different approaches. Harvard historically has catered to legacies and MIT has historically not. However, these two schools serve different constituencies. Harvard exists to serve the elite, to turn out big-money players and world movers and shakers. On the other hand, you better be packing some serious brainpower to survive at MIT, or else you will be chewed up when you get there. That's their only currency.
7
These families also make large donations that allow many less privileged kids to go their for free, just as a very large share of athletic scholarships go to especially black students. Rather than a knee jerk reactions to elites as privileged monsters we should realize that some have good hearts and do try to help disadvantaged kids.
2
If they are so good hearted they will donate money regardless of whether their kid gets special treatment
6
Thankyou for this article. The legacy admissions are a shameful perpetuation of hereditary class system.
3
Legacy admissions...affirmative action...quotas - all give admission not based on merit or potential, but simply on who someone's parents are. Time to abolish them all.
6
thanks NYT Editorial B, way to go after key issues that shape or country--or not, perhaps.
3
“…Of the country’s top 100 schools (as determined by the editors at U.S. News & World Report), roughly three-quarters have legacy preferences in admissions…
Surely you jest…
An answer is staring you in the face…
Just prevail upon USN&WR to revise its metrics for this ranking…
And for the 0% graduation rate of non-alumni who ever attended and then went on to become decibillionaires…
Harvard – along with its vile and nepotistic practices – would drop into the thirties, and that would be the end of anyone daring to do any of that…
PS
While you’re on this high-horse, get the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to start throwing out and inductees who’ve done drugs or hit on anyone attending…
Cleveland cleaned up the lake – its on-shore institutions should be held to no less high a standard…
PPS
If Jeffrey were still here, am sure he’d have returned the sweatshirt by now…
2
It is good to read that MIT is not practicing legacy policies. Yet, one should remember that Anti-Semitism was an MIT trait in the 1930's. It prompted the famous British mathematician G.H. Hardy to call MIT Massachussetts Institute of Theology. This was on account of not hiring the Jewish mathematician Norman Levinson, because they "already had a Jewish mathematician, Norbert Wiener", who, incidentallly had been rejected by Harvard for the same reason. Science is science, not a competition of races or creeds..
7
Please get the math right to represent how terribly unfair this is. That Harvard researcher’s article in the Chronicle of Higher Education did not state a “45 percent higher probability” but a 45 higher percentage point increase.
2
Sort all applications into “qualified” or “unqualified” piles then sort into male and female piles, then randomly pick from each pile until spots are filled.
Why shouldn’t colleges be allowed to select those whom they feel are most likely to be successful?
5
I saw no definition of legacy admission in this piece. Does it mean only that a student with an alumnus relative was admitted without taking into consideration any other qualifications of that student? That is the way that this editorial is written.
Given two applicants with similar qualifications, it only seems legitimate that the one with a legacy should get the nudge.
The NYT needs to be more careful in their analysis. Their bias seems to be showing.
9
It began in the 1920s "... coinciding with an influx of Jewish and Catholic applicants to the country’s top schools."
And there it is, so why does the argument against it have to be so extensive? The writer outrageously repeats the "institutional cohesion" and wealthy donations justifications, where it was simply anti-immigrant bigotry. Why not just state the obvious? The Jewish and Catholic kids were outperforming the WASP kids on entrance exams, and they had to be stopped so that Digby and Buffy could perpetuate the ruling class.
What is outrageous is that so few people are aware of it, or still think it's fine, sort of like blacks in the South not being able to vote just 50 yrs ago... and people shrugging it off.
4
Seems to me the best system is to let in 3 groups: Smart, Underprivileged & Rich.
First let in some Smart kids, they score well on tests and have good grades. Probably not very diverse group and may not be too creative, they spent their entire childhood learning to take tests and follow rules.
Second, let in some Underprivileged kids, they had a tough childhood and their full potential hasn't had a chance to be unlocked. Of course they score worse on tests, they haven't had the support or training from society or at home. They will be much more diverse and who knows, maybe do something great.
Third, let in some Rich kids. Someone has to pay the bills...
By the way, isn't this essentially how it works now? Maybe we're not doing so bad after all lol...
5
@JC
Yes, that's what they do now!
Right, we should just let the rich people of all colors shoving their kids to the fore through artful resume padding, professional coaching, faux-altruism, family "donations," minority-status strutting (hello, Elizabeth Warren and the Obama kids), and, in general, PC. If your'e clutching your pearls about the legacies, how about exposing the bigger games played in prestige school admissions that make a much more significant proportional impact on entering classes?
Nice idea but legacy admission will persist until two things happen:
One, colleges control their spending. All but the wealthiest/best endowed colleges have grown into the position of having to continually raise money- sometimes to make budget.
Admitting succeeding generations, or siblings, or cousins of a wealthy family increases the chances for large donations. That fills your budget hole or your new program.
Two, colleges quit functioning as a quasi national country club system. Colleges, for many, seem to function as social membership quo or social signifier that one is a member..having little to do with accomplishment, content, or interest.
Both of these conditions are endemic and not easily remedied and until they are, legacy admission will persist.
4
If legacy students have the grade point averages and they meet the qualifications then they should be admitted. Not to mention the money that some of these legacies pour into the school by means of massive donations. If someone's child has the qualifications and the parents want to build a new library, it's a win-win.
3
People are always complaining about the rich paying their "fair share." Well, who do they think is paying for all those scholarships and grants? Large legacy donations are paying for a few students' costs. If they get their now kid in in the process, what of it? If you want their money, you have to take their kid. That's fair.
5
the bigger issue is that Ivy league diplomas open doors for life that other diplomas do not.
i'd like to see the list of B.A.'s of the NYT editorial board.
10
@gene99
And of their kids. Start with Nicholas Kristoff's.
9
Now that the children of the people of color who first integrated US private universities a generation ago are coming of age, yes, let's end legacy admissions. After all, it might benefit people of color. Can't allow that can we NYT?
3
Are there any arguments FOR legacy programs, other than fundraising? Of the 431 comments posted thus far, I've read none.
7
@marchfor sanity
And are there any OTHER questionable legacy ivy students besides George W. Bush? None mentioned either.
(Kennedy?)
5
@marchfor sanity
I'm not for or against, but
1. admitting legacy students also ensures that people with a strong understanding of the tradition of the schools are in the class. Many of these schools are hundreds of years old and long-standing traditions are part of what makes them special.
2. Students from low-income and/or less sophisticated families benefit from exposure to wealthy and privileged students, just as rich kids benefit from being around kids to whom everything wasn't given. I acknowledge that wealthy kids who weren't legacies could perform the same function, but many wealthy kids do in fact have family members who attended the school.
2
@marchfor sanity
The only defense is alumni relations. Alumni goodwill is about more than fundraising. Loyal alumni will promote a school throughout their lifetime, volunteer to assist the school in non-financial ways, and help recent graduates find jobs.
No one cares when the alumni of a small school do these things.
But on the East Coast, in particular, the perception is that the Ivy alumni network has a near monopoly on power, making an Ivy degree a "golden ticket" to wealth and power even for the (relatively) incompetent. On the flip side, anyone without an Ivy degree, no matter how talented, will be unfairly and forever limited.
5
I am stating to feel that every editorial the NYT writes has as its object, the ripping apart of US culture. We now despise any student who does well in the SATs - they must have cheated, look at the classes that did poorly.
Why have we all of a sudden turned aginst the best and brightest in favor of those who can't compete or do poorly in various aptitude tests. Could it possible be that they aren't as bright as others? That possibility never exists in the minds of the NYT and other leftist types who blame it on socioeconomic factors.
Face facts - some people are brighter, smarter, and more gifted than others. Learn to live with it instead of always trying to tear it down. Watch what you do, your tampering with education ultimately will weaken the country by depriving the best and brightest of leadership positions. - but then that is maybe what your want.
12
@Judy Weller,
My problem isn't with new visions of the world but with the Editorial Board's lack of nuance and practicality. For example, it recently advocated ending all Gifted and Talented programs in New York City in favor of a pleasant-sounding but illusory idea of enriching all public schools when the New York Department of Education has shown absolutely no ability to implement that kind of change and when the advisory committee making the recommendation had no plan.
In June, it advocated dropping the Specialized High Schools Admissions Test (SHSAT) an examination administered to almost 30,000 students, without acknowledging that the reform proposal offered would have manifestly affected the quality and nature of the schools.
It's getting very hard to take the Editorial Board seriously. I am not a conservative, but usually a very liberal person.
7
Another fact-free times editorial by a board obsessed with ideology. Schools with legacy admissions -- largely some of our best and private institutions, only admit about 13% of the class who are from families with some previous ties to the school (a/k/a legacy). Those students -- by any conceivable measure, are at or above the quality of all other students admitted -- usually higher by all objective data.
Moreover, they are far superior as students as all-around true "diversity" than affirmative action admits and athletes. The notion that this has even a remote link to inequality is pure intellectual mush. The primary cause of inequality is family breakdown, not racism, not "structural" unfairness, and surely not the superior, well earned qualifications of "legacy" admits. Who is the Times going to replace them with? The same kids DiBlasio wants admitted to our finest schools but who lack qualifications?
12
Finally,
The NY Times calls for an end to obvious white affirmative action at IV League schools and all schools where "legacy" admission is in play.
This will rid us of the likes of George W Bush. Graduated at the bottom of his high school class and went to Harvard.
This will usher in a true meritocracy.
But, get ready for an outcry. Rich, white folks used to affirmative action for their kids won't like it that their kids have to perform now.
4
@Michael
George W. Bush went to Yale. He later attended Havard Business School.
3
Bob | B
The following was my comment in March, 2019 in response to an article published by you regarding admissions scandals:
Legacy admissions account for significant percentage each year. While some legacy students maybe qualified, the vast majority aren't. This practice is particularly rampant with the elite universities. I wonder what the legal implications of this practice are?
1
Yes, long overdue. And Harvard is one of the primary offenders.
And that will change the calculus for children of presidents, even if they are requested to defer admission for a year.
[And while you're at it, also get rid of the "sports" and "team" special admission consideration, which gives a profound and unfair advantage to these individuals.]
3
In a former job that I had where I called on college professors, I found a plethora of legacy graduates from Ivy League schools. Basically, I was unimpressed. Take, for instance, George HW Bush and Yale. His son was a legacy and not too bright. The average grade at Yale is A- and GW Bush graduated with a C average. Just do some figuring, if an A- is the average grade at Yale and a C is the average grade at most other colleges, then a C at Yale would either be D or F. In my estimation, he proved he was not all that smart.
I don't know if it is now, but Ole Miss used to be a legacy school. About the only way a non-legacy student could get in is with exceptional athletic skills.
4
@Bill Dooley
Yale, like virtually every college in the United States, has rampant grade inflation. Although I'm not saying George W. Bush was a scholar, I am sure the average grade when he attended was not A-, assuming that is even true, because it sounds high.
2
Why withhold just title IV funds? Congress should just withhold _all_ federal funds to any university that considers legacy status during admission, and it's then very unlikely that Harvard/Yale/Stanford/Cornell would consider giving up their NIH+NSF+DARPA+NASA+... research funding.
2
Luckily one well intentioned NYT editorial will not make it so. Certainly there's plenty of potential here for another slippery slope.
3
Asians are the Jews of the 21st century: culturally hardworking and committed to education with the support of families, and they would get all the slots if admission were based on just the numbers.
9
@No name Racist (/ ignorant) comment-- if only that you are grouping all "Asians" in one group --- as if there are no cultural differences -- of which there are plenty.
2
Do the editors of The New York Times give preferred treatment
to potential news stories coming from the public relations/university relations offices at the "ancient" eight?
Yes. In so doing you are fueling, at least in part, this drive to legacy admissions for the financial elite.
5
At last! As everyone else struggles (or cheats or bribes) and twists themselves into paroxysms of anxiety over college admission, the few, the happy and wealthy few, just sail in on their ancestors’ coattails (and contributions). This way, we wind up with idiot louts like George Bush taking up seats at places like Yale, seats that they occupy between bouts of drinking that could be better used by serious students with an interest in learning... rather than in perpetuating the American aristocracy.
3
Academe is an all out mess. From admissions to seeking a job post graduation. Too many whiners.
1
Hear, hear!
Ending legacy admissions would prevent a profoundly unscholarly person like George W. Bush from holding a diploma from Yale.
2
@NM
or John Kerry, who was also a legacy, and had a lower final GPA
while you're at it ,NYt editorial board could we also request 3 wishes for me? Talk about an exercise in futility.
1
Remember the unqualified success of forced busing to achieve "fairness." I sure do (Boston 1970). The rich whites fled to private/Catholic scools, or homeschooled their children. The poor Irish in South Boston were blessed with integration and welcomed the new comers with "Irish confetti." It was a huge success in transferring racial hatred to the next generation. And, the self-righteous Brahmans got to look down the Irish...again. A real American success story...very educational...I dare you to print this...
3
The New York Times might have some credibility on these points if it didn't engage in the same "legacy" practices with respect to its own publishers. It appears that the current publisher, A.G. Sulzberger, is the sixth Sulzberger to have served in this vital position.
9
@E Premack
They own the company. A family member is usually (or has always?) been the publisher.
2
Legacy admissions is the dumbest thing ever. I am shocked that any institution, elite or otherwise, would even consider this in their admissions evaluation.
Will the Editorial Board, and upper echelon staff of The New York Times adhere to what is spelled out in this thoughtful editorial?!
6
um no.... lets leave the legacies alone.
I have a middle schooler in the 8th grade, so college is dead in our sights. I'm with a lot of other readers of the nytimes. In some ways I feel the unfairness of legacies will hurt my daughter chances if she decides to apply to any of the Ivies. At the same time I think without the legacy students my husband and I will have no chance in hell to have the ability to pay for college. It is interesting to think though that the @nytimes hasn't looked into legacies at high performing college prep high schools. Because in the bay area I am getting a first hand look at the benefits and problems of legacies. they don't start at the college level. They begin in the elementary private schools of the the wealthy.
5
One major reason that people strive to go to Ivy League schools is so that they can hang out with the elites and get a leg up into networks of influential people and influential families. Without a critical mass of rich kids to rub shoulders with, why go to Harvard? What would happen to the social structure of elitism that the academic social climbers want to climb into? Snobbery is the competitive edge for elite schools.
5
This may be a complicated issue.
First of all, we disabuse ourselves of the illusion that elite colleges are meritocratic or see their mission as purely meritocratic. They are not; their mission is primarily to build their brands, produce scholarly research and re-reproduce elites and have graduates represented in positions of "leadership" (i.e. power and status). To some extent, this overlaps with meritocratic goals. To some extent this overlaps with diversity. But to a large extent, this also means that admissions and the student body will reflect existing inequalities in greater society. (In fact, elite colleges are premised on inequality and hierarchy to begin with).
Secondly, as the Asian American lawsuit against Harvard has shown, we need more transparency on elite college admissions and preferences. Although the NYT editorial cites percentages, we don't know, for example, how the SAT scores, grades, etc. of legacy admits at a given school compare to those of non-legacy admits, or even how strong the legacy preference is. (Some Ivy schools state that legacy preferences are only tiebreakers or only matter in early admissions; whether this is true or not is open to question).
Thirdly, even if elite colleges ended legacy admissions, other non-academic preferences (particularly for large donor families, celebrity children, athletes, diversity and affirmative action) would continue in some form.
2
This is a good editorial. I was surprised at my utter naivete when our firstborn started the college admissions process. We did it a bit old school. While we did review admission graphs, looked at SAT/ACT averages and other information, he primarily handled it on his own. He was (we were) confident he would secure admission to an elite school. His SAT/ACT scores were above the averages required by these schools, he graduated near top of class, and had the array of successes in extracurriculars and leadership positions. Other than being put on an assortment of waiting lists, he was not admitted to any of the Ivies. We learned that without a legacy background, donor history, being a celebrity child, having a viable connection or using an affirmative-action avenue, great grades and an ACT score two points above average were not enough. Admission was of course not impossible but he was just one of countless, high achieving, Asian/White kids in a massive pool seeking a very limited number of slots.
It seems odd that in 2019 such a heirarchal, system still exists, particularly at institutions that in so many ways are at the front of progressivism. The system seems to run counter to everything that is great about the American, pull oneself up from their bootstraps, ethos.
4
Did you seriously think your child could gain admission to a highly selective college or university with, and I quote, “ACT scores 2 points above the average?”.
I doubt even legatees could qualify with such low standardized test scores.
This is part of today’s problem. Every parent seems to think their child “deserves” something simply because they try hard.
No. Just no.
10
"That may be so, but it comes at a high cost in unfairness. College admission is a zero-sum proposition — for every legacy admitted, another promising applicant is denied the career and economic opportunity that a top degree can provide."
If you replaced the word 'legacy' with the phrase 'affirmative action admit', we'd be in total agreement. I don't believe in affirmative action admissions. The truth is simple: for every affirmative action admit, another promising applicant is denied the career and economic opportunity that a top degree can provide.
For the more qualified student that loses out, it doesn't matter if they lost to a legacy or any other AA admit. To them, it will always seem unfair. Attempting to explain to some downtrodden 17-year-old white guy in rural America that he has an almost 0% chance of admission to Harvard because he's not a legacy, not an athlete, not a 'development case' for high donations, and not of a preferred race is wildly unfair.
The Editorial Board called legacy admissions 'affirmative action for the rich', as if the idea was ludicrous. Of course it's ludicrous. But wouldn't it then follow that affirmative action for the poor is noble and sensible? You can call it 'socioeconomic affirmative action', and it should apply across all races. You talk about diversity without considering how few poor, rural white kids exist on these campuses. And in the next breath you wonder why Trump has a hold of rural America. Here's a hint-they're related.
14
I wrote this five years ago the last time I saw someone opining about legacy admissions:
As an underrepresented minority who was admitted to an Ivy League university, I was in fact imagining my own future children as legacy applicants as I met other legacies with deep family connections. I have spent the last 15 years excited at the prospect of becoming a legacy family as someone who is deeply indebted to a school that saw my potential and nurtured my growth.
Why yank the legacy rug out from us just as scores of brown children can also become the sons and daughters of schools that historically kept our families far from the gates?
328
@CM
As a Brit I finally understand why the Americans seem to be more interested in our Royal Family than we are. There is nothing good about an aristocracy. Why take away the possibility from another student whose potential could be nurtured in the same way yours was. Your child benefitted why not another’s?
103
@CM: I am amazed that I stop at your comments to reply. But I assure you that it is a mere coincidence.
1. I think legacy admissions are discriminatory. Parents who had the opportunity to go to a prestigious school should be able to provide their children with opportunities in life to succeed - good books, good schooling, fast internet access etc etc. These children already have an upper hand. Why should they get the advantage of legacy admissions. This discriminates against other students who are as smart or smarter.
2. It is not just a race thing. Even though majority of the legacy admissions have historically been white, the next wave of legacy admissions will include a lot of browns/asians. But just because minorities are getting legacy admissions does not make it right. It still discriminates.
3. Just because you got into ivy league college on your own merit against tough odds and just because you were discrminated against (due to legacy admisssions). does not mean that you can do the same to others when it is your childrens turn. That is such bad attitude and is morally so wrong.
2.
124
@David
Just as you would want to have your child inherit the golden key to the farm, what’s wrong with wanting children to inherit the golden key to a great education?
12
I have an idea. How about admitting the students with the best academic credentials and forgetting about race, ethnicity, family ties, and any points awarded for spending two weeks digging a ditch in Suriname or whitewashing a wall in São Tomé and Príncipe while bemused residents look on?
If ending legacy admissions proves to be too costly in terms of alumni donations, then restore those, but only those. Colleges are, among other things, businesses. They can't long operate at a loss. Some have shut already or are about to.
Also, keep in mind that you can—more likely if you do careful advance research—get as good an education at a modest state university or even community college as you can at a place that admits 7% of its applicants. As a bonus, it'll cost less and the students are less likely to be consumed with woke politics and more likely to be primarily interested in French, dance, history, engineering, chemistry, anthropology, business, English, etc.
91
I'd like to clarify one thing, lest my original post sound too narrowly technocratic. Best academic credentials doesn't necessarily mean highest grades and test scores. I mean academic promise.
That promise need not always be measured by pure intelligence. Perseverance and insight are also crucial qualities.
Moreover, a striver from a less advantaged background may show more academic promise than a technically smarter person who is already coasting along and disengaged, preferring fraternity parties to further learning.
22
@Cyclist
Not to state the obvious but wealthier families pad credentials. See Aunt Becky. Finding the "merit based" student is harder than it sounds. My college essays were terrible. If some administrator hadn't taken mercy on me, I wouldn't have gotten the education I received.
To that point: Community college is not likely to provide as good an education. I've been there too. You're basically self-educating 80+ percent of the time. A decent library would provide a better service cheaper. Actually, I spent most of my technical degree at a university library where I wasn't even a student.
It worked. However, I'll remind you I already had a bachelors degree when I sought technical training. Teachers matter. So do class sizes, pay grades, tenure opportunities, and, yes, woke politics. You can't expect every outcome to act like Good Will Hunting.
12
@Cyclist
I prefer that definition, but even so, academic promise and raw intelligence are not all that colleges are looking for. Drive, non-academic skills, unusual interests and accomplishments, an interesting mind, creativity, cultural sophistication are all some of the things that enrich a college and the students.
There is no completely objective method to select a college class. I went to two Ivy League schools and on the first day, we were told that Admissions could have easily filled every seat with people with perfect grades and GPAs had they wanted to do that. But those traits alone don't make for an interesting class or success.
11
I went to Harvard. In my first meeting with my freshman advisor, he asked me if I wanted to be there. I said "Of course, why else would I come?". He replied that many students, especially legacies, felt pressured to enroll even though they didn't think Harvard was right for them.
Now I'm a professor at a top university, and I see some of my privileged students struggle with the same pressure while many of my underprivileged students struggle to believe they belong here. Next time Harvard calls for a donation, I think I'll tell them to put students first and end legacy admissions.
107
@Tamar R
"Cry me a river" comes to mind. Perhaps these kids are just confused and/or have been made to feel guilty about their "privilege."
3
My Dad went to Dartmouth and they didnt legacy me in. I got rejected. My Dad didnt donate so I had to go to MIT (oh no! haha).
Legacy admissions is for alums that donate lots of money. If you donate $1 million to a school (which will go towards educating others) shouldnt your kid get a boost in getting in?
I'm just not sure. I think colleges should boost enrollment in general instead of getting rid of legacy admissions.
47
@Jacqueline
Legacy admissions are discriminatory. Admission to any college should be on the merits and not that your father can write a million check which doesn't necessarily get the best student as is evidenced by Mr. Kushner paying for Jared's entrance to Harvard. Jared would not have qualified on his own merits. Why not save that spot for someone who actually qualifies. For example, do we want average doctors coming out of Harvard because their father wrote checks or do we want top talent who qualified on their own?
13
@Jacqueline you can't solve this by making the pie bigger. Schools can't just magically expand. Most have done it in tiny measure, but not enough to make a difference. They would have to spend multi-millions for new dorms, new faculty, etc. Nice thought, but highly simplistic.
11
@Jacqueline Same thing happened with my husband. His mother went to Radcliffe and his father went to Harvard. My mother-in-law especially loathes the crazy money around Harvard. Obviously, they do not give money to Harvard.
6
Sure.
And while we’re at it, dump preferential treatment for so-called ‘disadvantaged’ students.
That’s what Cal State San Bernardino is for.
7
How about if we end affirmative action altogether, instead of deciding which types of affirmative action (rather than deciding upon merit) are OK?
7
Two words and a letter. George W Bush.
Tangentially, we should offer work visas to foreign students who graduate from our colleges and universities. Too many go back home and then compete with the US to our detriment.
“The policies originated in the 1920s, coinciding with an influx of Jewish and Catholic applicants to the country’s top schools.” This sentence makes it sound as if legacy admissions originated to favor Jewish and Catholic applicants. It was the opposite, no? Legacy policies were created to favor the dominant Angloprotestant demos of the 1920’s? Readers shouldn’t have to sign up for Jstor to read an academic article in order to understand who was being favored by early legacy policies.
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
3
@Alisa it was to counteract the Jews.
1
@Alisa
I have a feeling that some informal form of legacy admissions always existed. The number of people who attended the Ivy League schools was much smaller in the past (FDR's Harvard class, 1904, had 500 freshmen compared to today's 1660) and women weren't admitted so if you were a wealthy, white man who passed the entrance exam you already had an excellent chance of being admitted. Then add a family connection to school.
1
Yes! it’s been astounding how fierce the anti-affirmative action protests (all the way to lawsuits) while nary a peep has been heard about legacy admissions (from a graduate of college well-known for having many, such that it’s never surprising to hear that classmates’ ancestors also attended the same college)
1
The NYT's just posted an article that showed students in developing countries writing papers for American college students. It's easy money for those students who can't eek an existence in their own country but when they write for lazy American students, the dollars fly into their pockets.
It's time to get rid of the SAT, have mandatory writing projects under the watchful eye of a neutral proctor...............the proctor does not know who they will be proctoring until the day of, and no preferential treatment for any student. If a student is not up to the standard of the university, then they either go to another four year university or a local community college to get their skills up to university standards.
Time for the privileged to step down!
1
College applications should be rated by academic performance, not by alumni relations, racial quotas, athletic performance, nor the university's need for 'diversity'.
5
They should set a minimum standard, identify candidates who meet that standard, and draw names from a hat.
4
@Jon F No— a college needs to admit students with rounded interests to fill out the culture on campus.
5
Read the subhead here: "A country struggling with deeply rooted inequality need not continue an affirmative action program for successful families."
And yet affirmative action itself actually makes no distinction between a black kid from inner city Baltimore and Malia Obama. Ironically both legacies and affirmative action are based not on the merits of the student but on their lineage, with the former looking at contributions made ancestrally and the latter looking at the expressed genetics to see if the melanin concentration is high enough to warrant admission. End them both.
Merit is merit. The end.
10
It appears like the consensus here is that Affirmative Action is good, yet when it is done for minorities the censensus has been that it is bad. I think if people were honest, they would say that they don't mind advantages if they accrue to themselves, or to those with whom they identify.
3
What is the purpose of college? To make money when o ne leaves (Graduates) ? Or to open the door to learning (A lifetime occupation, not directly tied to earning money?
Beware of jealousy and envy in your analysis. They are sly attributes that cloud one's analysis
2
MIT guy: "“I personally would not work for a college which had legacy admission because I am not interested in simply reproducing a multigenerational lineage of educated elite" BUT he would work for a college that takes donations from sex trafficking child rapists. Let's just clear that up.
5
The New York Times continues to buy into and perpetuate the myth of the elite school system. But, alas, it does make for a good editorial rant.
As I questioned before - why do we give so much credence to the so-called elite schools? Is their education so much better than the other great colleges in our country? I think not.
We have created our own nightmare and then bemoan about it.
6
disagree. colleges are capitalistic enterprises, even nonprofit ones, especially private ones. legacy preference is only a leg up, not a guarantee -- a college roommate of mine saw his daughter rejected by our alma mater, and her grades and test scores were way better than his (and she is a great kid i've known literally since she was born). i was a legacy, although my test scores and grades were probably good enough, and we are hardly wealthy.
4
While I agree with most of this editorial, I wonder why the NYT continues to define higher education as only the "elite" schools. And why do we continue to accept the US News rankings as gospel? Look at the methodology, and you'll see a self-perpetuating system based heavily on "reputation" as defined by insiders with a vested interest in preserving the myth. The vast majority of college applicants don't even consider these schools, not because they can't get in but because they don't want to. "Higher education" is not a handful of "elite" schools but rather a vibrant array of institutions that meet the needs of a very diverse population of students who care about finding a school that fits them.
3
I was a scholarship student at a prestigious midwestern university in the late 1960s / early 1970s.
I remember after a freshman English class one day, a guy in the class came up to me and asked me if I would help him with the essay he had to write for class (I'm the type that asked questions in class, and I guess he noticed). I helped him compose the essay and critiqued it for him, but then he asked me if I could do this for him on a regular basis.
I told him truthfully that I was swamped myself, and could not sign on to help him that way, even if (as he offered) he paid me. He then looked at me with this kind of fearful look in his eyes, and told me he really should be back home going to his state university, but his father went to the school he and I were attending, and his dad used his legacy "pull" to get his son admitted.
The guy said straight out to me, "I don't belong here. I'm going to be struggling in every class."
I sometimes wonder what ultimately happened to that fellow and where he finally ended up getting his education. His father was not doing him any favors pressuring him that way.
2
Alumni gifts are key to university endowments.
It would be better to set aside a percentage of scholarships that consider financial need, as well as scholastic merit. There are many worthy applicants who are at a disadvantage because their parents don't have the means to coach and coddle them.
2
Ban US News World report and other rankings.
They perpetuate the elite culture which says that you are not getting a good education if you don't attend the higher ranked institutions.
They give points for low acceptance rates and "selectivity" which make colleges invite applications from students who don't even have a chance.
They give extra points for "alumni engagement" aka donations, which can make colleges favor legacies.
Parents and students have bought into this including international students who apply in droves to the so called top elite Universities as determined by a flawed, official-sounding US News ranking.
4
Since the racial aspect of the legacy admission process for highly desirable college slots has been laid bare to an extent, its expiration date will soon pass, so to speak. I further expect its, (legacy admissions) so-called ending will be hasten as well by the impending demographic(racial/ethnic -> less white but more PoC) change at many of these high performing universities and colleges comprise a greater component of this group legacy admission - evolution or devolution is the unanswered question at this juncture. From a 'foundational' African American perspective, the Civil rights revolution of the 1960s has seen social/economic gains from that period 'evolve' into a kind of 'ethnic/racial spoils system'. Finally, I suspect there will always be a system of sorts to manage our social interactions in all aspects. The trick will be to create a more moral and honest version of accessibility criteria/framework for this countries elite institutions of education, for example. To not do so will be far more consequential, in a negative way, for our country.
Legacy admissions tarnish the reputation of the university and its graduates. Universities need to give up this in-club mentality of protecting generational class privilege. Otherwise, how can they claim to be educating the best and the brightest?
Given some major concessions, I wouldn’t begrudge private universities their preferential admissions. To the extent they take public tax funds for their operations, I feel they should be required to better serve the public interest. A fixed fraction of admissions can essentially be sold at auction, say 20-30%, such that the money received substantially subsidizes the cost for the remaining students AND substantially expands enrollment for merit based admissions.
Top end private universities can easily double their overall enrollment without lowering their standards. I’ve attended information sessions where parents have been told the ivies have to reject at least one or two equally meritorious candidates for every one accepted.
No matter the accommodations, there will always be aggrieved and dissatisfied applicants whose dream admission isn’t fulfilled, but they should try to remember that the quality and grit of the student is much more important to success in life than the particular school attended.
2
End the massive federal involvement in college tuition assistance, and you will end the massive expansion of college tuition costs.
We had no idea, as a country, that a goal as noble as enabling higher education for all would result in an abuse as absurd as federal financial aid to private, for-private colleges (e.g., Trump University).
That also explains how a goal as noble to increasing foreign trade (and ostensibly reducing conflict) would lead to immigration crises and local depressions. Perhaps it is time we absorbed the lessons of how good intentions must be backed up with serious analysis of both macro- and micro- socio-economic impacts.
2
From an elementary, large city, public school math teacher: why aren't potential and diverse life experiences being discussed? I think both criteria, in addition to meritocracy, would contribute more to the university and to society than the sole criteria of high
grades and high test scores.
2
How is Yale doing? My impression is that fewer and fewer "legacies" are getting admitted, and that of those who do all are admitted primarily and maybe exclusively on their merits compared to all other applicants. Am I wrong?
4
Most Americans have no idea about legacy admissions. This is an important discussion.
2
One of my kids went to my alma mater. The other went to an equally good school, without any connections. The first kid was also admitted to very good schools that she did not attend.
The statistics that you’re quoting are fatally flawed. The only legacy students who are taking places from anybody are students who wouldn’t be able to get into an equally good school on their own. There are certainly some of them, but the quoted research does not tell how many, at least as you’ve reported it.
From my experience, many legacy student want to create or follow a family tradition, not obtain an unfair advantage. Let’s get some proper statistics before making a bad decision.
4
I wonder why the acceptance rates a top schools has declined from 20-30% to 5-10% over the past few decades. It is not because more [different] people are applying, it is because people are applying to many more schools. It is like looking are more listings for houses for sale before selecting one. The internet and common apps have made it easier.
The multi-applicants are also likely from wealthy families, who can afford the application fees; perhaps helping the budgets of admissions offices.
Just like some communities require new housing developments to set aside a very small % of living units for ‘affordable housing’, colleges could set aside a very % for legacy but still merit-based applicants.
5
Just look at our last four Presidents, who all went to Ivy League schools, two on merit (Clinton), and two who bought their way in with donations, legacies, or both (Bush the Lesser and Trump). Not only do donation and legacy admissions deny smarter candidates admission, they impart an aura of intellect (Ivy League educated) on rich kids who don't deserve it.
And before you say, "well,they must be smart if the got through it," another dirty secret of elite colleges is that they don't flunk out students on academic grounds. As long as you write the papers and take the tests, no matter how bad the results, you will be passed along.
7
This is an inequity in America long, long overdue for banishment. It not only maintains but serves to promote the concept of an elitist America. Legacy admissions are tied to another 20th mindset. University admission determined by quota system. In the 1930s President Franklin Roosevelt shared common concern with Ivy League university administrators. The immediate issue at hand was that too many Jews were gaining admission to their schools. Roosevelt agreed that a quota system should be implemented to preserve the legacy these institutions saw as under threat. The white Anglo Saxon Protestant student population. What legacy and quota admissions ultimately accomplish is contrary to one of the core principles of education itself. Recognizing and rewarding earned merit.
3
@Rose
But now that Jewish people are major beneficiaries of legacy admissions to Harvard their view of legacy admissions has changed. We are now seeing that with blacks as well who are now in favor of legacy admissions. Why should wealthy blacks not have their days of privilege?
3
Dear Readers,
If schools believe that legacy admission programs are ok, then they should be willing to publish their legacy policies and procedures, how they are used, when they are used, and the outcomes. Also publish how admission officers and fundraisers are evaluated for job performance. If students are admitted because of legacy policies, then fine. Be open and honest about it, I’m not sure there are any trade secrets that need protection. I’m not sure it’s right to publish those enrolled because of legacy policies. I need to think more about that.
1
But how are colleges going to solicit donations from their rich successful alumni without this type of quid pro quo.
This op ed reminds me of Senator Al Franken who was shamed into resigning because of relatively harmless hijinks. We look back now and see that he was caught up in a national furor to right the historical wrongs of despicable male behavior. Today we are caught up in a similar outcry to right the wrongs of college admission cheating scandals and socioeconomic inequality. Like Franken, legacy admissions is an easy target for people’s anger and frustration. I suspect, however, that with the passage of time legacy admissions will be regarded as a minor factor in the perpetuation of white privilege. As noted in other comments, legacy might help one gain entrance to an “elite” university, but out in the real world competence and smarts usually wins the day.
7
I strongly agree with this editorial. I went to Princeton. My feeling while there was that some students were not very focused on their studies, and had very little to contribute in precepts; I naturally assumed they were legacy kids, though I'm sure that was not the only reason. in addition to the social justice arguments, there is the basic issue of watering down the quality of education at the institution.
3
This article makes the assumption that if you are a legacy student you automatically are admitted into the school - which not not correct. Last time, I checked about 12% of Harvard's class are legacy admits. We know far many more legacy students who do not get into the legacy school than get in. In addition to being a 'legacy' applicant, you also have to demonstrate excellence in academic achievement.
4
Anyone seeking a higher education has a vast array of choices as to which college or university to attend. So called high school guidance counselors are not much help, often focusing on the more successful students seeking admission to the elite schools to feather their own nests. There are many intangible factors that enter into the decisions leading to the final offer and acceptance by the student and his family. Preferences will always play a part in the final decision by the school and the student.
2
But once on campus, legacy students have it rough compared to the 25% or so "students athletes" on campus who get extra help and perks fit for kings/queens compared to all the non-jock students.
5
The Board's reasoning that eliminating legacy admissions will increase the likelihood that relatively disadvantaged others will have university spots is, I believe, without sound foundation. It is premised on the notion that the legacy students will not otherwise find their way to elite educational institutions. I just don't buy that - the fact is, the offspring of those who attend such institutions thrive in admissions for a plethora of reasons unrelated to their legacy status - the opportunities that come with wealth and position, the centrality of education in their households, etc. Whether you view that as good or bad, eliminating legacy admissions will not really fix the problem in the way the Board intends. And let's face it - legacy admissions are about one thing: money. They represent an opportunity for an institutions to deepen its ties with its alumni, which evidence has shown translates into more philanthropic alumni giving. With more money, institutions are able to more effectively compete for professors and students, and they are also more able to fund students who could not otherwise attend for financial reasons. So, I would say to the Editorial Board, the issue of legacy admissions is not so simple. I would say that rather than calling for its elimination, the Board should advocate that legacy admissions be studied more deeply - using real research and real analyses.
9
0ne point "But, at the same time, their overall acceptance rate has probably gone down from between 20 and 25 percent to between 5 and 10 percent. So, proportionally, being a legacy is even more of an advantage,” Dan Golden, an investigative journalist, told The New Yorker."
This fails to consider the common application and the internet which allows prospective college students the opportunity to apply to multiple schools with a few keystrokes. As a result all schools not just elite schools are seeing thousands of additional applications. This has had a bigger impact on admission statistics than anything else.
2
This article suggests that the Ivies are rampant with legacy admits and still look like they did in the 50s. And it seems like many of the commenters don't have all of the facts.
Here are a couple to consider from one Ivy's new freshman class.
14% ARE legacies. BUT:
16% are the first in their family to attend college
24% qualify for Pell Grants
49% are non-white
And regarding Dan Golden's comments about admittance rates-- not good reporting here. Applications to selective colleges have skyrocketed because of online/common applications. That's why colleges seem more selective than ever. Years ago, seniors had to work on every application and applied to a handful. Now kids apply to dozens of schools, even those for whom they don't meet criteria. The Ivy above got 21,000 applications in 2009. And 35,000 in 2018. (And the 2009 number was a 60% increase over six years.)
8
Alumni donations is affected by policies about admissions of alumni descendants ability to achieve admissions. If their children are well qualified but are not admitted, parents will shift their support to the institutions where their children are admitted. Given the attitude of the public that higher education should not be funded by themselves, those donations are no small concern for all universities in this country. So the incentive for legacy admission policies can be strong.
3
Legacy preferences are a tool of wealth transfer.
If you do away with legacy preferences and do not fill those slots with people from similarly wealthy backgrounds, donations will drop.
That’s a finding of the study referenced in this article.
You can hate the idea of legacy preferences, like many of us do, and still love that poorer students benefit from them. I would be reluctant to punish the less wealthy just for the satisfaction of going after the privileged.
5
@Hugh
Yes, it transfers money from full-tuition payers to those receiving scholarship and grants.
4
And in business ? Has it been easier for legacy children, heirs of founders and their successors, to gain employment and position, than an equally able Jan or Joe ?
1
What’s really needed is for businesses to include graduates of public universities and non-Ivies in their “diversity and inclusion” hiring practices. The Ivies simply do not have the capacity to enroll all of the bright, talented, and high-potential students living in the US and abroad. In my career spanning several decades, I have had the privilege of working along-side some amazing people with academic degrees of all kinds who never set foot in an Ivy as well as some who did. Their alma mater was not what made them special and was not a distinguishing factor once employed. It’s time to end the idea that an education at Harvard or another Ivy is somehow superior. It’s not. It’s really all about the individual.
6
At my children’s college prep high school, preferential admissions to private universities for legacies is very openly discussed. All students who have this privilege are instructed by college counselors to apply to their forbearer’s alma mater, ideally for early, binding, admission. The class pot-head was thus admitted to the most elite Ivy, when several much more qualified applicants were rejected - and the whole school was aware. More than my anger towards the institutions who grant this favoritism, it absolutely stuns me that these students and their families aren’t ashamed. That child will likely struggle in their coursework, a poor fit for the school’s culture, but will find friends among the countless others who were similarly admitted based on social class, not aptitude - and will ultimately earn an Ivy degree. However, this type of favoritism exists in all aspects of life - even worse in some communities/ cultures than here in the US: Jobs go to those who are “well connected” with management, friends of promoters get backstage passes, and generally privilege is handed down through the generations in every way. This won’t ever be resolved by changing university admissions criteria. Those of us who don’t benefit and are angry (or even jealous) need to get over it - it’s not worth fighting against basic human sociological principles.
3
In addition to legacy admissions, colleges should get rid of early admission and early decision. They give unfair advantage to wealthy kids who don’t have to consider financial aid.
4
Couple taking legacy admissions to the university losing nonprofit status. Public support is inappropriate.
2
The survey of parent’s alma matters to determine legacy policies is biased because it dismisses the relevancy of having parent’s who have graduated from those schools aside from explicit legacy policies. It ignores a factors which is very important.
The students have aspirations to attend their parent’s’ alma maters as well as knowledge from their parents’ experiences to help them prepare for admissions processes. The children of college graduates have better knowledge of how to achieve admissions with the least ineffective efforts to their parents’ alma maters.
Make no mistake, that makes a difference in this time when the public resents public support for higher education, which means that the supply of seats in the best schools public and private can not accommodate the most brilliant students in our country. Slight advantages make big differences.
So the survey should be careful about how they count legacy admissions.
2
Half the children born in the US are born on Medicaid meaning that the parent is financially unable to support herself. How can we expect good outcomes long term with this sort of economic situation? The problem goes a lot deeper than who gets into Harvard and who gets to go to Harvard Law and Goldman Sachs afterwards. We need a huge increase in taxes on the wealthy and I would favor ending the charitable tax deduction. as well. When I give 10000 to Harvard Uncle Sam is making quite a contribution. I would still donate but why should the government subsidize me, a one percenter, so I can send my brat to Harvard?
7
Eliminate legacy admissions and large amounts of contributions will also disappear. Also is the Time really saying in the 19th Cent that many of the students are colleges were not the children and grandchildren of the 18th Cent?
4
There is another side to this coin. Many of us first generation graduates who grew up in poor single parent households and earned entry into an Ivy view legacy admissions as a valuable tool to end the generational poverty our families seem to struggle to escape. It was a privilege I was looking forward to.
10
As a product of public university with no benefit of legacy, my initial reaction is to agree that merit should control. However, there are 3 compelling counter arguments, 1. obviously this keeps alum money flowing, 2. these are generally private institutions, and 3. most of the colleges at issue must still be doing something right on admissions because they continue to achieve top standing....
6
If our public colleges were of better quality this would not be an issue. There are plenty of proud generations who have been to UC Berkeley. If private colleges want to maintain a generational community of graduates I am all for it.
3
Unearned legacy privilege drives the growing gap between rich and poor. They should give up legacy slots to fairly earned admissions, and banish the practice, for the greater good. I honestly can’t figure out how anyone can defend this with a straight face. Nit even British royals get reserved slots at the best universities nowadays.
5
Concur. First time ever. Too late to help me or my kids but there is always tomorrow.
2
I disagree with how this is phrased.
I think we should focus on what constitutes a tax-exempt organization.
Our local non-profit cannot give special benefits to people based on their previous receipt of benefits, race, creed, etc. Why can Harvard?
Harvard is privately run and they should not have to change their rules because I'm salty, though.
Instead, tax-exempt status should only go to universities that follow rules for the public good.
Same with churches, by the way. They should get tax exempt status for running a homeless shelter or subsidized pre-school for all, not just for having a club with rules.
Thinking about it in these terms seems much more palatable than attacking them for their own club's rules. It's not my club. I don't want to get into their thing.
8
For some perspective, here is the makeup of Wesleyan University's 2022 class:
271 international students admitted (12% of all admits)
45% of the admits are students of color (including international)
14% of admits are the first generation in family to attend college
11% of admits have a Wesleyan alumni or student relative
51% of admits applied for need-based aid (Wesleyan meets full demonstrated need for all those admitted)
Notice that half are receiving substantial aid. That money has to come from somewhere.
10
Legacy policies are obviously contrary to meritocracy but aside from public institutions and publicly supported programs and funding it’s not something which is the business of pubic policy.
What is the business of public policy is the admissions and graduation rates of high school graduates with respect to college that correlates with parent’s incomes and the prosperity of people in the school districts in which they receive K-12 educations. Most people’s ability to attend and benefit from college is determined before legacy policies can ever be applied.
4
Unfortunately the very rich will continue to do what the very rich have done for eons and that is to game the system. New rules and regulations are not going to have any major effect on these long ingrained practices.
4
@s brady
That's rather cynical. Excepting inherited wealth but not excluding it, the very rich are usually rich because they are inherently smart, both book-wise and intuitively (entrepreneurs). They don't 'game' the system but rather understand its complexities very well.
Trump is the result of promotion to the top of the pyramid without earning it. Legacy policies promote mediocrity.
Attempts to "make thing more fair" has gone about as far as it can. Humans have characteristics that pull them in various ways and affirmative action has not been the panacea it was intended to be.
The advantage of "going to Harvard" has been slipping from a reputation basis for a few years now. [A]nd it could get much much worse. It is still held together by the glue of elitism's rank of wealthy individuals and people who worship professors. But more and more bad press and a stronger value placed diversity etc. is not going to bode well for H. Club membership is just not as valuable today for as many as it was in the past.
3
What is Maggie Haberman's view on legacy privilege? That would be interesting to hear.
3
There are those who contend that legacy admissions policies at top-tier universities do not result in inequitable outcomes because individuals with intelligence, talent, and drive are likely to succeed even without a degree from an elite university. Those who so contend are both right and wrong.
They are right in that certain uniquely-gifted and intensely-focused individuals like Bill Gates will succeed in life without having earned a degree from an elite university.
They are wrong in that there are many intelligent, talented, driven individuals who, despite those advantages, will not succeed in life’s lottery. For them, a degree from Harvard or Yale astronomically increases the likelihood that they will be able to translate their inherent personal advantages into earning power.
They are also wrong in that the argument they advance overlooks the fact that persons of only modest intelligence, no particular talent, and relatively little drive who are admitted to and are graduated from Harvard, Yale, or similar universities, are far more likely than their state-school peers to earn a hefty income as adults. A key reason for this is that the name of an elite institution on a resume opens doors that would remain closed to applicants whose resume reflected only the name of a state university.
Desirable professorships are often tacitly closed to those without degrees from top schools.
So long as this is the case, legacy admissions policies matter and are inequitable.
2
With this logic, there should be no perks for large donors to operas, symphonies, museums, and libraries, etc. Why don’t you pseudoegalitarians take this discussion to the privacy of your penthouses and Hampton’s retreats?
7
@J.Jones -- Perks? Like free tickets to the symphony? A valid comparison would be that the symphony orchestra would be 20 percent "legacy" musicians because of Daddy's donation. Sorry, but they aren't the best musicians.
@J.Jones
Getting into the opera etc is not supposed to be based on meritocracy, just wealth, and it isn't a zero-sum game.
1
Legacy admissions have long been a disgusting fact of life. But, are there also legacy diplomas? Face it, a student without the knowledge and discipline that is gained through hard work in high school doesn't have the academic skills and drive to perform in a top college. When he or she falters academically what does the professor do with the poor test results. Is the deserved "F" given and noted on that student's transcript or is the "gentleman's C" awarded. A professor overseen by college administrators whose most urgent task is fund raising is in dread fear for his or her job, even with tenure, if the scion of a wealthy family fails out no matter how deserving. What is surely happening is that the wealthy not only benefit from perverted affirmative action in admissions but also get it throughout their academic experience. That's why one of the goofiest residents of the Oval Office can brag about his success despite having been a "C" student. And, the equally inept current resident of the Oval Office, according to his former fixer attorney, threatened the academic institutions with legal action were they to ever release any of his grades.
As a white graduate of a small eastern liberal arts university with a strong legacy admission process going back many decades, I am strongly in favor of ending legacy admissions. Growing up in a strong white family that that insisted on discipline and expected full efforts, I already had a strong leg up over minority and lower income students. There are more than enough upper-strata kids clogging the better schools. Why populate these upper tier schools with upper class low achievers when there are lots of non-legacy kids who can succeed in these schools. White kids with plenty of parental resources already have plenty of advantages without legacy admissions.
3
@Cxcmrc
Do you have any idea the lengths colleges go to find minority students? Read "The Gatekeepers: Inside the Admissions Process of a Premier College."
4
Once again, the NY Times Editorial Board uses statistics to draw attention to a problem only faced by the very top of the university applicant pool. NYT editors cite a 45% advantage to "primary" legacies. Wow! Given Harvard's 6% admissions rate, that means legacies have a whopping 9% admissions rate. This rate is still lower than at least half the other top-20 universities! This does not approach in any way the 300-point SAT advantage that African Americans enjoy over the Asian applicants (who are almost always poor themselves and face the worst admissions selection bias). Instead of highlighting a nonexistent legacy issue, The NY Times might want to highlight how legacies often choose other schools despite the family advantage, how African American and Hispanic applicants (rich or poor) dominate all 'social' affirmative action admissions criteria, how small state (WY, ND, SD, AK, HI, ID, MT) students have 30-50% Ivy League admission rates so schools can claim "50-state representation), or how applying to any of the top-20 national universities is a roulette wheel spin more than an actual 'selection' process. The raw numbers and statistics for all of these topics are truly fascinating.
12
MIT doesn't have legacy admissions but still gets alumni donations.
6
Prosecuting Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin for participating in a so-called scheme to have their less than stellar kids accepted into USC is a farce. This type of behavior has been going on forever and will continue to go on unchecked. If you visit most any college or university and view the names on the buildings do you suppose that the spawn of those who gifted these institutions of higher learning were scrutinized as carefully as some poor kid from the hood? Hello!
4
This is a very good idea. Either abolish legacies entirely or restrict them to a tiny %.
In the 60s and 70s None of my acquaintance considered applying to the ivies. They were the playgrounds of the rich. As Dickie Greenleaf said, "rich and thick". Back in the 70s My cousin got an offer from Vassar and turned it down. Didn't want to put up with the snobbery.
1
Woke people should #cancel all folks who attended schools with legacy admissions....including themselves. It is not like it is a secret.
4
So going to an Ivy League school in the US means nothing in terms of someone's abilities?
Good to know.
If this is the message these schools want to send out about their graduates.....sure keep legacy admissions in place.
Is this really a good use of your time, NYT? Would you have published this article were it not for the far more serious and relevant college admissions scandal just a few months ago?
Legacy admissions are down, minority representation is getting better and in general the trend is ever more positive at higher ed institutions as time goes on. However, in an age when our institutions (especially liberal arts colleges) are being subverted on many levels, the editorial board has nothing better to do than nitpick that things aren’t getting better fast enough? How about focus on the real issue? The real issue is that young adults need space to grow and to learn skills other than for a trade to become members of a functional society. Yet current societal and economic forces are eroding that promise to the detriment of our future and that of future generations.
6
so Texas A&M and the University of Georgia have stopped legacy and thrived.
when they drop football admissions let me know.
5
Student admitted to elite University via unearned crutches deserving asterisk diploma attachment.
And eliminating legacy admissions will actually end up boomeranging legally (Supreme Court overturning) against Affirmative Action.
1
Admission should not be based on skin color but rather on obstacles overcome. A wealthy African American prep school graduate should not be given preference over the white son of a construction worker with a second grade education.
7
@Judy admissions should be based on the preparation, willingness, and ability to handle college academic work.
2
This is totally true, but largely irrelevant. It rarely happens that way except in the imaginations of angry white supremacists.
It’s always been mind boggling to me that so many complain about affirmative action while we have legacy admissions (aka affirmative action for the affluent).
1
So long as our country continues to allow legacy admissions, it's only fair that affirmative action remain in effect.
1
Harvard is trying set up a false dichotomy between discrimination against Asian Americans and affirmative action when the real enemy is legacy admissions.
2
New York Times, please open up your ranks to include the voices of those who, like the vast majority of Americans, did not/do not/will not (nor did/do they desire to) attend Ivies. The very privilege you supposedly speak against is showing.
8
Necessary -- because many of the legacies are dumb and lazy -- case in point George Bush. If they can't get in on their own merits given a lifetime of private schools, tutors, and nutritious food, they should not get in.
It is not so much that many legacies are lazy or uninterested; it is that they are entitled and take themselves to be the upper crust of the student body, setting the social rules to continue favoring themselves (Skull and Bones, eating clubs, frats and other setups designed to exclude)... and then, with luck, the entitled legacies, dripping with elitism, go out into the world, getting jobs through the contacts they’ve made with the families of kids just like themselves, moving into prestige law firms, large industrial concerns, top ad agencies, and, of course, banking, and government.
What?!? You want something like democracy and fair play in the United States of Plutocracy?
I'm going to move my family from our Park Avenue 3 bedroom apartment to Dixie, where old-times there are not forgotten.
1
As a person of color, I find it ironic that legacy admissions are on the chopping block just as the first rounds of minority alums are gearing up to send their kids to college.
2
@BB
Imagine how Asians feel?
2
The first rounds of minority admits made it into Columbia in the ‘60s. Well before most Ivies began admitting white women. Most of that first class of Black students did not graduate within four years (if at all), and one such non-meritorious scholar became engaged after he failed a class and shot a professor. You can read about it in the Times if you are so inclined.
Your children will be fine. Sadly, affirmative action for the children of wealthy “people of color” isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
2
Wow, who is the Times to say who private colleges and universities admit and how they make that decision. As for public colleges, it can be a discussion. The problem is most high school graduates can not read and write at a level for them to get a job. If the Times was concerned it would mount a campaign to set a standard and say, you cant go to college if you cant read and write at this level.
4
Once admitted, everyone enjoys name dropping Lodges, Cabots, Kennedys, Peabodys and the rest. Maybe cut down a little on legacies, and no scholarships for tuba players. That would be my suggestion.
Just in the last few months one school’s admission policies have hit the front page multiple times. Are they admitting enough Asians? Are they accepting movie stars’ kids? Should they have rejected a racist kid after admitting him. Should they have admitted Jared Kushner? And what’s the fencing coach up to?
As far as I’m concerned the biggest admissions scandal at this school is this: why does a school with a $38 billion endowment admit only 2,000 applicants each year? The school accepts a lot of taxpayer money. Don’t they have an obligation to educate more students? Heck, they admit half as many students as Southeastern Louisiana College.
3
And legacy celebrity contracts so sons and daughter of models, actors, musicians, writers, etc don’t have a one up on everyone else and extend that to athletes, financiers, doctors, small business owners, CEOs, handsome people, fit people, etc and also accountants, teachers, etc... Get real—-it’s life.
2
White Protestants who are not legacy students are possibly the most under represented group at elite colleges. The Supreme Court of the United States has a membership of 6 Roman Catholics and 3 Jews. White Protestants are under represented in Congress. People talk about Whites as if they were a single monolithic group. It is like saying, Obama's children are the same as Michal Brown.
5
I'm sickened thinking about the dedicated striver dreaming of admission to a certain school whose earned slot is usurped by a mediocre legacy. There is no justification for this. None.
Ohe just has to wonder just how many of the esteemed Times Editorial Boards got their places in university as a result of legacy admissions...
Come, now, ladies and gentlemen, in the spirit of full transparency, how about answering the question?
8
MIT has it right -- if you got in its because you deserve to be there. No legacies, no recruited athletes, no affirmative action cases. Just a simple, straightforward meritocracy. How refreshingly American!
2
One study of three selective private research universities in the United States showed the following effects (admissions disadvantage and advantage in terms of SAT points on the new 1600-point scale):
Blacks: +230
Hispanics: +185
Asians: -50
Recruited athletes: +200
Legacies (children of alumni): +160
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences
4
Elite schools also sell admissions at a very high price— that is, admit very wealthy students with no legacy attachment to a school if the parents fork over a couple of million dollars. This sale is made not by some corrupt sports coach but the university president, I personally know of a couple of such cases. The sale goes under the polite WASP term “gift to the school”. Often it is made to wealthy Asian families and then they are labeled “transactional” people!
3
The wealthy pay to have their meh sons or daughters get into Harvard or Yale or Penn just to keep the connections with the rich club going in perpetuity. It is a disgusting example of the class/caste system in this country and should end. Billionaires will still pay to have their names on the sides of buildings whether Becky and Jack III get into Princeton or not.
1
College applications should STOP asking about where the parents got educated. It should also STOP asking what is parents or applicants RACE. That is how you create a more perfect education system. The biggest beneficiary of the current system is the rich liberals in this country. You can bet that all those liberals who have been telling all of us how to live our lives will say NO to this proposal from the NYTimes.
2
Army, Navy Air Force, Marines. It’s a great start.
4
Or a dead end.
I had to smile. You do realize that at the nation’s military academies, that legacy admissions are alive and well?
And if you are fortunate enough to be the child of a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, you gain *automatic* admission to the service academy of your choice, no Congressional appointment necessary.
This hand-wringing over legacy admissions is a tempest in a teapot.
1
Without legacy college admissions we would never have had a President George Bush junior.
So the Times cites the Hurwitz article which was the primary source of information here. Even a cursory read shows that the authors there claim to have controlled for multiple factors, including test scores, social status, and other “intangibles.” Wow, controlling for “intangibles” and “every” social factor is a world’s first in epidemiology, since by definition these factors are “intangible.” Shouldn’t the Times pay some attention to the data source of their diatribes, or is it enough that the conclusions comport with their particular dogma. One wonders why the attention to this problem given the state of the world, and how many colleges there are in the US.
7
An inconsistency at the very heart of this editorial is the assertion that it is unfair to use what your parents gave you to get ahead in life...except of course for your genes. But...
We'll stay tuned for Chapter 2.
2
An inconsistency at the very heart of this editorial is the assertion that it is unfair to use what your parents gave you to get ahead in life...except of course for your genes. But...
We'll stay tuned for Chapter 2.
I hope the politicians who are proposing such legislation are prepared for their children and grandchildren to lose the legacy advantage that they currently enjoy.
I worked in Ivy League admissions 15 years ago; I still recall when my colleagues and I were forced by higher-ups to admit the then-Governor’s mediocre son, much to everyone’s dismay, including the university president. The applicant was admitted, but ultimately chose to attend a different Ivy instead.
There is a lot of pressure on admissions offices at top schools to admit under-qualified applicants who have connections and money. The mediocre children of Lori Loughlin & Felicity Huffman would’ve been admitted based on their parents’ fame alone (without fake SAT scores or false athletic recruitment). Trust me.
3
And then I consider the admitted legacy students: perfectly positioned to develop a case of imposter syndrome when surrounded by classmates who were admitted “through the front door.” These teens are left to question whether they actually belong on campus. Worse yet, there’s the possible alternative: ignorance of their unearned privilege, peppered with a sense of entitlement. With so many public discussions about preferential admissions practices and inequality though, it’s had to believe these students wouldn’t have some lurking sense of self-doubt unless they were truly tone-deaf to the arguments (itself possible evidence of a lack of objectivity and critical thinking skills required of students who get admitted “through the front door”).
5
Many legacy students, in my experience with them as a peer, work hard and are humble about their origins. Some, obviously, are not as gracious.
I don’t know of a single affirmative action admit other than Clarence Thomas who opposes it as a policy. Most feel entitled to free tuition and demand it. Your comment about “critical thinking ability” reminded me of my own experiences with both types of non-meritorious students.
2
How many legacy admissions are there? I bet not enough to make very many spots more open to others. This is just a campaign to eliminate special rights for the rich: the rich always get special rights and so what?
1
As a first generation college attendee, I had no problem with the idea that my child might be granted some small advantage based on our attendance at an Ivy college.
As we sat through all those college panel discussions it became clear that colleges didn't want our kids, but rather they wanted us, the first generation parents, again. Kids whose parents had scraped and clawed their way to a certain level of income held little attraction. We had no identity preference. No low income preference. And being only 2nd generation college attendees was irrelevant.
6
But we need wealthy legacy students. How else will we fill the bottom half of the class?
2
@Albert Kirrsch
The real question is who's going to pay for all those scholarships and grants.
4
It should not be a matter of yes or no but of how many Many Harvard alumni have made big donations to Harvard and the expansion of Harvard which allowed many underprivileged students to come is to their credit. So there is no harm in Harvard giving something back as long as it's not so much that it squeezes out underprivileged students
2
The editorial board thinks Legacy admissions are the problem? What about unequal access to k-12 education? Head Start programs that are defunded, Schools that have an overwhelming number of pupils where the first meal of the day is the reduced school lunch, or the existence of the "better" public schools which are located in affluent areas which get better funding and/or have parent groups which provide additional resources. The notion of meritocracy only works if all kids have equal opportunities starting in kindergarten and moving all the way up. Instead we have some parents who can afford standardized testing prep, tutors, and extra-curricular which take their kids around the globe - and most parents who do not. By the time people talk about Legacy admissions vs. "Merit" - they have completely missed the true problem.
6
This is a minor issue compared to public universities accepting out of state students over in state students.
The schools want to be sure the freshman graduate . The chances of this happening are higher with legacy students.
7
I'll take it one step further. How about ending the F1 student visa program? If access to education is such a problem in the U.S., why in the world are we allowing foreign students to come to our shores in huge numbers to attend our best colleges, taking the place of U.S. citizens in the process? Many of these foreign students are coming from countries such as Russia and China (countries hell bent on destroying us). So we are effectively educating our foes. The real reason colleges actively recruit these students is because they overwhelmingly pay full freight. So Editorial Board, is that fair?
3
My two daughters attended an expensive private school in NYC. For nine of those years, we paid the full tuition of about $80,000 a year; for the last five years we received the bulk of that tuition in financial aid. The school does an amazing job of promoting diversity among its student body. For example, the valedictorian of my daughter's graduating class was a charismatic Africa American young man who despite being homeless at one point, was accepted to a top Ivy League university. On the other hand, many qualified students weren't accepted into some top colleges because the obviously-less-talented scions of the rich families, through legacy or connections, secured those spots. Diversity, in most forms, was often discussed openly at my daughters' school; however, socioeconomic diversity took a definite back seat. It was an open secret that the donations of the rich enabled bright students with little financial resources to get a solid education that often led to top colleges. We all knew it. We called it, "the necessary evil" of the system. The same applies to institutions of higher education. Even if they no longer ask about legacies, or are as obvious about preferential treatment of the rich, the only way for higher education in the US to become more equitable, as the Editors state, is through increased involvement of the government in order to lessen the financial dependence of those institutions on private funding. Whether it would work, is anybody's guess.
1
Wealth inheritance is still a reality.
Many of our leaders are in their positions based on their wealth. Wouldn't you rather be led by leaders who had been subjected to the best possible education?
Perhaps we should consider a special school (or track) for youngsters of great wealth where they can be availed of the wisdom of great liberal educators before they ascend to the power over the rest of us that their wealth will inevitably bestow.
1
Legacy/donor admissions are bad for the colleges and bad for the country. For every Jared K. that is accepted, a smart person who could have actually made a difference misses out. The world needs smart people who can solve problems, not rich dolts who think their inherited wealth makes them relevant.
2
My daughter goes to an Ivy on her own merits.
She told me that a lot of the buildings with the big donor's name are close because the school don't not want to put security guards in the buildings since it cost money. So why have buildings that students can't use?
Meanwhile a lot of the students are doing drugs and drinking because there are not much activities. If there are activities offer by the school, the number of students doing drugs and drinking will drop.
If we need to keep legacy, we need use the money to build buildings that students can actually use or run fun activities for the student to do on the weekend.
1
The thrust of this is fair, and would agree that legacy admissions should be made obsolete. Not good for society or the kids themselves to get anything except on own merits. No parent would want their kid on a sports team, an orchestra or any other endeavor that is unsupported by capability and achievement.
I am not against using affirmative action as such to give under represented a chance for a time. But, the moment admissions goes from objective merit standards to something else, like building a diverse class that allows us to compete in sports, have a good theater department, help undo societal sins and inequities, have high global content, bring in “kids who have special standing” such as actors, children of politicians or who have endured particular hardship or kids from families who have previously attended that have donated a lot and in a way that is broadly beneficial (unlike recent scandal) or even are full payers cause schools need those who pay full sticker to subsidize those that cannot afford that, the fact is this is a very complex optimization equation, particularly given the various financing constituencies. So, the author goes at one element of this equation (while constraining others) without a full scope analysis of whether legacy student admits deserved to be in the school. Chances are, they do. That may seem unfair, but we would be implicitly penalizing them and other less fortunate students give. that schools have constrained budgets.
I think legacy admissions have to be clarified. What percentage of the decision is based on legacy? I think most admissions departments have a quota on these candidates. I wouldn't want to see legacy completely removed as a factor- perhaps diminished in weight. I'm grateful that both of my children were able to attend the colleges that their parents attended. They both did well and contributed to their respective educational communities.
6
The real issue with the future of higher education is not who or how many students, regardless of social strata, are allowed to access it. The more salient problem to solve is how an advanced degree aligns to benefit society at large after graduation from one of our bastions of higher learning. What kind of skill set will translate to work opportunity in a postgraduate that most clearly parallels what the society, quite distinct from individual preferences, needs to prosper in our globalized world? How does an undergraduate education succeed to produce talented graduates for careers most likely to be benefit the society at large—again fully distinct from what the individual might seek to further his/her narrow, self-serving aims?
Inefficient clustering of intellectual resources necessarily skews against ideal deployment of needed services regionally as population density overwhelms the planet. With overcrowding of planetary resources marching inexorably beyond this country’s & the earth’s ‘carrying capacity’, survival of our species will depend not on how many legacies or fluff-trained graduates our country produces, but on how many highly educated & competent citizens, passionate to serve the common good, there are in any given generation. It will increasingly matter how well we direct the quality, education and geographic deployment of talented people that will determine if and how well our society survives into a very challenging future that lies ahead.
2
The schools need to get rid of legacy advantage and get rid of tips for facbrats and rich/prominent people. That leaves athletes and some tips for overcoming hardship/racial advantage, aka traditional affirmative action and then everyone else who got in on their own merit exclusively.
As a person who got in early action to Harvard with none of the above factors, I had to be much, much smarter and accomplished than those ultimately admitted to win my seat. And people knew it too. Of my freshman year rooming group of six, I was one of two to pass the quantitative reasoning test on the first round. Of the four who didn't, one was a facbrat, one was a legacy whose family owns a major industrial concern in the US, one was from a foreign country where Harvard seems ill-equipped to determine how they set standards and the other checked the Hispanic box by virtue of one of her grandparents having coming from Spain- hardly an indicator of any type of hardship. The two of us who met that threshold were non-WASP Caucasians with no preferential treatment by the admissions committee.
There are many things that go into making someone "smart" and successful. I think Harvard could have generally done a better job at finding people with more "diversity of thought"- but the lower caliber of people who were given advantages to admission were obvious. These practices also diminish the perception of ppl with these factors who would have gotten in on their own academic merits anyway.
5
Oh, stop. Legacy admissions are not the tool of the devil. And recall that they are a factor, not THE factor in admissions. The notion that an applicant who's parent(s) successfully completed coursework at a particular institution may have an analogous experience is simply fact. Also note that today's students avoid parental alma maters like the plague. My father was an Orangeman, my brother and I are Terps, our collective kids Bluehens, Gators, Nittany Lions, etc. The NYT editorial board makes a mountain out of a mole hill (again).
12
And while we're at it, let's lean on the taxpayer-subsidized public universities that give highly preferential treatment to applicants with athletic but no academic prowess.
11
@Charles Michener
Well said!!!!!
1
My sons earned their way into college, but we had to pay full tuition. How about some fairness in pricing. Why should I have to support athletes, and marginal students.
9
@ll
Is "marginal students" a dogwhistle for dim-witted legacy or donor admits? Or some other group?
2
My daughter desperately wanted to go to Penn State. Not an elite institution but it was where she wanted to go. She would have been able to do the work and was ultimately admitted to a higher rated school but she was a white, upper middle class girl from suburbia and was rejected. Another student in her school, a football player with much lower grades and SAT scores than hers was admitted. When admission of mediocre candidates just to play a sport is eliminated then I will be able to agree with this article.
21
Better yet: all applicants get a randomized ID number, like a Social Security Number. All the IDs of the applicants who want to attend the school go in a big, rolling drum. If the school can admit 100 students that year, they pick 100 IDs. No consideration of anything other than a kid’s desire to go to that school. No SAT prep, no prep school, no “activity”. Return kids lives to them to enjoy.
I work at one of the most successful corporations in the world. I can’t think of a single mid level or senior executive with an Ivy League or similar pedigree (I have one and am not in an exec role). It looks great on paper, gives bragging rights, and opens some doors, but in the end people succeed in the real world based on talent, drive, and people skills.
12
Legacy admissions have always been an abomination, and every argument given for them is nonsense. There's no way Donald Trump or all his family could have been accepted to U-Penn without Fred Trump's donations and legacies. Can anyone IMAGINE Don, Jr. or Eric getting in on merit?
How did George W. Bush get into Yale as a C student? Legacy!
And, of course, the Kennedys who all went to Harvard...At least Ted Kennedy recognized the injustice of it in his later years.
No one in my family got into college on anything but merit. Only my wife went to the same school as her older brother, but since she finished #1 in her high school class, as he had done, any university in the nation would have snapped her up.
I went to a newer SUNY university, and despite no "legacy" there's a strong series of traditions, albeit newer ones Boomers started, rather than ones going back to colonial days, or, in the South, to ante-bellum traditions. And some of these newer traditions are a lot less stuffy and just plain fun! Also, schools like mine have a bit of a chip on the shoulder, determined to prove they are just as good, if not better.
Besides, with admissions scandals, following grade inflation scandals, and coverups of sexual predators at the "better" schools with "long traditions", it's becoming clear that an undergrad education not only is just as good at newer, non-legacy schools, but may be more thorough, complete, and grading is more HONEST!
3
@Dadof2
Ever wonder where the Trump's, Kennedy's or Bush's you rail against would have gone to college if they were not legacies at Penn, Harvard and Yale? Another college of their choice is the answer.
Their choice of Harvard or Yale is more of a sentimental "won't it be fun to be in Skull and Bones just like Dad" decision than any educational or prestige-based decision. They were elite before college, and their mediocre to inferior grades in elite colleges did nothing to change that.
Credit the NYT for identifying the real problem here.
@HH
It really is the same problem, isn't it? "Socialism" and "Affirmative Action" for the rich and powerful, who need it less than anyone else.
Along the same vein, we can only wonder why such a high percentage of leading politicians' children are admitted to highly selective schools.
4
Another reason to abandon private universities- state universities have rules against “political” appointments which was our term for anything other than getting there on your own merit.
1
I bet many who opine on this and other topics of inequality have their children attending elite private schools.
Elitism is more real in American society today than the racism they rail about.
6
I want to see a DC with way more UC grads, or U Of M, etc. From the federal courts to the cabinet to federal agencies. The out of touch atmosphere is due less to legacies than to the insular worship of these legacy institutions, which arguably are not better, and do not represent our fascinating blend of people, which is in fact our best attribute. All hail Fresno state; ho-hum Princeton.
2
Yes indeed. The problem I have with the Times and others' continued examination of unfair admissions policies at "elite" universities is that these articles perpetuate the single most damaging myth in our education system: that it is a HUGE advantage to attend an "elite" university, and therefore something everybody should strive for, by hook or by crook. The reason students from elite schools make more money is that they tend to be higher achievers in the first place. (Yes, of course the status/reputation of the school is of some help, but this value is constantly attributed to the school rather than the cohort of students who attend it.) Go to whatever school will have you, do some good work, find a path that's right for you, and you'll do just fine!! Ugghhhh!
6
I'm sure that schools will be willing to forego millions of dollars in contribution to make admission entirely fair.
We've learned that Harvard and MIT were both so craven that they were willing to accept money from a convicted sex criminal and without any concerns about the sources of his money. So no matter what laws might be passed, the schools are going to get innovative as to ways to get around them as they've shown their ethics are Trumpian.
3
The whole point of institutions such as Harvard is to perpetuate inequality. Why they go out of business on purpose?
1
Is it possible that top universities (especially those the NYT would categorize as providing "elite educations") have already mostly done away with legacy admissions?
Rather than taking the schools at their word, the scientific approach would be to look at whether students matched for all other qualities were more frequently admitted on the basis of legacy status. Wouldn't it be a surprising result if children of ivy league parents also tended to be high achievers? So, the NYT "statistics" on the benefits of legacy status are certain to be skewed toward the sensational. As others have noted, the NYT also doesn't want to engage the debate of whether admissions should be a meritocracy.
It would not surprise me at all if the true "benefit" of legacy status is much less than the "benefit" of being a member of the financial global elite, minority status or many other factors that are far less arguably meritocratic. Simply giving $1000 per year to your ivy alma mater likely has no appreciable effect on any admissions status (nor on the university endowment).
Ironically, with this article, the NYT may be simply perpetuating the myth of huge legacy benefits that keeps alumni donating to "legacy" schools where those alumni reap no benefits in return. The false perceived benefit is highlighted by articles like this one. In that light, isn't this "tax" on the "educational elite" a good thing from the populist view of the NYT?
The article fails to mention that Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) also do not have any legacy quota. You got into IIT because you got into IIT, period.
IITs have also thrived and have contributed significantly, all over the world.
1
The only legacy my parents left me was themselves. Briliant, thoughtful, weird and kind. They were immigrants and faced extreme hardships here.
I was a horrible student. Cheated my way through high school and college barely getting by. School was a nightmare. There were reasons in terms of survival that I had to stay.
I got most of my education outside the classroom. Met a group of people--artists, writers, political activists-- who read a lot, knew a lot, thought a lot, felt a lot and who were deep and profound.
And now here I am many decades later writing a comment thinking of all the varied roads all my fellow commenters and I have taken to wind up in the exact same place this Sunday morning.
4
legacy without substantial contributions is not that valuable(gets wait list....ha). Harvard's endowmentsis above 35 billion. How much of the prestige/value of Harvard is wrapped up in the size of that endowment?(lots) so what happens when you get rid of "legacy" that builds/maintains that endowment?
like it or not...its predominantly a private club with a substantial membership fee(& no, they don't need you just cause your "smart").
1
If legacy applicants are well qualified, let them compete head to head. Eliminate the brownie points for legacy applicants and eliminate admissions based on donations.
We need to end the admission of international students to our universities. Giving college spots away to foreigners at the expense of American citizens is wrong.
4
Admit based on academic achievement and potential (and athletics are not academic achievement or potential).
Get rid of the rest.
3
The NYT seems to think all legacies are dumber than the regular pool and their lucky status is the only reason they are admitted. For the most part the legacy thing is an added plus when comparing two candidates of equal caliber. That legacies are admitted at a higher rate is as likely from the fact they are smart & interesting candidates. With the common application it is now much easier to apply to many many colleges and so the applicant pool at all colleges it much larger than it used to be say 25 years ago. That doesn't mean the applicant pool is better. Colleges are still admitting the same number from a larger pool (plus all the internationals!) which is why the overall acceptance rate is so low. Has the actual acceptance number for legacies changed over the period? The NYT doesn't say... wonder why?
3
Or, let them continue to admit mediocre legacies and stop buying into the myth that they are “elite” schools.
3
What's left unsaid in attacking legacy admissions ("mediocre" rich white kids) is who would take their place and why. The implication is it would be better to accept minority students whether they actually merit it or not based on some sort of societal benefit. So it's really not about "merit" - it's about racial preferences.
And pointy head theories that legacy-driven endowments and yearly contributions to universities won't decline is non-sense. First, tell a family that their son or granddaughter won't be able to attend their alma mater despite high grades in order for a less deserving minority student can attend. Second, once the legacy is broken, that well-off families heirs will no longer contribute to a school they now have no relationship with.
1
What about the decision by Georgetown to give legacy status to the descendants of slaves sold to pay the school's debts in the 1800s? Could Harvard and Yale make similar offers to descendants of slaves connected with their institutions?
"Preferential treatment for legacy admissions ... is an engine of inequity." And so is inheritance. And so is the inane CEO paychecks for businesses whose employees need public assistance. And so is our entire system of renumeration and wealth.
I would say inheritance is a much larger engine of inequity because at least legacy admissions must adhere to a modicum of work to maintain their "C" average. The children of millionaires and billionaires can do nothing and live in ways that are detrimental to themselves, the ecology, and every living thing on the planet.
Yes, end legacy admissions and hyper-inflated CEO pay, and when your done popping the pimple of American inequity, perhaps we can tackle the cancerous inequity of inheritance that exceeds $1,000,000 or $10,000,000 or $500,000--IDK pick a reasonable number and eradicate the plethora of loopholes that keep the obscenely wealthy obscene.
Face it: our country is governed by capitalism not a democracy.
3
Here's a real piece of advice: the world isn't a meritocracy. Sometimes it is but others it isn't. The world is about what you do and who you know.
Thank you! It's about time. For years, we heard about white students who were denied admission because of Affirmative Action policies designed to level the playing field.
Court cases went all the way to the Supreme Court. Race can no longer be a factor in admissions because it wasn't fair. But, there was never any mention of Legacy Admission Policies which took racial privilege into account.
American hypocrisy is blind. Let's see if this despicable policy really gets eliminated. My guess will be...no, it won't. It serves the purpose of keeping undeserving rich kids on top.
That's always been the American way.
1
In April 2019 the Pew Foundation analyzed admission statistics from 2017 (the last year for which complete data was available) at 1,364 four year colleges and universities in the United States. Only 17 of the schools in the survey admitted less than 10 percent of their applicants. Another 29 schools admitted between 10 and 20 percent of their applicants. Combined, those 46 schools accounted for just over 4 percent of students enrolled in the surveyed schools that year. More than 80 percent of the schools in the survey admitted more than 50 percent of their applicants. More than 50 percent of the schools in the survey admitted more than 67 percent of their applicants.
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/04/09/a-majority-of-u-s-colleges-admit-most-students-who-apply/
Legacy admission at the tiny percentage of schools considered to be “elite” is hardly the biggest problem in higher education in this country. The attention paid to it is disproportionate to its significance.
3
@Prudent the reason it is an issue is because the graduates of those few schools disproportionately make it into the hallowed halls of power. Schools like Harvard are the gatekeepers of who gets to decide the direction of the country.
"Preferential treatment for legacy admissions is anti-meritocratic, inhibits social mobility and helps perpetuate a de facto class system."
i would add, with a nod to one of the article's authors, Sarah Jeong, that preferential treatment for race-based admissions and hiring is anti-meritocratic, inhibits social mobility, and perpetuates a de facto structurally racist system.
End legacies and you'll put an end to half the private colleges in the Country. Who else can afford to pay $70k a year for a liberal arts degree?
2
Legacy admissions are, in the first instance, a significant contributor to the longevity and quality of interested alumni, who will contribute financially to the institution from which they graduated, hoping that their offspring, when of college age, will stand a better chance of admission than "first timers,' and will continue a to a beloved family tradition. Equality of opportunity is a goal that can be achieved without wiping, so to speak, the slate clean.No doubt, the Editorial Board of the Times, leaning, as always, far to the left, advocate for affirmative action, where the nominally less qualified may be given advancement over others, whose credentials are superior to theirs. The Times is simply advocating advancement for those who they deem more worthy than legacy applicants.
1
Sounds like a good idea, along with ending any consideration of race or personality or social connections, etc., in admissions. Kids should get in based on grades and test scores. It should not be a popularity contest or based on whose ethnic group has suffered the most or whose daddy has the most or least money or social connections.
3
How about we end sports admissions? Yes, legacy admits get a 17% increase in admission, the same as those under affirmative action, but athletes enjoy a 51% increase. With lower scores and lower grades, and no greater after graduation donation rate, why do colleges need them? FYI, it is not about money, since most programs lose money. Even worse, it is very corrupt.
4
Won't happen.
We wouldn't be the same country if it did.
2
George W. Bush a Harvard Graduate? It should have been a joke, seriously.
They should get rid of so called donation for admission. This is simply a bribe and is not fair to other applicants, who often have higher test scores and GPAs. Colleges who do this should be denied financial aid.
1
@John
Maybe if we had Obama’s grades we could make a comparison.
I strongly disagree. Yet one more way of creating equality by taking things away from those that are well off. Sounds like a race to the bottom to me. Wouldn't it be better to improve the lot of less advantaged people instead?
1
It's about time! This is such a no-brainer that it begs the question why it has taken until 2019 for this supposedly, liberal paper to challenge this aristocratic practice? Clearly it's because the NYT and many of its readers are part of an aristocracy educated at these institutions who like to pretend that they are liberals and humanists (in addition to being advanced in other ways.)
Isn't it also WAY past time to address the discrepancy between taxpayer support of selective, elite universities with that of regional, state universities and community colleges. There is nearly a 10-fold difference per credit hour in public funding, on average (see nexus.org). Needless to say, the schools who need it more and where the taxpayers kids actually attend get the tiny fraction. The sixties are long gone. The educated/professional class in America have become the establishment. But they still like to pretend they are outside and above all of it. At least, industry tycoons didn't kid themselves otherwise. They didn't take the place of TRUE progressives (and lie to themselves that they aren't driven by self- interest.)
3
Long overdue editorial - Bravo. A few points:
1. College in general is a total scam - if someone wants to be a physician, a lawyer or a profession which generally requires a four year undergraduate degree, they should be able to apply directly to such a professional school and save 4 years of their life. You don’t NEED 4 years of college studying some vague liberal arts to then spend another decade learning your chosen profession.
2. Legacy admissions are indeed a disgrace but what about the elite/powerful admissions? I’m still waiting to see Harvard and it’s peer Ivies reject mediocre students from powerful families- Prince Charles, Sasha Obama, Dante De Blasio, Chelsea Clinton, the list goes on and on- are you seriously telling me these kids ALL just HAPPENED to earn admission into the Ivies based on their own merit ?
No wonder there is such internal strife in our country- It truly is the land of the elite vs the land of every other “regular” American.
4
Sorry to say but life in general isn’t too fair from what I experienced and witnessed. I read comments about how their kids got into an elite school anyway, blah blah but reality is that those who can afford and compete for a spot at any elite institution are likely from a family with resources whether they are legacy or not. I taught high school in Manhattan before my I embarked on another career and it’s remarkable to see the different advantages kids have based more on socioeconomic status. You want private coaching for SATs? Done if you come from an affluent family. If your family is on food stamps, I’m sure priorities are else where. My point is...those with resources will always have an advantage at every turn in life. You think average parent from inner city has a 529? Mom and Pop paying for their tuition? From my own personal experience, I had acceptance to Penn and Cornell(my parents are legal aliens). However, while attending an elite Ivy, some of us would often joke that if our parents went to Harvard or Yale, we’d be there instead. Yes, there is a slight tier system in the Ivies also. This isn’t even considering affirmative action or the so called Asian discrimination that’s being litigated right now. Would my life be different if my parents went to Harvard and I somehow ended up there? But sadly, life isn’t fair and everyone looks for an advantage whenever possible. Please don’t act as if you don’t. You then are a hypocrite.
I have long pondered legacy admissions and, for years, have pounded on the negative aspects both on my personal websites and here on the Times. The overwhelming factor in their continuation is that the largely white, upperclass eastern population loves the advantages they get and hates the idea of anyone impinging on a system that gets their son or daughter a job at a big name hedge fund, into a prestigious law school or helps to create a resume that leads to leadership, political office and so forth.
You wanna have a big fight? Propose new ways to make college admissions both fair to all AND that address the historical exclusions of blacks and Jews from, among others, the Ivy League. Here's the deal: the white upper class easterners think they own the system and it is just fine to keep it the way it is.
So called elite colleges should get out of the business of trying to pick and anoint the winners of the rising generations. How would they then be able to gather the quickest, best readied minds in one place to socially and educationally fertilize these brains (and other parts)? Try randomness: 1/4 to 1/3 of all students admitted who are "otherwise qualified" would be chosen by lottery.
We don't know how things would work out because they haven't been tried but make no mistake: elite institutions are run for the benefit of those who are there, professors/administrators plus the donors. We should not, cannot allow these schools to control our common future. Enough already.
2
The day legacy admissions leave, is the day I'm strutting the catwalk in Paris.
America isn't equal. It never was. Our country is divide by money and race. No one is really interested in change that. We might nibble around the edges, but that's it.
Wealthy people have no interest in being with the rest of the common herd. Having legacy admission helps that. Prince or Princess has to go to Amherst, Harvard, or Stanford. To make it in their world, they need to be around their own kind, not swimming around with the common rabble at State U (horrors) or community college (fate worse than death).
The rabble have nothing to offer those institutions. A one percent-er can toss a few millions towards a building fund. As a token of gratitude, higher education tosses the one percent-er a legacy slot for their golden spawn.
Why stop at legacy preferences? Why are schools letting coaches decide who gets admitted? At Dartmouth College, my Alma Mater, a full 20% of admits are for sports. Dartmouth does not assign the same value to musical or visual artistic talent for instance.
I ran into a recent grad who volunteered he was "dumb as a post" but an excellent lacrosse player. He was not a legacy admit. Dartmouth is far from being the worst offenders. UNCs sports scandal (Athletes getting As in fake courses) was ignored by the NCAA prove that academics is secondary to the god of sports scholarships.
Schools now refuse to provide student achievement data because it makes their admissions policies look bad. Progressives like to tout the value of diversity but bar ANY measure of it in Colleges.
6
The Editorial Board asserts that legacy preferences are inconsistent with merit-based admissions (praising an admissions official at MIT, which does not give legacy preferences for stating "If you got into MIT, it's because you got into MIT") while, at the same time, lauding race-based admissions preferences. Go figure.
5
The piece fails to take into consideration the golden rule - those with the gold rule.
3
Legacy admissions are obviously based on money factors -- alumni are always the target of endowment requests and fund drives and universities depend on these. Other justification for this completely unfair and elitist policy is so much blather.
Supreme Court Justice Bret Kavanaugh went to Yale University, as did his paternal grandfather. Isn't that enough to illustrate the pernicious effects of "legacies"? He's a poster-boy for Ivy League privilege.
3
@proffexpert whether or not you like Kavanaugh, he has demonstrated that he's a very accomplished jurist who made it onto the Supreme Court.
How does that compare to most Ivy league graduates. I can't think of many of my peers who went to the Ivy's who have led anything so exemplary.
2
If legacy admissions are ended.....a lot of affluent parents whose kid wasn't admitted to their 'alma mater'..... will take those constant donation-seeking letters.....and start throwing them in the trash.
Or am I missing something here?
Why is The New York Times so utterly obsessed with what happens at elite universities? Get over it.
Opinion editorials such as this one reinforce the idea that education at those schools is somehow superior to that offered elsewhere. So reform is necessary to level the playing field. The premise should be questioned. Whereas few doubt that the infrastructure and scholars on the faculty are significantly better, is the education similarly better to justify all the fuss?
Do world-renown scholars really spend much time or any time whatsoever with 18-year old students? Or even with undergraduate students? At the elite colleges, how many courses are taught by adjuncts, professors of the practice, visiting assistant professors, or whatever is the euphemism-du-jour for non-tenure track/non-tenured faculty? Such questions are not broached for fear of the answer.
I await an Opinion Editorial "End Coverage of What Happens at the Elite Colleges".
9
Forbes has an interesting article about the extent of government funding actually enjoyed by private schhols.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/richardvedder/2018/04/08/there-are-really-almost-no-truly-private-universities/#7d691e6257bc
The funding is indirect, through subsidized loans and grants, tax deductions and credits, exemptions from property and/or sales taxes, and can be quite substantial, sometimes greatly exceeding those to similarly-sized public institutions nearby.
2
I would agree, but then I would also wonder how many people working for the New York Times were themselves legacy admissions to colleges. How many staffers come from privileged upper and upper middle class backgrounds.
It is a fact of life that the more access you have to money, comfort, and time the better your chances are to succeed.
So how bout this, why not fire everyone who ever did an unpaid internship because, let’s face it the poor can’t do these. Get rid of anybody whose parents paid for SAT prep, admissions coaching. If you didn’t wrack up studnt loans, and didn’t work part time in college... well we’re watching you.
1
I totally agree with doing away with legacy admissions. But so long as "affirmative action" is permitted, the system is racist.
4
The concept with eliminating affirmative action is fantastic but shouldnt be limited to wealthy legacies. The problem with the Nytimes piece is that they simply want to substitute their social engineering agenda for the one that the university is implementing. Neither is correct. The better approach is to demand full transparency on admits and let the schools defend why they are giving legacies, athletic admits, racial admits and any other admits preference over other groups. Of course the editorial called out the unfair advantage provided legacies while ignoring impact of unfair admissions criteria on Asians and other groups
3
Ivy league admissions are a joke for the wealthy - who are willing to invest more than measly hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also, things will get done at the prep school as necessary... Swarthmore and a few others are the exception.
End legacy college admissions? That only one half of the formula for justice in American education. The other half should be, "and start free college for anyone who wants it."
How do you fund that? By ending the tax giveaways and scams to the same crowd that has benefited from legacy college admissions!
Unfortunately those folks have controlled the pubic discourse defining the words "free" and "freedom". Their version of "free" translates into the concept of the proverbial "welfare queen" not the billionaire, Jeffrey Epstein, and "freedom" mean the ability to get away with the life of a truly criminal parasite, scot "free". This is a perversion of the English language noted by the likes of George Orwell. I await a redo of this editorial.
Affirmative action is under intense constitutional scrutiny, and the Supreme Court is likely to kill it altogether. Once that happens, colleges and universities will succumb to public pressure and end legacy admissions.
The conservatives will end affirmative action, and the liberals will end legacy admissions.
To all the readers who justify the egregious practice of legacy admissions by saying it’s a necessary evil for financial donations, did you read the article?! There is no causal relationship between legacy preference policies and total alumni giving! Why does this line of reasoning keep on rearing its ugly head when there is literally no evidence of it being true? It’s like a learned helplessness sort of reaction- ‘well, those people are rich, and so they naturally must get more benefits because trickle-down economics or something!’ No! Top private colleges have billions of dollars in their endowment. Billions. Some larger than the GDPs of entire countries. Do you really think that they desperately need to raise more money? Also, legacy preferences were enacted for the sole ugly reason for keeping certain demographic groups out. With such a disgusting history, why would anyone ever overlook this practice? Legacy students are not inherently more talented, prepared, smarter, or anything else compared to the rest of population, besides potentially being more wealthy. Let’s stop treating them like they’re anything special.
2
@J
I agree with the first part of your comment, but have to take issue with “legacy students are no more talented, prepared etc than the general population.” Because, guess what, statistically speaking, they are. It comes with being on average more economically advantaged than the rest of the population, and simply from having smart, highly educated parents.
1
Is this really going to be a game changer? It seems that the Times' definition of "college" over my many decades of readership has been limited to the elite institutions.
The vast majority of college students do not attend such schools, and legacy issues are of no concern to them.
NYT - when will you expand your coverage of colleges to readily and constantly include those outside of the most exclusive?
6
1. Schools, public and private, should be required to increase their enrollment to account for affirmative action. Affirmative action is not just a generous leg up, but it is reparations, restitution for past discrimination lasting illegally with Jim Crow for 100 years. It is Justice being served in a just society.
2. At the best schools admissions standards are high even for legacies. And beyond loyalty at private schools, it is the financial contributions of alumni that has allowed them to maintain such high academic standing. Embedded in this is that their offspring will receive favorable treatment in admittance.
Having said this, I think it was in the 90s that Yale raised over $1 billion in a fund drive just to refurbish their old buildings. With that they could have doubled enrollment, or moved the whole school to Arizona, which doesn't have those cold, wet New England winters. And all those schools, especially Harvard, having gambled successively in "never fail" Ponzi scheme computer trading algorithms that sank momentarily the world financial bamking system, made enough at the time to open 3 or 4 new campuses, if they had had any egalitarian spirit. The Harvard Business Review at the time asked, "How do we regain trust?" The answer should have been, Shut the place down, just like Tulane did with their basketball program after widespread cheating. The Divinity School could have used the savings to house the homeless.
Say goodbye to alumni donations.
I totally disagree with this. I am the daughter of WWII era parents who were immigrants/1st generation Americans whose entire family were wiped out in the Holocaust. I pushed and pushed and pushed myself to get into a top private college. I then studied harder than anyone else I knew at the college and graduated at the top of my class. It opened up a huge amount of doors for me, including getting into a top (public) medical school -- I otherwise couldn't have paid for private medical school and wouldn't be a doctor as I am now. This is too broad of a brush the NY Times is describing. I want my children who are no "1st generation legacies" to have a slightly easier path than I had--it would just mean they have ever so slightly less of a burden on their shoulders than I did.
1
Is there any actual rationalization for legacy admissions, other than "Your dad went here, and we want him to give us a bunch of money, so you can come here too"?
This archaic holdover of hereditary aristocracy has to go, period.
1
I hope recent 3 years have retired the notion that the US is democratic and a meritocracy. What a terrible harmful myth.
1
Ridiculous. Nepotism exists in many, many forms. Your name and connections are often what gets you the job. (How many politician's kids work for the TV networks?) It is who you know as much as who are you are, altho how you look (beautiful is better, mixed race is better) can have a lot to do with lots of things.
Picking on legacy admission....
Want to make things fairer? How about free law courses on line? Ditto free business school courses? (There are a couple of business courses - or were -- bookkeeping and finance on Coursera.) But most of what goes on (and the way information is dispersed) seems to have to do with privileging whomever in the name of profit. What ever happened to the laws about usury??
Yesterday I was contemplating consumption laws during the Italian Renaissance; there were limits to using your clothing to flaunt your wealth. Today, if you're Hollywood/entertainment, you deduct your clothing expenses from your taxes!
"preferential treatment to the children of alumni. "????
Why doesn't the press exposé the preferential treatment given to children of college professors or for other academic employees.
Just as unjust.
2
Children of Generals or Admirals get a free pass into the nations military academies. Why? That needs to stop.
Make all admissions to all colleges, all jobs, all facets of civilian social organization dependent upon test results.
No carve outs.
No special considerations.
Nothing but the intellectual capability and preparedness of the individual.
Nope, that won't work either because the likely outcomes will not be mathematically distributed according to the socio-economic-ethnic make-up of the population.
You want an education to change your life?
Go to a public university or college. Save your money. The name of the school granting the degree won't mean anything 5 years after graduation.
Learn something. Apply your learning. Stop whining.
1
Hear, hear. Legacy admissions should be ended.
1
A fascinating story. While I did graduate from MIT, my description of the process persuaded both sons to go somewhere else. I was never conscious of any 'legacy' influence at MIT. If you were doing calculus problems in seventh grade, you were in!!!
1
You have to ask yourself why do you want to go to Harvard? Is it because you will get superior education there since they use some innovative teaching methods or exclusive books or their faculty is the best at teaching? I doubt that. You go to Harvard because of its alumni and donor networks. These people have power and resources and are willing to help the classmates of their own siblings going to Harvard. If you admit 99% of Asian, just as an example, poor and middle class kids then for them Harvard will be no different than some Asian Uni where they work through the books to get good grades on the exams and are on their own after graduation. You are going to hurt these kids by denying them the networking.
2
The rich cheat to get in, then they cheat to graduation. After that, they go into banking and investing.
4
MIT has it right -- if you got in its because you earned your way in. A simple. straightforward meritocracy. How refreshingly American!
End legacies, recruited athletes, and affirmative action. Work hard, study hard and you will be rewarded by being admitted to an excellent school -- where you will get the chance to study hard and work hard...
1
All things being equal, whenever you give preference to someone because of legacy, ethnic or racial considerations you deny a hardworking talented applicant.
2
Legacy admissions have long been the most effective "affirmative action program" at colleges. It is high time that this went away. Sports scholarships should also be eliminated--if the NFL or NBA need farm systems to bring along new talent, let them pay for them.
So, how did Donald Trump get into Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania? How did Jared Kushner get into Harvard? How did Malia Obama get into Harvard? How did Chelsea Clinton get into Stanford? How did Dante de Blasio get into Yale? None of those people have to tell us their GPA or special talent except they are from politically connected and powerful family. This is just as bad as those who bribe their way into elite colleges with the help of Rick Singer. The most elite college admission system is as corrupt as our political establishment. We have to stop this.
2
There are 4,000 colleges in the US. A sincere egalitarian organization would seek not a minor fix in the mix of students at the top 100 schools, but a major overhaul of the mix of schools from which it hired. If one were hiring, for example, a publisher, why favor Harvard over CUNY? Then again why stop at 100 schools out of 4,000? Why not simply favor a single family?
Is Harvard's training better? For K-12 schools you'd demand equal public funds per student and claim that diversity abets learning...except, it seems, for diverse ability. How is college different? Of what value to ordinary people is turnover in an elite they can’t join? The truck driver on the next bar stool doesn’t care how you got into Hahvahd. He’ll treat you to “punch” just for your smart alec vocabulary.
It is inspiring (and news) that the British lead our allies in forswearing hereditary privilege, special relationships, odd hosiery, and so forth. Hopefully Oxbridge will inspire Hogwarts, though even the Yanks seem to lap up the bits about whose mum was a brilliant student and whose dad was incorrigible. One fears the audience may distinguish privilege from personal connection.
The Board's soulless, mechanical version of egalitarianism betrays no lessons learned in the post-modern era. The personal is to be suppressed wherever it is cornered. I believe we can find you a very fine necktie without insisting that you inherit my father’s necktie. This paper has no faith in tie makers.
I think we should abolishing athletic admissions first no? Gimme a break. No other country ties playing with a ball as criteria for university admissions. Athletes go from high school to pro if they are talented. For everyone else it's a hobyy as it should be.
In the case of football it's morally repugnant that any academic institution would support a sport that harms young people's brains.
3
So - depending on whom the Editorial Board has turned their sights: sometimes strictly meritocratic admissions are to be applauded and sometimes strictly meritocratic admissions are over-simplistic and short sighted,
“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”
― George Orwell, 1984
I'm an American living in the UK and I can tell you that the university admissions system over here doesn't give a hoot if you are black or have a lesbian mother or if you're an athlete. It's all about how well you did on your A-levels and your interview.
It might not be a perfectly meritocratic system but it's about ten thousand times more so than America.
3
@John and how is "how you did on your A-levels determined"? If admission to Oxbridge is so meritocratic how come many come from elite schools like Eton and the like?
I'm torn between what is the best quote from the article. Is it "And if anyone in our office ever advocated for a mediocre applicant on the basis of their ‘excellent pedigree’ they would be kicked out of the committee room. So to be clear: if you got into M.I.T., it’s because you got into M.I.T. Simple as that...." or "Senator Ted Kennedy — a legacy student if ever there was one..."
I have said this for years Nd Ben ridiculed. Legacies are affirmative action for the wealthy and privileged. Another way to keep the "other" out. All the seats are reserved for frat boys from feeder prep schools. They came from feeder grammar schools. All closed to the hoi polloi.
That's why college rankings are meaningless. -forbes rankings-done by the very men who benefitted most from the rigging of the system.
This opinion is misleadingly using the term “affirmative action” as if it is synonymous with “unfair advantage.” I strongly protest this misuse of the term. Affirmative action, which no longer exists, was a small inadequate step toward reparations for groups of people whose ancestors’ land, labor and lives were stolen to build the wealthiest country, including by disproportionately dying in its endless wars starting with the Revolutionary War. Affirmative action was arguably an honorable, if feeble, attempt to right past and continued massive US crimes against humanity. Legacy admissions mean typical unfair advantages, which perpetuate levels of wealth inequality that don’t exist in any other country but the USA and entrenched, systemic racism.
1
I’m glad that the NY Times Editorial Board has taken this principled position – assuredly, the most of these individuals are Ivy League graduates and arguing against their narrow self-interest. But while you are calling for reform, why don’t you broaden the discussion and advocate for the following changes:
1. Ending Misrepresentations in Admission Statistics. As anyone knows who has interviewed candidates for admission to a selective college or university, Admissions Offices knowingly misrepresent the chances of being accepted by withholding information from candidates. They provide acceptance rates based on individual criteria – like ACT/SAT scores or class rank, but don’t provide acceptance rates based on multiple factors when looked at together - like legacy, athlete, ethnicity, location of school, SAT and ACT. What looks like, to a 17 year old, a 20% chance of admission in reality often is a 1 or 2% chance.
2. Tuition Controls. Why doesn’t the federal government require tuition increases to be capped each year in exchange for financial aid benefits and programmatic support?
3. End of Elitism. There is a culture of elitism in this country that drives the worship of Ivy League and other highly selective schools. There are plenty of great state schools and other institutions that highly intelligent, motivated students attend and get a great education. Why do we continue to undermine these schools by making admission to a school like Stanford the gold standard?
4
The Loughlin, et al., "scandal" about paying for admissions needs to be located inside a context in which donations of millions win admission. Our Hollywood elite simply is not wealthy enough to be able to purchase admission for their children "the old fashioned way" -- massive donations.
2
While we’re at it, can we please do away with the lists of best Universities? Stop the grading and the false elevating. Not everyone should go to Harvard or Princeton. Better outcomes could be had at a small public institution.
And next, can we please have some respect and admiration for those in the trades or arts or culinary realm or other that don’t require a University degree, but require dedication, commitment, desire. We have spent way too much time convincing people that a University is their only path to fulfillment. And now that they will be in debt for years, we need to tell the truth.
7
Agreed. Legacy admissions should be eliminated. But what about development admissions? Those have a pernicious trade-off too--parents giving large sums of money (benefitting poorer kids) so that their unqualified children can gain quietly gain admission over better-but-poorer candidates. Perhaps the solution there is for colleges to openly set aside a few spaces every year and and raffle them off to the highest bidder. Winners' names would be made public, so there is no pretending they gained their spot through normal means. Seems much more honest than the current system.
3
Great idea, good luck.
While you are at it, how about calling for the end of preferences for children of celebrities or others who can "buy" a seat for their child. Call for the end of "Jared Kushner" admissions.
Then consider really doing the impossible. Call out elite colleges for patting themselves on the back for their "diversity," when that really just means they filled their classes with children of color from wealthy families, more often than not, from overseas.
Encourage them instead to offer admissions and financial aid (not just athletic scholarships) to applicants whose families have suffered from hundreds of years of brutal racism in America. Encourage universities to lead reparations in this country. Something they could have, and should have, been doing for decades now.
6
Spot on! This is all about financial benefit to the educational institutions.
3
The problem is misidentified. The problem is the stratification of universities, even the mere existence of a class of universities called ivy league schools is a big problem. If colleges in this country were like high schools, which good state universities achieve to some degree, meaning that there is not a big difference among the perceived quality of schools in so-called top 200, then legacy admissions would lose their meaning in the long run, as sorting in colleges would diminish and there would be many schools to choose from. This is a leg up to everybody. As a college professor, I can attest you that the peer group effects outweigh the quality of education difference between all schools.
4
Any consideration of legacy admissions deserves more attention to early decision than is provided by the single dismissive sentence contained in this editorial. Early decision is an option for any student to apply to one school, often with the expectation that, if admitted, the applicant will attend. ED programs consequently have far higher admit rates than is typical in the April 1 cycle. Top schools are filling as much as 50% of their freshman classes with ED applicants, and a disproportionate share of legacy applicants choose the ED path. That creates a structural distinction between legacy and non-legacy admit rates, independent of any legacy-based preferences. ED sounds like to good possibility for all.
1
The problem with ED is that you don’t know what (if any) financial aid package will be offered with Early Decision. I couldn’t have my children take the risk of being forced to attend a school I wouldn’t be able to afford by applying ED.
1
Both legacy admissions and the practice of soliciting donations from alumni should immediately end. If the university is going to be of no further use to an alumni, why should he bother wasting his money on it? He has already paid his tuition fees in exchange for the education that he received, and owes nothing more to his old university. Stop pestering him.
4
Great article. For the well documented reasons offered in this article, legacy admissions ought to end (I am not sure how this will be accomplished in practice - but that is another matter).
I am mentally preparing for people who - based on the compelling arguments of Mr. Markovits of Yale Law School - rightly or wrongly, logically or illogically, will suggest that meritocracy too is flawed, and muddy the waters about issues of legacy admissions.
I.e., after a point, issues of legacy admissions become heavily nuanced. I am not sure we have the insights or the vocabularies to address these issues with reliable and valid arguments - when discussion occurs in the public square.
My request to the proponents of ending legacy admissions is to anticipate some of the vitriol they will face from biased and likely unintelligent sources that will deep six any real progress.
Analogy: healthcare. After much emotional discussion, Americans now vote in favor of punishing poor, jobless, and sick people. Assuming that the merits of single payer healthcare were self-evident has produced the current debacle.
If this analogy holds, after conversations about legacy admissions, we will be even more convinced that they should not only remain, but serve as the most important basis for admissions.
I.e., currently, the onus of this proposal about ending legacy admissions is on proposers. Otherwise, we are bound to produce enough noise and heat to bury a great idea.
This is the *exact opposite* of what is needed.
We’ve moved from a society where education and jobs were largely (but not wholly) determined by your place in society, to one where education and jobs are largely (but not wholly) determined by meritocracy.
And our culture has been transformed into one of extreme selfishness - “I don’t owe anything to anyone, I got here solely on my own achievements.”
So no one feels compelled to give *anything* back to society, everyone is just trying to get as much as possible for themselves.
2
That argument would perhaps be more convincing if all children of privilege grew up humble and grateful for the advantages bestowed upon them by the happenstance of their birth into an educated and upper socio-economic family, and if as adults they all therefore committed themselves to aiding the less fortunate.
I am all for ending legacy preferences in college admissions. Besides being unfair, it leaves many "rejects" with the feeling that they failed, that they were not good enough, when they were just as qualified, and maybe more qualified, than the legacies that were accepted. I would like to see colleges reveal, in their "Common Data Sets" that report various aspects of college admissions (such as the SAT scores of those admitted, etc), include the statistics of how many legacies were admitted, and what the GPAs and test scores of those legacies were, compared to the non-legacies. In California, where many of the first Stanford student were California residents (before it became nationally popular), it is almost impossible for California students who are not legacies to get admitted to Stanford. If universities don't want to stop this despicable practice of legacy preferences, they could at least let applicants know where they really stand--but then, of course, that would leave many highly selective schools with fewer applicants, and then ranking lower on the US News and World Report rankings of colleges and universities. Thanks to the NY Times for speaking out on this issue.
2
The big problem with this bad idea is that the centuries long tradition of founding and especially funding non profit universities and important research centers by the wealthy will come to an end. This will mean weaker and poorer and fewer schools for everyone, except the rich and even more reduced funding for research to benefit the public.
This is exactly what the Republican party wants.
2
Harvard drop outs have done better financially and influenced society more than many Harvard graduates: Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook). So this to tell you, talent and drive are the key ingredients. And your choice of career. English literature, sociology, history, may be more limiting in terms of financial outlook and defined opportunities than engineering or computer science.
Legacy admissions probably ranks no where near the top of challenges faced by higher education these days, especially compared to affordability. It is about money.
I am writing on Sunday. Yesterday was a big day on campuses to advance head trauma among the so-called student athletes. Today, some of the very select of those who played on Saturdays in years past, will have the opportunity to advance this on a higher level. All of this for money.
There are more pressing social and ethical issues than legacy admissions. Eliminating these will not solve other more pressing problems.
1
Sure, end legacy admissions. But at least acknowledge while doing so the much bigger picture, which is that for the last fifty years in this country, we have consistently devalued the public sector relative to the private sector. The elite private universities, which are the only ones whose legacy admissions anyone cares about, live off the concentration of wealth in the private sector. They have used this wealth to make themselves the preferred, highly exclusive pathway to wealth, power, and influence. Their policies, legacy admissions or not, will inevitably favor the hand that feeds them.
Getting rid of legacy admissions is a way of nibbling around the edges of the bigger problem. The real fix is to revalue the public universities, so that they, with their mission of serving the entire public, become the preferred avenue for higher education.
11
I wonder what would happen socially if companies and organizations instituted hiring practices barring candidates from disclosing where their degree(s) is from. Of course, someone in HR could verify the existence of a degree, but hiring managers would not have names of schools in consider in the hiring process - just the work history, skills, strengths, and personality of each candidate. I work in a part of the country where great importance is placed on "name brand" degrees, yet my colleague who attended a state school does not seem any less smart nor capable than my Ivy League colleague (in fact, she may be a much harder worker).
1
Wonderful discussion and plea for a more equitable admissions process. Legacy exists also in private prep schools who are feeders for the top private colleges and universities as detailed in the editorial. Much of what is advanced for legacy admissions to college and universities should be driven down to private, college prep schools.
5
Most likely, the inspiration for this Editorial is the liberal quest of ethnic diversity. At all costs. Without question, "legacy admittance should be scrapped. But what is the intended beneficiary of this restructuring. Undoubtedly, a strict "merit based admittance" is not the goal. And if so, one device of discrimination is replaced with another. Watch carefully when the Hard Left speaks of diversity. In most cases, diversity to them is another form of discrimination.
11
Until people realize that you the key to getting a good education rests solely on what the student puts forth DURING college, this will continue to be a debate. You can get a great education at a state school - in any state - and school size doesn't matter nearly as much as effort and drive of the student. Great physicians start off at all types of schools.
1
Higher education should be free for any citizen who has the talent and desire to pursue it.
Preferably all foreign students also must have the same and admission for those students must not be based on money and parental connection or networking.
1
Private Ivy League schools should do as they please with admissions. The only issue that I see is that these schools are a gateway to powerful positions in government, more so than in the private sector. If your son or daughter is top talent, a top public school university will work as well. University of Wisconsin has the most CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and it is affordable. I would argue that the majority of successful people in the private sector would have been successful regardless of whether they attended an Ivy League or a top public university. Yes, many top CEOs graduated from Ivy schools, but not close to dominant, and it makes sense that some top CEOs are Ivy League graduates given the pool of top talent applicants that the Ivy schools can select from. Talent and drive are the main ingredients. The real issue is that the Ivy schools are dominant in government. All Supreme Court justices and our last five presidents (yes, including Trump) are Ivy League graduates. And Ivy League schools are in the game to educate our government elites and to have enormous influence in the direction of government. We the people have allowed for an elite government more and more disconnected from the people. The real question is not how to get diversity into the Ivy League schools but how to get diversity into the US government.
7
No names on applications. No pictures. Assign each applicant a number. A race-less, parent-less, gender-less number.
I think a majority of Americans would agree that's the most American way to do it.
12
@John You got it right.
I am going to do something I've yet to do in the comment section: I am going to completely agree with the premise of this opinion piece: end legacy admissions, a form of affirmative action. As I've said here before, legacy admissions are a way for well-heeled whites, who publicly support affirmative action, so they can get their social brownie points for being "woke," to, at the end of the day, skirt around it. This way they can have their cake and eat it to, knowing that underprivileged whites will ironically foot the bill.
But I would go one step further: end all forms of discrimination, including affirmative action for minorities. Affirmative action, when you remove its window dressing as a means to social justice is, at the end of the day, de jure racism against non-affluent whites--mostly middle-class, working-class, and poor whites; this flies in the face of the misleading characterization that legacy admissions is some form of "affirmative action for whites." True, most legacy admission beneficiaries are white, but not all whites--in fact, most whites--are not legacy admission beneficiaries.
And it is now used as a weapon against Asian-Americans, because they, generally, culturally put in more academic hard work than everyone else, and now are paying the price through government-sanctioned racism.
Equality comes through treating people as equals, not benefiting some at the expense of others.
7
@Xyce
It took me awhile... but the underlying REAL issue is twofold: one is power; the other , more fixable is income inequality which historically has been dealt with by a proper system of taxation. Let's discuss that! (and do something about it, starting with impeachment hearings for the president: collusion, emoluments, irresponsible financial management, bad faith.....)
1
@Xyce Spot on.
A successful law school graduate of the University of Michigan once described to me why the university has a relatively high percentage of members of Jewish faith, and adherents to Jewish culture, many of them from the East coast. In the late 1800's and early 1900's, he explained, Jews were often denied by the WASP Ivy League colleges. So they looked West to the U of M, which said, "We're a state school. We don't and wouldn't discriminate against applicants based on their faith". The U of M endowment has been rewarded for the schools welcoming policy. And, congratulations.
In Michigan, however, the school continues to reward legacy entrants. A student, National Merit finalist, top grades, SAT, ACT scores, concert master qualified violinist, full summer scholar award at Interlochen, was denied because of her extreme poverty status - and no family member graduated there.
3
What exactly is meant by "merit"? The terms “merit” and “meritocracy” are tossed around by many of the readers here as if they have some absolute value that can be easily defined by a grade or a score. How can merit be defined in the absence of context? Suppose a sprinter runs a 100 meter dash and takes 4th place, one second out of first? Good but not particularly noteworthy for sure. Now suppose it is revealed that the 4th place finisher had completed a 26.2 mile marathon moments before running the 100 meter dash…Who was the best runner in that dash? Who has the most potential?
1
All the talk about merit only ignores the fact that there are different definitions of merit. SAT scores, grades, individual talents, community service, extracurricular activities all play a part. Grades alone do not define a person and individuals cannot be put into slots. Each school defines itself and tries to meet the needs of the whole. Who defines merit?
3
Zero! As in there is a zero percent chance an Ivy League school will stop favoring legacy admissions.
5
@Charlie
As in the song in Cabaret: “money makes the world go ‘round, the world go ‘round.”
In righteous zeal to remedy every possible form of injustice, it is possible to be ridiculous. Attendance at an Ivy League or Sacred Seven school is not an immediate passport to wealth. It is more likely a ticket to neurosis.
A little attention to real measures ending structual inequality -- such as a wealth tax, rigorous trust-busting and a return to pre-Reagan progressive taxation -- combined with aggressive scholarship programs for the disadvantaged and forgiveness of the crushing burden of student debt, would do far more to benefit the next generation than assuring their admitance to Harvard, Williams or Bennington.
Legacy admissions are probably as meaningful as country club memberships as a predictor of wealth -- indicative, but not causal. Like President Trump"s twitter fits, they serve to divert attention from real problems.
4
@Howard Eddy
Agree wholeheartedly. Fixating on such a minuscule problem does little to address inequality in America. Why not focus more on restoring generous federal funding to state universities, or better yet offering free education at state universities.
6
This article misses the obvious point that the principal effect of having legacy admissions at elite schools is that it squeezes out otherwise better academically qualified candidates whose parents or relatives did not attend the institution. Aside from legacy admissions, the competition to get into these institutions based on objective measures of grade point and test scores is daunting. Statistically speaking, the candidates displaced by a legacy admission policy are likely to be oriental students or Caucasian students. In the absence of doing something else, it is hard to see how changing this policy would enhance diversity as generally understood because the academically better qualified individual getting In, in place of a legacy student, is unlikely to be a minority group member.
3
Absolutes don't apply to the admissions process. As we've seen in the case of the "pay to play" bribery by parents seeking to have their (presumably unqualified) kids admitted to college, money is an essential factor. I've noted in the class-notes and obits section of my alumni magazines that many if not all of the offspring of fellow alumni attended the same college. The major gifts by alumni are also highlighted. But colleges also admit marginal students from poor families unable to finance the cost of higher education. Prep and high schools who have sent successful graduates to college are also favored -- a form of legacy admission. If we're going to eliminate "legacies" from favorable treatment, government will have to make up college funding deficits. That's not going to happen, despite Democrats calling for public subsidies to make college free or almost free. Of course, the cost of college today is unacceptably high. I was able to pay all my costs by working and a small loan. That's not possible today.
1
@Richard Colleges like Harvard do not have to worry about having college funding deficits. They have such a large endowment that they could literally offer free tuition to all students, and not make a dent in their endowment. In fact, they are supposed to, by law, be "investing" that endowment in their students, and are not doing so. Stanford's endowment is also through the roof, a multiple of the endowment of UC Berkeley, for example. So no worries, about the schools that rely most on legacies running out of money.
1
I agree completely with the overall thesis of this article, namely that legacy admission preferences should be eliminated. However, there is a correction that I would like to point out. The article is wrong when it says consideration of race in admissions can be defended. Discrimination on the basis of race is prohibited by the 14th amendment to the Constitution and Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. That's why technically there is no such thing as affirmative action anymore; there are "diversity" initiatives. But that's different debate.
4
Eliminate the legacy, and then you still have the legacy kids that went to the prestigious prep schools. My university was full of them.
4
At some point, every successful family has an ancestor who beat the competition. Maybe it was in the 1950’s or maybe the 1700’s. There is no god giving free handouts. You could argue that some people happened to be born near a river or some other resource, but even then, their ancestors would have had to make some sort of migration, which was a good decision regardless of whether it was conscious or unconscious. Everyone’s privilege is the result of some form of success, past or present, that has propagated and amplified over successive generations. It’s true, families with no privilege and accumulated wealth are starting their bloodline journeys from square one, but that’s how it’s been for every family at some point in time. Nature is competitive and the success of progeny is the battleground.
6
"College admission is a zero-sum proposition — for every legacy admitted, another promising applicant is denied the career and economic opportunity that a top degree can provide."
I wish the Times would refrain from reinforcing the idea that not getting into Harvard or another equally selective college (of which there are just a handful) will derail one's future. Please read the book written by your colleague Frank Bruni: "Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be." Many qualified applicants don't get into Harvard, and they go on to attend other wonderful schools and have successful lives. Please stop contributing to the damaging notion that an Ivy League education is the only way to achieve success. It contributes greatly, and unnecessarily, to student and parent anxiety.
16
@Anna, I agree with you and think the news media in general are fixated on elite colleges and universities, as if there are not thousands of other good options. But it’s an unavoidable reality that the less-elite schools are less able to discount their tuition and fees, resulting in crushing debt for many students. We need much more robust public scholarship funding for middle and lower-income families so that the many wonderful, if not “elite,” institutions are a more viable option.
My brother and I were legacies, graduated from one of the most highly rated high schools in the country. Our father and aunt had graduated our college with high honors, so taking a risk on us was appropriate.
2
@ChesBay
I'm no legacy. But aren't you saying there was little risk with you two? And how does their performance justify your favored selection? Or were they "legacy's", too? Your and your brother's grades are what is missing from your anecdote.
Although legacy admissions is a relic and I believe has no place in a true meritocracy, my direct experience is that many of the legacies actually need no help because their achievements are often exceptional. I know this in my own case where my son's achievements far outweighed mine at his age - not even close. Without tutors or studying getting perfect SAT scores for example and yet he's a legacy - so don't assume all legacies or even most actually need the benefit. It's there and probably should not be but they often don't need it anyway.
5
I am well aware of your distaste for legacy admissions, yet many to most Colleges & Universities need alumni donations for their survival. If half of the kids graduating owe significant student debt, will they ever donate to their alma matter? Most schools offer generous scholarships to students who can't afford the full cost. Where does that money come from? Many schools don't want to lower their costs by firing administrators or putting their professors on 401k's. The tenured who teach, only teach two or three classes a week handing off their responsibility to assistant professors. classes per week. Legacy students account for 3% to 5% of the Freshman Class; their parents pay full rate for their kids and donate in higher percentages than other student's parents, would 50% seem to high? I don't know, but I'll bet it's close. I was one of those students and my parents paid full tuition for me and donated to the College; as do I 40 years later. Without the proper environment, I would have floundered and flunked out. I graduated in 4 years and ended up in a job in journalism. I realize it does not seem fair, but I wouldn't be as curious and knowledgeable without my Liberal arts education. Alumni donations and donations from their parents allow 97% of most students the get a better deal. Is absolute polite correctness better than the system we've got?
3
I am a college professor and it surprises me how much attention admissions at the top 30 or so Universities receives in the press. I do know know why so many people are interested in what is happening at so few schools. There are thousands of colleges and universities for high school students to attend and many of the larger to schools are research institutions with faculty focused on research. You can get a wonderful education at many institutions whose focus is on teaching and I would suggest that many high school students would be better off considering accredited schools that focus on teaching, leadership and the student experience and not research.
14
You really don’t know why? Those schools on a resume is a short hand for qualifications that open doors in every aspect of someone’s life for the rest of her life.
2
Good grief did a professor at an elite University just suggest "nothing to see here, please move along"? Oh God what a tone deaf response from no doubt tenured faculty at one of these country clubs of higher learning....which of course does suggest, perhaps he is right -- based on the relatively low quality of the faculty and staff these cozy, complacent clubs.
The qualified promise of legacy admissions are chiefly about attracting donations from alums.Maybe the schools in question can retool their culture, implant MIT-style values in their students and alums, and keep the money coming in. Let’s all root for that.
What alarms me here is an attitude driving some of the comments. Some appear to believe that most advantage—even what we commonly grant to merit or talent—needs to be steamrolled, and only people we recognize as disadvantaged (someone will have to set the rules for this status) should move to the front of the line.... Who is going to do this calculus and do it right? Before you take the job, take 10 minutes to read Harrison Bergeron.
Impoverished people need chances at developing themselves, but sometimes the rich have virtue (!) and theirs shouldn’t be diminished or penalized because they’re rich. Merit in all should be cultivated and recognized.
2
Eliminating legacy admissions at elite schools really wouldn’t make a difference for the middle class. The rich would still buy their way in and a small handful of other very qualified students may be accepted on their own merit.
Following the recent scandals and NYT reports of cheating in so many different ways, I’ve really begun to wonder how this country could still value the elite schools. Now when I hear of an Ivy League grad, all that comes to mind are the various ways they might have bought their way in to school. Granted, some have earned it but at this point it’s impossible to distinguish who those people are.
4
That study isn’t controlled for the students’ actual profiles apart from having a parent who went to the school. Most of what it reveals is that kids of smart and accomplished parents are more likely to be smart and accomplished themselves.
The advantage of simply having a parent who went to a school (and doesn’t make large donations) is narrow - maybe like a tiebreaker.
I agree it would be best if admissions were completely meritocratic, but this article significantly misdiagnoses the current situation
7
I had a brother two years ahead of me in the school I attended, and always assumed this was part of the reason I received a full tuition scholarship. Neither parent went there. Not really the same as a generational legacy, but close. By the way, did you survey the Times staff, and especially the Opinion makers ,as to their families use of legacy or employee status in college admissions?
9
Having entering classes with significant percentages of legacies is part of what gives elite universities their cachet or social prestige and makes them attractive to socially and academically striving students (and their parents) without ties to such universities. What makes them elite, in other words.
Doing away with legacy admits would therefore make elite universities less of a draw to such students and their families. That might not be an entirely bad thing, of course.
This goes on at liberal arts colleges as well. My niece got into the alma matter of her parents and got the traditional merit scholarship that most students with decent grades get. Her father then turned around and after the mandatory two years of living in the dorm, bought her a house off campus in which to live with her fiends. All the while the girl is accepting merit scholarship from the school. This is a perfect example of how the rules enable the rich to use the system. Perhaps the school should offer less in merit scholarship to families that can afford to pay full tuition and room and board and give more to middle class parents and students paying full tuition and room and board and taking out loans to do so.
4
@jaamhaynes I think you are conflating "merit" and "financial aid".
There's a study that says legacy admissions aren't connected to or "correlated" with donations? I find that extraordinarily hard to believe and question who commissioned this work and what data the researchers had access to.
There is no question in my mind that legacy admissions exist explicitly to raise money for the schools that employ them. While some of these arrangements are of the obvious and direct quid pro quo variety, most are much more subtle and aspirational where parents hold out hope that donations over time will influence admissions decisions and schools happily encourage such behavior, confident that such parents will continue to donate and pay the full freight tuition if their child is admitted.
The easiest way to end this odious tradition is to deny any school that practices it tax exempt status.
2
"Fairness" is a childish and unrealistic goal. If the new standard became a test, then the best test-takers would win. Is test-taking the gold standard of what a person should be? The world run by test-takers?? What truly great figure in history fits that description? The only real route to fairness is to make it a lottery. Barring that, a mix of different standards is probably best - not a monolithic wonkfest.
3
The most important thing that so-called elite schools offer is connections. How could they offer that without legacy so-called students?
1
I got into the top college in the country "on my own merits" as I told myself, ignoring the call from my Mom to the family friend Admissions Director. I ended up transferring to my Dad and Uncle's Ivy League school, there were 20 transfer students. At our orientation meeting someone asked how many Legacy kids? Sea of hands, more of us than not. Before railing about affirmative action vis a vis people of color, a legitimate attempt to level an unequal playing field, address it first for Legacy kids and second for men, these groups are the biggest beneficiary of affirmative action.
1
I also believe there should be an end to legacy admissions. There should also be an end to admissions for the children of politicians and entertainers. Their parents accomplishments are not theirs. The diversity they might could only be of privilege.
7
I am surprised none of the policies and initiatives mentioned the imbalanced admission rate of applicants from prep schools. All Ivy schools have roughly the same admission breakup: ~ 12% international, 40% from private high schools, and the most only 48% from public high schools. But according to the National Center for Education Statistics, only ~ 13% of the 2018-2019 high school graduates are from private high schools. Not all private schools are prep schools, but many of them are and have a steep tuition that only those at the very top of the economic ladder can afford. Unless we address the issue of the overwhelming favour to prep schools in admissions there is a backdoor left wide open for the rich and privileged.
6
@Yugena Hsu
Great comment! And beautifully written. (Maybe if I went to prep school I could write better and get more of my equivalent - but dumber sounding - critiques posted here.)
A very sensible editorial.
Admissions, such as the legacy admissions, which advantage elitist families tend to deprive us of more meritorious students.
Consider the following:
Students who come from families where parents did not read to them in their youth and nevertheless have developed a love for reading, who were never taken as children to cultural experiences such as museums, theaters,music lessons, etc. and nevertheless bootstrapped themselves into scholarly and cultured students, on a clearly higher level than their neighborhood compatriots---have an innate intelligence and reflective ability that will respond to the advantages of a first rate education. They possess the raw material out of which the thinkers and leaders of society
should be molded.
Haven't such students shown their greater merit in accomplishing what they have already achieved with fewer aids to do so than the elitist students. Isn't it logical to expect better final results from their immersion in a first-class educational environment? This strikes me as being more than affirmative action, which emphasizes diversity in place of merit; here we are rewarding merit.
3
There have been many articles on the history of affirmative action, including in this fine publication. The answer to your question, by the way, is a resounding “No.”
It does not help unprepared, unqualified “diverse” students to be thrown into the deep end where their colleagues are at the top of the human pyramid—economically, intellectually, experientially, etc. It does make them drop out of college, however.
8
@A
With all due respect to your comment , I do not hear a "resounding" negation . Perhaps a whispered "no".
What you say makes sense where affirmative action is used to push an entirely unprepared student into a too demanding curriculum---but if it is used to pick a student somewhat lacking in background but essentially educated (admittedly a fine line requiring wise admissions officials) , then that student will not drop out. I taught (albeit only as an adjunct) an advanced economics course in college for several decades and came across both types of disadvantaged students--some, as you say, had to drop out (painful for them) but more held on and succeeded.
If you want to call this affirmative action for the rich, go ahead, but do not call it affirmative action for whites. I am white and a first generation college student. I am going to graduate next spring and it's not because I'm white. I have been afforded some privileges due to my skin color, but I am not in the same class as these people. Literally the only thing I have in common with these people is my skin color.
Ok, now I'll read the rest of the article.
8
Athletes get far more preferential treatment than average legacy applicants. This is true even at division two and three schools which don’t have athletic scholarships. These preferences overwhelmingly benefit the well off as youth sports participation is itself increasingly limited to the well off thanks to travel teams and private coaching.
8
@FW How is youth sports participation the exclusive domain of the well-off anymore more so than participation in music lessons, ballet lessons, drama programs, private schools, good public schools (usually in expensive suburbs) and act/sat boot camps?
@JPM "participation in music lessons, ballet lessons, drama programs" do not unfairly give advantage to applicants such that legacy, athletics, and being the child of faculty does. Very few students would get an admissions bump for that. No arguing that the school they attend does however.
We will not reduce inequality until we make meaningful education available and affordable to the forgotten average person at the forgotten average college or university. We should not be focused on the elite and its aspirants. We need to focus on smaller regional institutions. Otherwise, they will disappear and the reversion to functional city states will continue.
We have knowledge inequality in our society. Knowledge is commodified and compartmentalized in our society. Should there be any wonder why were are in the fix that we are in?
1
"...all other things being equal."
This is a very important assumption which goes to the heart of all affirmative action and admissions processes. If you were looking at the exact same application from two different people, how would you choose between them? Flip a coin? What?
Affirmative action says preference goes to underrepresented minorities. Legacy gives preference to alumni. Is either method fair? Not really. You're looking at two identical applications. Ceteris paribus. But is flipping a coin any more fair?
The argument against both affirmative action and legacy admissions is this assumption isn't true. You're never looking at two identical applications. Both admission policies tend to favor less qualified students over more qualified students without a legacy or minority status.
Granted. It's hard to imagine Donald Trump's seat at any university couldn't be filled with a more qualified candidate.
However, if you take the cases approaching equivalence, the assumption makes a lot of sense. At the end of the day, there are only so many seats. One student is going to get an acceptance letter while the other isn't. There needs to be some mechanism for deciding between the two. Call it academic triage. Someone is going to be disappointed. Legacy makes as much sense as anything else.
4
except that at some point, we want universities to be more than pre-work for a job that's an equity machine. having family ties to an institution and place matters.
we've got to strike a balance between access, equity and continuity.
there's plenty of room for colleges outside of their social function
2
I'm a retired professor who disagrees that all "legacy college admissions" should be abolished. As a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) my wife and I encouraged our eldest son to apply there when we became aware that they had a relatively low number of applicants. He'd been a straight A student his final two years of high school, but his poor early record kept him from breaking into the top 10 percent and gaining admission to top-tier schools even the so-called "safe" schools he applied to. My son was admitted to CMU as a "legacy" we learned, became a straight A student graduating first in his class, winning just about every award possible, then repeated that performance at a top medical school where he was given a full scholarship. The point is: blanket policies may miss truly outstanding students. My wife was a beneficiary of just such a program at Carnegie Mellon herself coming from a poor Pittsburgh area steel town with a very mediocre academic record who then flourished and also became a renown psychology professor. What may be needed is reform in legacy admissions that are not based solely on money (we have never donated to CMU), but look deeper into the applicant's potential. My family has benefited twice over and have more than paid back society for it.
9
@Paul Wortman
CMU does not consider legacy status in admissions.
"CMU's admission process uses the same criteria for all applicants, regardless of legacy status."
https://www.cmu.edu/engage/alumni/students/legacy-programs.html
1
I'd go further in order to be more aggressive in addressing the historical disadvantages minorities have faced in gaining entry into the country's top schools: end legacy admissions for white applicants, but retain the policy for minority applicants.
Only in this way will we redress the historical and systematic discrimination against people of color that has resulted in vast inequality among racial classes in our country.
There would be howls of protest that this is "unfair" and a form of discrimination in itself. Call it that if you like. But it is no less fair, and arguably more just because it would increase racial equality, than the unjust benefits wealthy and upper middle class white families have enjoyed in elite college admissions for the past 100 years.
2
Do jews and catholics rank as minority applicants? After all, the discrimination against those applicants was undeniable.
1
I have been a long time opponent of legacy admissions, it’s just another entitlement of the already entitled.
So I was happy to read the NYT article, until I came to the last paragraph, an idea to encourage colleges to drop legacy admissions.
WHY should they be given yet more (tax) money to end this unfair practice? They should be PENALISED if they continue it. Tax their endowment MORE.
3
Legacy admissions are rooted in racism but watered by money. Families with several alum donate more than families with one. In this age of $100k student loans (not rich kids), schools need to find funding patterns that will compensate for the fact people won't donate while still paying down student loans.
Schools sell themselves as an investment with extreme market differentiation when they're an expense with extremely generic equivalency across all prices. Calculus, JAVA, statistics, Python, etc is essentially the same at MIT for $600 / day, community college for $6 / day, or Coursera for free. Schools depend on legacies to perpetuate the scam.
2
If the author wishes for true meritocracy, and argues against legacy admissions. How then, can consideration of race, or gender, or national origin, or maybe athletic skill be a part of the admission process?
11
@Bob Reverse your question --for decades, conservatives have railed against programs aimed at both redressing past racial and gender discrimination and creating greater diversity in higher education supposedly in the name of objective merit. At the same time lawsuits have flown over affirmative action, not a peep from those self-described merit-lovers against legacy admissions programs that continue to disproportionately benefit wealthy white people.
As to athletic skill (and special talents in the arts or other areas), those are also form of merit -- just different from the kind measured by SAT scores. Admittedly, at some schools, the athletic preferences get out of hand.
“Consideration of race in admissions can be defended not only as a remedy for past injustices but also as an imperative for schools seeking to represent the population at large.”
Neither of these are valid reasons. The former just replaces one injustice with another, while the latter is irrelevant to a truly meritocratic system. College admission should be based on one thing: academic capability. Everything else is window dressing.
7
I agree that legacy admissions should be eliminated. However, the statistics you present about their lower rate of decline relative to that of overall admissions are somewhat misleading. It is true that overall admissions rates at elite schools have dropped dramatically, more than that of legacy admissions. But those extremely low admission rates are influenced by the fact that applicants are far less self-selecting than in the past, when students were advised to apply to four schools, including one "reach." Now, students typically apply to ten or even twenty, including ones to which they have virtually no chance of being admitted. Another interesting area of research would be to investigate which legacies are being admitted, given that two-thirds are not. There may be so much overlap with "development admissions" that large donations, not legacy status, are really the reason for the admission.
Finally, get rid of athletic admissions. They are no more defensible than legacies.
6
The legacy issue is basically one of wealth inequality. Universities preferentially admit the children of wealthy alumni in hopes of getting large donations. But even if legacy admissions were done away with, children of wealthy parents will still have major advantages -- test preparation, college admissions advisors, access to a variety of extracurricular activities, no need to help care for younger siblings, etc. A standardized college entrance exam would not solve this problem, since wealthy families would still have access to better preparatory schools and programs. I argue a more effective solution is to raise taxes on the wealthy and use the money to support K-12 education and state universities. This money could also be used to fund after-school programs, child care, tutoring, and other types of enrichment programs (field trips, museum trips, clubs, etc.). Let's make sure that ALL children have a solid education -- not just those who want to go to elite universities.
3
Excellent piece, but one nit re this observation in the editorial:
“If you take a typical Ivy League school, maybe 20 or 30 years ago, they might admit two-thirds of legacy applicants. Now they might admit one-third of legacy applicants. But, at the same time, their overall acceptance rate has probably gone down from between 20 and 25 percent to between 5 and 10 percent. So, proportionally, being a legacy is even more of an advantage.”
In truth, perhaps the largest factor in the increased selectivity of the most competitive schools over the past 2 decades is their solicitation of applications from students who who do not meet their admissions criteria in a cynical bid to claim the mantle of “most selective.”
8
Legacies are mostly simply better prepared and qualified for admission to the best colleges and universities. And these colleges and universities also devote a great deal of their energy and funds to recruiting first-gen and minority applicants, who get a considerably bigger leg-up in admissions than legacy applicants. A bit more scaling back of legacy admissions is probably in order, but then things will be fairly close to balanced.
4
Ending legacy admissions would be good, but it's hardly the most important reform needed. The gutting of our great public universities, and under investment in our public K-12 systems, and our lack of family supporting policies from paid leave to family-with-children-friendly employment are all far more important in preventing children with merit, but lacking a silver teaspoon from birth, from achieving their full potential. It takes people and resources to teach the next generation to the full richness their nascent minds and ambition might achieve. We provide too little of both. A seat at an elite University is just a dessert. We are failing the entire menu, and particular the parts that provide the real nutrition.
16
This fetishization of Harvard is just making the problem worse.
The true fix is to change the notion that a Harvard degree will open doors that a degree from another school would not. It is obvious that lots of people at Harvard did not get in primarily on the basis of their own academic merit, so we should stop pretending that a Harvard degree is an indication of extraordinary talent.
We also need to eliminate the myth that undergrads at Harvard get a better education than undergrads elsewhere. Anyone who went there can tell you that the university doesn't care much about the quality of its undergraduate teaching. A large proportion of the classes are comparatively easy and grades are highly inflated across the school, so doing well there is also not necessarily an indication of hard work. Good grades at a state school with a high failure rate are a much better indication of grit and accomplishment than good grades at Harvard.
Most employers care more about intelligence and performance than about pedigree, so they'd rather have great people from good schools than merely average people who happened to go to Harvard. Giving these employers more information and better tools to find genuinely talented, hard-working grads from lots of different schools will lead to more lasting change than ending legacy admissions at the Ivies. The latter will only make a difference for a few people each year and will not get to the root of the problem.
18
@Eleanor
Me thinks you nailed this. To take it a step further, we need to realize that many of the best workers in our society are not those who got top college board scores or nearly perfect HS grades either. When I reflect on my life of work I can't say that I rubbed shoulders with many/any Ivy grads. In the military I was near many West Pointer's and they did enjoy preference in promotions, no doubt, but they were only a few among the many who did the work.
Those who succeed in our workplaces are mostly not those who this article makes reference too. Academia is the bastion of such prudity?
@Eleanor "The true fix is to change the notion that a Harvard degree will open doors that a degree from another school would not."
I think you need to rewrite this to say that "the true fix is to change to reality that a Harvard degree will open doors that a degree from another school would not". In certain careers a degree from Harvard or other Ivys "does" open doors not available to others. That's why so many students aspire to attending these schools. Those in positions of power perpetuate this inequality by only recruiting from such schools.
1
What jumps out at me is that its dramatically harder and harder to get into US colleges.
In a zero sum game, every spot counts, whether its sequestered for legacy, athletic, or diversity reasons. Why are they not all equally good and bad policy, it just depends who's ox is being gored.
In a pure meritocracy, the 'one in a million' Indian student, is just one OF a million such Indian students, or Chinese students - how is the domestic population supposed to compete?
Why should US citizens simply surrender their lifestyle and livelihood of current and future generations on the alter of some one else's weird social theory that just happens to benefit them?
4
The lengths some have gone to get into a choosy college are appalling, as is the willingness of some colleges to prostitute themselves. These things are scandalous and need to be reined in. Yet money has always been, and must continue to be, one of many factors colleges consider in the admission process.
Anyone who gets the nod must be able to do the work. Beyond that, a selective college that does admissions right looks for students who bring a special something to the table – real scholars (as vs gradegrubbers), students gifted in the arts and athletics, effective do-ers and volunteers, diversity of all kinds including racial – the list not only goes on, it's really endless. These qualities in individuals are what make a student body yeasty and interesting.
In addition, among the special things students can bring is access to significant wealth just as some can bring prestige – what college would not admit the qualified child of a head of state? Maybe that's not the way things should be, just as nobody should get an edge for a job simply because she knows someone. But they are facts in a real world.
Great colleges are expensive to run and tuitions are already appalling. Yet families expect posh facilities, one-on-one attention, superb athletic programs, science facilities, libraries – this list also goes on. Why then should it be immoral to for a college to consider access to wealth among all the other kinds of richness that make a colleges good places to grow and learn?
5
Excellent college educational opportunities are available to outstanding students outside the Ivies, a few examples from an incomplete list are: MIT, Cal Tech, Rice, UC Berkeley, UCLA, CCNY, and many state universities. For a variety of personal reasons more than a few students choose to attend these schools and turn down their acceptances at the Ivies.
Over the past 30 years too many state legislatures have failed to properly fund the public universities that carry their own state's name. This chronic underfunding of public educational institutions has made it more difficult to make investments in newer fields of study, contributed to higher tuition for their students and forced too many young people to incur debt from larger loans to pay for that education.
The costs of paying these loans can adversely affect the choice of careers, to unwillingness and inability to pursue advanced degrees, delay marriages, children, and adult lives.
We are all poorer when young people fail to reach their maximum potentials, whether through poorer elementary, secondary, collegiate educational opportunities or financial barriers that truncate what young people might aspire to become.
Regardless of whom elite private universities admit to their freshmen classes, there will be many, many equally talented young people who will become educated elsewhere and not all who are chosen to attend the Ivies achieve more in their lives based on the four years they attend that institution.
7
I was a “legacy admit” at the second-tier law school which my parents both attended. I consider the choice to matriculate at that school among the very worst decisions of my life. The institution was and is on a clear downward trend, and it was a a sense of familial obligation and misplaced nostalgia that informed my decision to attend, rather than any practical considerations.
I am now a student in an unrelated subject at an Ivy League school, which I got into perhaps despite my family reputation—certainly not because of it. I am happier than I’ve been in years. My point is that not every student is cut out for the education that their parents had, for better or worse. Get rid of legacy admissions, perhaps, but first get rid of this idea that Junior must follow in his father’s footsteps. It’s oppressive, and has a far more entrenched history than legacy admissions.
5
Should we also end preferential admissions to children of faculty? Or is that a necessary job perk to retain staff? What about talented football and basketball players, whose victories drive tv revenue and downs for the school? Shoul these quasi-employees still earn slots? Also, what about the tenure system which entrenches privileged faculty for decades who themselves have benefitted from this system, keeping valuable slots from younger more diverse faculty! The ivy tower is not quite as pure as it would seem...
6
Faculty children should have an automatic place.
@Mary A Why?
Of coarse it's rediculous to give an advantage to people who already have one, but it doesn't address the deeper issue. Many kids, especially minority kids aren't prepared for college no matter what the admission process is. Our k-12 system, in many areas, is not turning out students who can do well at the college level. Education has been the upward path for most people in this country and if you haven't developed the skills to do college work before you get there it won't matter much how you get in. Our efforts to improve access to college need to start long before the admission process.
5
As an Ivy double grad who grew up lower middle class, I would have been thrilled to see my child go to my alma mater. He preferred an education abroad. I’m so tired of the phenomenally well connected folks of The Times crying out against preferences that their families take for granted. Alumni (even lacking in wealth like me) give money. That matters a lot.
7
What constitutes fairness in college admissions is up for debate, of course, but anyone with an open mind has to concede legacy admissions are ridiculously and obviously unfair.
Yet in ending them (and yes, I think they should be ended), make no mistake. Something good will be lost. Legacy admissions set up family memories that lead to a kind of loyalty and sense of obligation toward colleges that individuals rarely feel or, if they feel them, rarely act on in terms of giving to their alma maters either monetarily or in other ways.
Moreover, once legacy admissions are abolished, institutions of higher education will take yet another step toward their full bureaucratization. What with outcomes assessment and faculty and staff devoted to endlessly constructing complicated rubrics measuring whether Doris is indeed equivalent to Fred, it's just a question of time before higher ed is turned into a fully mechanized apparatus with all the students nothing more than little cogs.
1
While getting rid of anti-meritocratic systems, please add preferential treatment for athletes - the area exploited in the recent admissions scandal. Athletic accomplishment should not act as a counterweight to lower academic accomplishment.
6
Schools are communities.
Of course they are going to give consideration to graduate’s kids.
Makes sense.
Strengthens school’s community and networks.
Kids of graduates are probably pretty good kids.
More likely to donate if you and your kids go there.
Of course it shouldn’t be all legacy, but it is a valid needed piece of the puzzle.
If you ran a school, you’d do it too.
3
The private system of US colleges and paying higher education is unjust by itself.
Americans pay for education resulting in a very low intellectual level of the masses .
In Europe ,universities are free for everybody so only intellectual ability is rewarded . You cannot buy education and diplomas with money like in the USA .
In the US, education is a mercantile system.The academic level is very low compared to Europe.
Even in so called Ivy League institutions.
2
@JPH, Well in Europe, they don't have affirmatively action either. These middle of the pack black families will be left out, too. Guess that's what you pay for progress
@Ryan Education is free for all in Europe.
Black, white, muslim, jew, christian , catholic or protestant .Free and mandatory from age 3 in France.
Even for children who are not french citizens .
The whole point of current practice is to "perpetuate a de facto class system". From the viewpoint of university administration it is successful. Why will they change it? Now if you want to talk to them about a problem they will agree on, it is too many non-white groups qualifying on merit!
Remember the recent New Yorker cartoon in which one club man says to another that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer and that it averages out!
1
@Svante Aarhenius Asians, perhaps, if you quantify non-whites. But the rest, not protected will surely decline
Has anyone done an analysis on the amount of money these legacy parents have, in fact, contributed--and whether they would stop doing so if legacy admission was abandoned? That's the honest calculation no one seems to have made.
After all, to buy your way into an Ivy, you need to donate many millions of dollars. I'd bet 99% of alum are NOT doing that.
3
The endowments are so large already, I would bet the schools don’t really need whatever amounts legacy admits bring them.
1
@JJ You would think, but the reality is that the super rich schools with massive endowments don't want to spend a penny of the annual income that endowment generates unless they absolutely have to. Almost all new initiatives require securing a donor, now even for the most minor things. The level of grovelling at the so-called top schools is really revolting.
@truth, Harvard knows to the penny what you earn, and even "suggests" what you should contribute. If you have kids . . .
The NYT seems similarly obsessed with the Ivies as are some myopic name brand parents.
The Editorial Board should be more concerned about what happens in the American educational system in the years before college. A system which produces too many woefully unprepared students - who are either unqualified for college admissions and/or unprepared to succeed academically.
The problem of college legacies pales in comparison to the problem of children who are set up to fail.
19
Totally Agee, how about some stories lifting up the SUNY system!
You’re right - legacy admissions preferences should end. So should preferences for minority and lower income students. It should be level - 100%.
Here in FL, wealthy families with 1/8th Latin or African American heritage get preference. Half the students claim anxiety and are given extra time for exams. The SATs wanted to dock my children further because they live in a nice town.
My children work hard, have straight As and have taken a dozen AP courses, have played sports, yet the elite schools look past them for legacy, minority quotas, and college level athletes.
We’ll take UF with the full scholarship (Bright Futures). You can have the elite schools that value other things over hard work and achievement.
12
I agree. While a case can be made for legacy admissions in that the admitted student was raised by an alumnus, this is a very weak argument. So weak that it falls to the rationale of admission based upon the merit, ability and potential success of the individual applicant. It's weaker than the argument of a parent making an enormous donation which greatly benefits the school. College athletics, football in particular, generates significant revenues for a school and is often a valid factor in an admission decision. Legacy admission, as a concept, has the least amount of rationale behind it and if it is a factor it should only be a very minor one.
Legacy admissions should remain. The money from alumni in the form of contributions provides the support the schools need. There are plenty of openings for qualified students. There are many quality schools. Not everyone gets to go to their first choice! Let’s grow up and quit looking for “issues” to divide us!!
6
I completely disagree with your Editorial regarding legacy admissions. I was a legacy kid and my father who was an alumni of a prestigious school in the 1950’s as a minority student died when I was 14 years old.
I was the oldest of 8 children with a widowed mother who was a housewife and wonderful mother. We had no means for me to go to college but because I received a legacy admission, I was then able to arrange for work study and scholarships. I not only made my way through school graduating with honors, but made sure my younger brothers and sisters did too. They are now all solid tax paying citizens who contribute to society through their volunteer work as well.
From your ivory tower you must surmise that all legacy students are already privileged trust fund babies. In my case as a bi- racial and financially poor young man, having a legacy admission really changed my life and that of my family.
17
@Ben You must admit though, that your story is the exception, not the norm. The VAST majority of legacy admissions ARE privileged trust fund babies, and I suspect that you know it.
Schools should be allowed to identify as many legacy admissions as they like. This is America and a private institution should be free to pursue any policy it desires, as long as it’s not violative of the Constitution.
That said, they should not receive have tax deductible status, or preferential tax treatment.
I’m tired of subsidizing political institutions disguised as colleges - whether left or right wing.
4
@Tired Of The Silliness More accurately, they would be described as hedge funds which happen to have education as a small side business. I really do think that the only reason that many of these schools remain open is because their "foundation funds" remain tax-free. If the tax code got rid of that, many of the elites would get out of the "education" business
When I moved to Boston I met quite a few Harvard graduates who surprised me with their lack of curiosity and intellectual horsepower. In every case they were legacies. For the good of the schools and the good of the applicants we must adopt incentives, both moral and financial, that pressure schools to end legacy admissions. Everywhere.
9
Useful and timely article. Perhaps a follow up could trace the family trees of the Ochs, Sultsburger and Adler families; owners of the New York Times, and show where they all attended school. Like the Kennedys, their is a vast gap between their public proclamations and their private choices when it effects their own families.
Do we look at all our institutions with the same scrutiny? The unions, our political bodies, our police force. Because helping hands and legacy admissions are everywhere and are epidemic in all cultures at in all socio economic levels around the world.
22
I believe this NYT editorial misses the point. Legacy admissions are a proven fundraising strategy -- intended to secure legacy (estate planning) gifts from wealthy alumni. If you begrudge a nonprofit a successful fundraising channel, how will they make up the gap? Let's assume they are already pursuing all other fundraising strategies to the max, so there is no "extra" capacity to squeeze. In the case of colleges and universities, we might ask them to raise tuition - but surely that is not the consequence we seek! Requiring colleges and universities to disclose legacy admissions data seems reasonable. Asking them to abandon the practice is impractical.
- Martha Gershun (Fairway, KS)
5
The number of seats at Ivy League schools has not kept pace with the increase in population, and it certainly has not kept up with the increase in students attending college. As a consequence, you can now find top-quality students and top-quality educators at many non-Ivy schools. Rather than accept (and celebrate) this more equitable distribution of intellect (excellent students and educators enrich the experience of others around them) this article perpetuates the false idea that anyone who does not gain acceptance to an Ivy League school is a loser. If some institutions want to relax their standards and trade their name for potential future donations, I say “let them.” Having taught Ph.D. and Medical students for two decades, I don’t need to see an individual’s pedigree to decide whether they have a head on their shoulders.
34
When I was in high school I worked in the mail room at a prestigious Wall St. law firm. Several partners used the firm's mail room to send out applications to elite colleges of which they were alumni on behalf of their children. I could compete with them on paper (I was in the top fifth in my class and had high SAT scores and participated in several extracurricular activities) but I came from a working class home, so the playing field was not level. I ended up attending a state college and have no regrets but the legacy thing has always gnawed at me.
7
The legacy option would have to be stopped LONG before college.
When our child was of school age, we applied to Shady Hill in Cambridge, a private school that begins at age 4 and goes through grade 8.
There were 200 applicants for the four year old class. There was only ONE non-legacy seat available.
P.S. She went to public school.
15
Of the many performance measures that universities use, two important ones are admission rate (number of students admitted divided by the number of applicants) and yield (number of students that accept divided by the number of students that were admitted). In the case of admission rates, the lower the ratio the more “elite” the school in some ranking systems. In the case of yield, the higher the better. Accordingly, colleges play the numbers game. To reduce admission rate, they spend millions on personalized letters and brochures to high school students encouraging them to apply even when they have literally no chance of getting in. To increase yield, they gauge whether an admitted student will accept. Legacy not only perpetuates the elite club, but also increases their yield.
When universities use the same objective function (maximize revenue or ranking, or profit) that a for-profit corporation does, and aggressively pursues these objectives, this is what you get. A messed up education system with winners and losers.
5
Instead of focusing on removing the inequity that may exist in attending elite schools, maybe we would be better served removing the outsized importance they have in our society.
23
We speak of our "alma mater" or "fostering mother." And if our college experience was a good one (mine was not!), we would like our children to have an experience like ours, in some way. Additionally, we continue to have active ties to that place.
If our children meet the academic requirements of our school (note the possessive pronoun!), I think that sort of "heritage" should be something that can be factored into admissions.
4
Legacy admissions are contrary to the founding principles of this country, and it is indefensible for institutions that utilize this as an endowment enhancement strategy to maintain non-profit status for tax purposes.
5
Interesting to have the screed on legacies and not a peep about athletic scholarships and preferences. The Harvard trial elicited substantial evidence of the preferences given to athletes. What does a good football and basketball team contribute to an educated society. It is only software for an ever hungry television broadcasters. No other country in the world relies on colleges and universities to be the minor leagues for the sports empires. Who deserves to be admitted to an elite institution, a basketball player with a mediocre academic record and mediocre board scores or the child of alumni who have donated for many years and has an outstanding academic record.
22
@Kenneth Kramer
Why don’t we have sports colleges that focus on areas like skills training, physical therapy, post sports career planning, etc.? Admission would be performance based.
2
A century ago there was no legacy policy because the vast majority of applicants were legacies - only the children of the monied classes went to college.
And the legacy issue hides an open secret, especially in the Ivies and other prestigious schools - a big reason they so aspired to is that their student body is liberally salted with the offspring of the socially and financially elite, frequently the offspring of alumni, and its these connections as much as the diploma that contribute to your child's future opportunities.
8
While I understand why the subject of legacy admissions garners interest, I have to wonder if it's really warranted. Approximately 3.7 million students were expected to graduate from high school in 2019, but we're worried about where a small number of legacy admissions to elite colleges? Please. The ten universities of the Ivy League will admit only 21k freshman undergraduates in total, only a portion of which are legacies. Let's focus our attention on where it really matters and stop worrying so much about where the hoi polloi send their kids to school.
What's happening at state universities where a significant percentage of high school graduates pursue higher education? Do those schools have adequate funding? Are they affordable? Are students graduating on time and attaining employment in their chosen fields? If not, why not? And how can that be changed so that those universities are serving their students better?
40
I am an Ivy grad. My son, who is far more academically successful and qualified than I was and who is fully in profile for students admitted to my alma mater, has been informed by multiple sources that he more or less has no chance of getting in. You see, I am an alum but I am not a "development" alum. I am not staggeringly wealthy, nor am I famous. I cannot build a library or endow a dean. But apparently I "should" be able to do these things because I attended an Ivy League university. So basically I'm a failure and my kid has less chance of being offered a spot than I did. Watching my college friends' very qualified kids apply and be rejected over the last several years bears this trend out. Be careful how you define legacy, because in this era of high-stakes college admission, all legacies are not created equal.
44
Just because you go to Harvard doesn’t mean you’ve got it made. As I have explained to my kids:
1. Getting into Harvard only helps you land your first job; employers stop asking what school you went to after a while and only want to know what can you do for me now.
2. No matter what school you go to, what matters is what you do when you get there. Yes, there are some pretty dull people getting out of the fancy schools (and yes that’s a jab at the sitting president). I went to a public university and run a fairly successful company. I’ve passed on Ivy grads when they didn’t make the “corporate” grade. It’s not a golden ticket forever.
3
@SG1
It sounds like you're casting aspersions on those of us who did not parlay our Ivy degrees into billions or fame. I'm quite successful; I've worked for some big-name employers in some fancy-pants jobs. I have won awards that are household names. I give back to my community both in sweat equity and actual equity. I give to my alma mater in time and money as well, not to ensure my kids' eventual admission, but because I care about the institution and want to give back what I can. But I don't have build-a-library money, and we're told that that's the only kind of "success" that counts once any member of your family attended one of these schools.
For my family, it's fine. As much as I think my kids would fit in and succeed at my alma mater, I am also cynical enough to realize that if the focus is on taking less hardworking kids whose parents can write 8-figure checks, it's not where they belong.
3
While we’re at it, how about getting rid of preferences for children of donors and for recruited athletes? Both are ways that the already privileged buy their children’s way into elite schools.
12
Public Universities should have strictly merit-based admissions. That's only fair, because these schools are supported by everyone. The best ones provide an education that is second to none. Private schools should able to shape the character of their student bodies as they see fit. MIT excluded, many of these schools don't wish to be solely the home for the most talented students, but also aim to be an exclusive club for society's elite -- it's part of their mystique and their marketing. Many of the top merit-based applicants choose to attend private universities over public schools because these ivy-type schools provide that mystique, and include strong legacy bonds. Attending such schools is one of the best means for merit-based, non-legacy kids to gain access to the elite society. It's not fair, but there is still a lot of choice and opportunity for a great education for all worthy, merit-based students out there.
6
I totally agree with the idea of eliminating legacy admissions. To be honest, it exists so that graduates of elite schools will donate large amounts of money as their children are growing up in hopes they will also be accepted. I bet if you analyzed the amount of those donations, it would be highly correlated to the chances of getting in.
I was very angry at those mothers who paid huge sums of money to get their children into schools they desired. But then I realized that my father had always told me he could get me into Penn because he went there and gave donations every year, and I grew up assuming I would get in and go there.
I chose not to go there and attend a very good school that i got in on my own merits. However, I realized that I was very willing to get the unfair advantage of privilege.
199
@Jerry S
Note
The official four-year graduation rate for students attending public colleges and universities is 33.3%. The six-year rate is 57.6%. At private colleges and universities, the four-year graduation rate is 52.8%, and 65.4% earn a degree in six years.
Give yourself credit for the work after admission.
6
@Jerry S - I was a legacy admit at Penn, and I got by fine. But I always wondered, and still do, if I'd have been better off as a big fish in a less competitive school. I definitely questioned my place there, and often felt that my fellow students were brighter than I was.
16
There were plenty of high-profile fathers in the Varsity Blues scandal. But the media decided to make this a story about desperate housewives instead.
24
While I agree with the impulse here, I wish that the argument didn't emphasize meritocracy as much as it did. Even without explicit legacy preferences, the rich still have a leg up in terms of supposedly more objective criteria. More than this, the concept itself is somewhat pernicious, entrenching the ideas that anything less than perfection amounts to failure, and that those that fail were necessarily lazier and/or less talented. This is lost in the fight for what we perceive as 'fairness', as in this editorial. But it behooves us to stop and think for a moment about the structural issues here, and whether the education- and credential-heavy rat race is the best way to organize our society.
133
Meritocracy still stratifies society. Stratifying based on intelligence or work ethic is no less arbitrary than stratifying based on class or race.
How can we transition to a world where each of us is able to feed, clothe, treat, and house ourselves, purely by virtue of being human?
10
@Couldn’t Agree More
And what is there about "work ethic" that bothers you? many of us, less than perfect humans were able to advance ourselves via that work ethic when we were less than perfect in our grades, test scores, appearance, cultural situation or whatever else I might think up over more time in reply.
The simple fact is that our society runs on the backs and minds of all we less than perfect folks, not those elite, chosen ones this article alludes too!
10
@Eli B
Universities, perhaps more than any other kind of institution in the world, are intended to be meritocracies. Success at a university is supposed to be entirely about merit. That principle is our great equalizer--if you do good work, you succeed (or are supposed to), regardless of any other qualifications or characteristics. The problem we face is that opportunities to acquire and demonstrate merit are not equal (or "fair"). People have unequal chances to gain the credentials of merit that will admit them to competitive universities (or get them hired there). We may even be defining merit in a discriminatory way. But it is not the fact that universities are meritocracies that is the problem.
7
Being fourth generation probably helped me get into a top Ivy, but after three decades in the classroom, a dozen of them in Ireland where there is no legacy admission, I am strongly for this. And I am very proud of my son who chose to apply -- and got into -- one of the best American colleges to which our academically-minded family had absolutely no connection.
89
@kate Being 3rd generation probably helped me get into Stanford. I would be happy to eliminate this preference for my children but only if all other preferences are abolished. Either it is a level playing field based 100% on merit or it is not. My children should not be penalized because of their race or wealth or geographic home.
53
@kate
You mean you're strongly for legacy admissions or strongly for the call to end them?
I, too, spent decades in the classroom at the receiving end of lectures and pointed questions. However, I'm not offended by legacy admissions. I'm offended by the dismal graduation rates from colleges in the US. Most students simply don't do the work. The challenge is not admission policy but go it alone policies that leave kids to wash out without a proper support network. I have several college degrees. I don't think I ever had a single guidance session with anyone to help me navigate the various programs or daily challenges.
9
@larkspur Perhaps this is because we are channeling everyone into college when they might be more fulfilled pursuing other avenues. We are pushing college on to everyone, and it is ill conceived.
9
My child got a full ride to an ivy league school. We never could have afforded it otherwise. He applied to other schools with smaller endowments and his financial aid packages included loans and higher parental contributions. I fear if legacies were denied admission, this generous financial aid, which is a kind of wealth redistribution, would evaporate and in the goal of achieving greater fairness, once again the middle to low income kids would wind up paying the price. Let's face it, a lot of school need the donations and they also need a certain percentage of kids paying full tuition to finance the educatuion of kids like mine. As for sports scholarships. let's also remember that this has been a path for a lot of minority kids too make it into better schools. The real problem in my mind is not legacy admissions but the fact that colleges that can't give generous financial aid are barely affordable for the rest of us. My daughter is not likley to get into an ivy with a huge endowment, so we will have to start looking at loans and other ways to pay for her education. Can we solve that problem first?
176
@Ilona Do we even know if legacy donations are impactful enough to affect financial aid? The article states that research has not borne that out, stating there is no statistically significant evidence of between legacy preference policies and total alumni giving," so what are you on about..?
40
@Ilona My grand daughter graduated at the top of her class in a public University with full scholarship. She went on to medical school and graduated with honors , but with a lot of money to reimburse. In Europe Medical School is free for students like her . Can we solve that problem here ?
28
@Ilona
My wife and I are retired public school educators whose 3 sons all are now successful professionals who had no student loans. Ones is a PHd chemical engr, his twin is a (civilian) Civil Engr and Navy Muclear engr. and their older brother is an aero engr MA grad who is ex-Marine pilot and now a aviation mfg. test pilot. We kept them in a car, lodging, clothes and other basic needs while they meanwhile worked summer jobs and generally took care of business at hand. They all attended state schools all the way, some in state others out of state. They were not valedictorians but were capable students who often were denied scholarships which tend to go to the "more perfect" test scores and certain other classifications. The fact that our kids were not "first in family" mattered immensely toward their success while admission to a so-called elite school mattered not one whit to my wife and I nor our sons! Their personal work ethic, honed as student athletes and as kids who were self actualized decision makers all lead them to the careers they now enjoy. The very notion that an elite school is required is a fallacy IMO that is perpetuated by those who attend such schools.
The world of work has myriad e.g.s of being saturated with people whose public educations are quite sufficient. All our sons hire & fire people who sometimes have come out of higher priced educations yet lack the ability to produce in the world of work. Lets get over this whole "educational eliteness thing"?
36
Agree 100%. As we eviscerate affirmative action programs, we are making no moves towards policies that create massive advantages for those who already have wealth and power As Teddy Roosevelt said "One of the chief factors in progress is the destruction of special privilege. The essence of any struggle for healthy liberty has always been, and must always be, to take from some one man or class of men the right to enjoy power, or wealth, or position, or immunity, which has not been earned by service to his or their fellows.”
79
@PMB a fine quote from a president who himself went to Harvard and at 19 inherited a fortune from his father worth more than 1.3 million of today’s dollars. He certainly could talk a good game about being an independently made man, even if the truth was anything but.
6
@michaelf IKR? Teddy Roosevelt (and the whole Roosevelt family) is probably exhibit A of how legacy works.
Not to bag on the Roosevelts, but TR got a whole lot of doors opening due his father's last name. Harvard being one of them.
4
@michaelf, this reminds me of another president....
3
I know this is anecdote rather than data, but both my wife's children and mine were legacy admissions in the sense that we were Ivy League graduates, and I can tell you that I am not wealthy, nor were my parents. Be careful who you tar with this broad brush. The issue is when these legacy students are admitted, are they successful in their studies? As a retired mathematics professor, I can tell you that the real crime is admitting students who have no chance of earning a degree when the evidence in their records foretells such outcomes.
498
@Eric Key
Actually, the research shows that the vast majority of applicants to the elite schools can handle the work. Further, the elite schools have extremely high matriculation rates, as shown in the annual U.S. News and World Report magazine issue ranking the nation's "top" universities and colleges.
46
@Eric Key Thank you. My father got a history undergrad degree in the early 80s from one of the Ivies - and followed his passion to become a stagehand, so we were not wealthy; just comfortable but careful. When I was looking to apply in 2009, that school was my first choice by far. We'd been on campus every other year for the big football game and I loved the place. It had a good engineering program for what I was passionate about, and I'd done a summer program (for college credit) there, quite successfully.
I probably could have gotten in on my own with grades and test scores and extracurriculars (real interests, not fake clubs), and that summer thing, without legacy status. All of which are kinds of privilege I suppose, who knows how these things work? We were told fairly specifically that at that school, legacy status only statistically helped for early decision; i.e. I commit to go to this school if I get in. (Of course early decision itself is a bit of a boost.) But it's where I wanted to go, so I took the boost - applied to one school, got in, was done in December. I graduated my engineering program straight into a top-tier technology company and I believe represent my school extremely well as a (now) senior engineer. I of course donate, too.
I had a different relationship with the school, its history and traditions, than a lot of my classmates because of this. That may not be the worst kind of diversity to have in a class - especially since it's a comparative handful.
65
@ALB
What does matriculation rate show other than if you are admitted you will go there? I think you meant to say retention and graduation rates. Even these rates are deceptive because you can easily pass 'cupcake' sociology and other social science curricula at Ivy League schools. The real meat in looking out who can cut it or not is in the hard sciences and engineering departments, not art history and gender studies.
32
I don’t think a pure meritocracy is fair either. Someone raised by a single parent, in a poor neighborhood who had to work while in school, but still got good grades and did well in standardized tests should get colleges admission preference over those who went to private schools with lots of AP classes who were tutored and never experienced financial or family difficulties.
But I generally otherwise agree to remove all legacy, financial, geographic and racial preferences out of the admission process.
63
Why? Is admissions a reward for hard work? Or is it about selecting those who are most likely to use the resulting education to maximize the benefits to society?
I think the answer is number 2. And that may lead to a different admissions decision than you propose.
6
@Citizen - Based on how society has unraveled, it seems that maximizing benefits to society has nothing to do with it. I'm thinking Business, Law, Politics....
3
@Citizen Are you implying that students admitted with affirmative action preference are not likely to use their degrees to benefit society?
8
I fully agree with this editorial. I was very fortunate to attend some top universities on my own merit, I certainly didn’t follow my own parents’ footsteps by going to the same institutions as they did. I intend for my own children to go where they want as well. If they want to go to my alma maters, then that’s great. But I haven’t donated a cent to any of my schools since graduating. I don’t owe them anything more than the tuition I paid, and I’m not of the mentality of donating to “keep a spot open” for my kids.
5
What about 'legacy' faculty appointments? When I taught at a highly ranked small New England college some years ago, a third of the faculty seemed to have been undergraduates there themselves. As I look at the faculty list these days, not much has changed. And I myself probably got the job (I do have good evidence) because though I had a working-class background and a Ph.D. from an allegedly mediocre state university, I had been 'polished' by an undergraduate degree at another small elite New England college. Wonderful way to keep the institutional culture firmly rooted in the past.
4
End legacy admissions. And why would these kids want to get in as legacies? How many other decisions to Mom and Dad get to make in your life? It’s important for kids to figure out what they want and need, especially at that age. Everyone knows that you didn’t get in bc you truly deserved to if you were admitted as a legacy. Blaze your own path. In the name resilience and grit, kids should have to apply and get into place based on who they are as students, not who their parents were/are.
As for all of the comments on abolishing affirmative action: WAKE UP. We need that in our society. Don’t you read the newspaper?
4
I invite a statistician to explore the following hypothesis: legacies are given a boost, but only if their parents are high income. I know a few Ivy League graduates who didn't make a lot of money (like me, a high school teacher) and whose children, typically with excellent academic and extracurricular records, were spurned at their own schools. The children of doctors and lawyers who were alums were usually admitted. Many who graduate from Harvard earn a terrific salary. Not all.
11
Regardless of our activity or the lack thereof vis-a-vis college admissions, curricula and availability, the world will correct our American idiocies. By producing more able graduates that we are compelled to hire despite many Americans having a degree in the same specialty. Because someone who went to university in India or Europe has a much more valuable degree than what Frank Zappa so presciently called a "Little Bo Peep Diploma." The world will correct this inequity with its invisible hand and leave many dim bulbs of American origin whining and wondering why they're left in the dust cloud...
1
I favor national test for entrance exam. Human being by nature is biased. Even if only meritocracy is used to filter applicants, it is still not 100% fair. Who is to say NY State straight A students are better than the same straight A students from Texas? Thus a national test will determine the true level of student academic level. However, I will only assign 90% vacancies based on a national test. But I will leave 10% vacancy for each institution's own discretion for sports, science, and artistical standouts.
1
@Usok, Isn't that what the SAT is?
Wow! I had no idea that legacy admissions still occurs in the USA. I work at a University in Australia; I’d expect to be dismissed if I gave preferential treatment to people because of their parents. Diversity makes universities strong.
3
I agree with all this. Why not also end early decision, which favors the rich and in an odd way the poor--but grossly disfavors the middle class? Fixing college admissions could entail limiting common app to 10 schools, and relying principally on SAT or ACT scores and transcript alone, with perhaps a two paragraph personal essay. Limit the permissible rate of tuition rise and clamp down on excessive hiring of high cost administrators. A lot could be done.
6
“What’s wrong with that?” Well....nothing at all if you happen to have been born into a well off white family who could afford to go to an Ivy League school 20, 40, 60... years ago. It’s truly amazing that people continue to support “white privilege” and think that there is nothing wrong with it.
The Editors likely favor the change in principle but not for their children applying to the surely elite colleges they attended. There's a word for that. Diversity and change are occurring and that is a statistical fact conceded by the Board. Legacy applicants, by the numbers, are not guaranteed admission but get a preference and the key words, also conceded by the Board, are " all other things being equal." What's wrong with that? There are preferences in every walk of life. What we must work harder on, much harder, is improving education for the poor and minorities because we have two educational systems in secondary schools, separate and unequal. That is a more fundamental and effective change than the one advanced in this editorial.
10
Couldn't agree more. Now, maybe we can maintain a culturally non-biased admissions test that allows for objective academic achievement goals through which all of our children can compete academically and succeed on their own merits and character. Extra curricular activities like sports for students should be just that. Certainly not a run around for preferences to admissions with the goal of creating a state supported minor leagues. Lets return our schools to a student focused safe environments for academic pursuits.
3
It seems that statistical equality is the goal of the Editorial Board. Equality that is essentially optics based on visual difference like race and gender. The logic of this kind of thought in its extreme lead to an equity police, who can go about analyzing demographics, salary structures, and any number of practices to ensure that there is pure statistical equity everywhere. It's a boon to lawyers, consultants and government bureaucracy. This kind of enforcement is not far from Islamic extremist having the moral police roam the streets looking for women who are out of compliance with the moral code.
16
@HPower Right. If the results don't meet their pre-conceived hypothesis, then the results, rather than the hypothesis, must be wrong.
4
@HPower So what is the rationale for legacy admissions?
1
How about we end all admissions not based on merit? Legacy and all the others included. Time to return to a meritocracy.
8
@Patrick.
When was there EVER a meritocracy, anywhere in the world? Even the best attempt at a fair civil service system, based on exam performance, was rife with favoritism. And we have been struggling with how to fairly evaluate "merit" since the beginning of attempts to evaluate candidates.
7
@Patrick. Is a high school student who works shifts and summer jobs in the catering industry to pay for college less deserving than his peer who plays a dangerous sport in order to get a scholarship ? Is one who struggle with mental illness and cannot participate in extra curricular activities and whose parents can afford tuition more or less deserving than a straight A who does everything right but who will need a hefty student loan? They all deserve a pass, they all deserve a good education, just like we do in mainland Europe. We just don't need to pay more than a few hundreds Euros for it.
3
@Emilie: Well, someone’s paying for it. It takes more that “a couple hundred euros” to educate a university student each year. Europeans are willing to put up with a higher tax rate that would never pass here in the US along with excessively centralized national governments.
Ivy League schools could likely double their admitted students each year given their incredible endowments, thereby making their colleges more accessible to all, legacy admits or not. They have the ability to buy real estate, enlarge departments (and I’m sure they could find plenty of wonderful faculty —just ask those who can’t find teaching jobs). But they won’t do that, either. Ivy leagues are incredibly invested in keeping people out, so they can continue to ride the exclusivity wave.
One more way way to help the rest feel small and the few feel gigantic. What a country.
9
@Amy B Even if that were feasible, it would do very little, or practically nothing, to solve the fundamental problem of fairness in our society. Aside from all of that, it would essentially require doubling the size of those universities. These universities are in real communities. I suppose they should evict those communities, demolish their structures and build new blocks of buildings with no real place in the community. Look at what NYU did to destroy the character of parts of Greenwich Village. Maybe you want to finish the job and destroy the rest?
1
The schools are called elite precisely because they are NOT accessible to all. Not every school is CUNY, nor should it be.
2
@Kevin on the other hand’ it might improve New Haven
At my alma mater, legacy admits are more highly qualified than non-legacy.
5
@Alyce Then they needn't worry about the abolition of legacy admissions.
2
@Alyce That's what they told you, right? Proof? School name? Offer up some evidence and I will happily consider your point, otherwise....
And how exactly do you know this?
This concern about legacy admissions is couched in the desire to grant better opportunities to those who need it. But I suspect that the numbers of those who are trying to move out of poverty are far too large for the elite colleges to make much of a difference. And I really wonder if the elite schools would be the right place for many.
I am a volunteer in a NJ city and interact with city high school kids on a regular basis. Over six years I have not met one who applied to an Ivy League school; yet I have watched a number move through college with success.
In fact the world of the Ivies is perhaps a bit rarefied for what the working class and poor really need. On the other hand, starting out at a community college with a transfer after 2 years is a great idea - but even then, the kids I know are transferring to state universities.
None of this suggests that legacy admissions are a useful practice, but the focus on this really minor issue seems absurd compared to the really important one of how kids borrow to attend college.
29
A modest proposal...
Legacy admission should be terminated. Also, athletic preferences should be ended too, as many other commenters here have noted already. However, this should go many steps further to correct all past injustices as well. Any person who benefited from legacy or athletic-preference admission during the past 100 years at any elite college in America should have the degree invalidated and all of the money they earned from having this degree should go towards strict academic merit scholarships for applicants to XYZ-elite college who don't play any sport. Also the past legacies would have to re-apply to college and earn their degrees again. There will be no exceptions to this legacy-degree policy. Even Phi Beta Kappas and valedictorians will forfeit their degrees. Also, the families of deceased legacies will forfeit the wealth accrued from their relative's unfair advantage from having a degree from XYZ-elite college. This will be a very good policy because no one will ever again be able to say "I would have been admitted to XYZ-elite college, and my life would have been so much better, and I'd be so much richer and happier now, but my slot at XYZ was taken by a legacy or an athlete".
4
Meritocracy bolsters elitism, which feeds mediocrity.
Excellence comes when the barrier to entry is low, allowing all comers, the assessments of value are broad and diverse, and tests of value are continuous and uncompromising.
Meritocracy does the opposite: it creates a high barrier to entry and then endows the small set of winners with privilege, as long as they continue to play by the rules. Usefulness and innovation are undervalued, and ability developed later in life is largely hidden, even though we know that most successful businesses, including high-growth startups, are started by founders after over 40.
We need to do everything we can to weaken meritocracy. I know some readers will fear that will lead to socialism and others fear it will lead to elitism. That split of fears shows there are other options: if you can get opposite outcomes from the same action, you can get any outcome you work for.
One way or another the logic of meritocracy will grind us down. Our nation would be better off if the elite schools were 100 percent legacy only (with no federal money at all). That would isolate privileged mediocrity and accelerate innovation everywhere else.
Instead of worrying about how to make elite schools even more dangerously meritocratic, let’s find ways to give everyone more opportunities to demonstrate their valuable capabilities and insights, and find or create a market for them.
9
@Wayne Meritocracy bolsters excellence and creates and equal playing field for all. With a true meritocracy (which does not exist) there would be much less mediocrity.
To your point, everyone focuses way too much on a few elite schools that manage their exclusivity. In reality, managing legacy admits at elite schools will not significantly change society, but it will the optics. However, for this to be effective, students needs to be admitted based on ability and what they contribute and nothing else. If legacy admits were banned, the elite schools will start to get fewer donations, but the endowments are so large today anyway!
1
@AB
If you can construct a meritocracy that has no entry bar (no G&T tests, no college entrance exams), and recognizes many different types of merit, then I might agree with you.
But that would be an entirely different animal than what we’re discussing here.
Legacy admissions also particularly disadvantage first generation immigrants - it is frustrating to be unable to even put the universities your parents studied at on the Common Application because they did not study in the United States. Legacy admissions prop up a system that helps the elite get wealthier, and stops immigrants, first generation college students, or even just your bog standard middle class student whose parents went to state schools, from attending the universities that will give them a step up. It is nepotism of the highest level, and quite frankly absolutely indefensible. It is astonishing to me that the United States still believes this kind of system is appropriate when even the traditionally class immobile United Kingdom has long since abandoned it - is getting into university off the back of where your dad went to school really the American dream?
3
Legacy admissions aren’t just about well heeled individuals having their way. Ponder this, perhaps the institution represents more than simply a ticket in the meritocratic ticker. Perhaps, to some, institutions represent values and ideas. Must everything be reduced to a low end boutique item. To be a Yale man used to mean more than I am now better than you and entitled to some-“thing”. Open wide the doors sure, but remember institutions of higher learning are about more than better job placement or augmenting the egos of the fragile.
9
I agree in part that “noblesse oblige” has its merit - at least the “oblige” part. Too much of society today, as we break down social groups, yes clans and cliques, too - has become reduced to “what’s in it for me?”. And that is zero-sum. Whereas? At least the race to the top in college admissions has lifted a lot of boats, and many if not most colleges and universities are much stronger than they were when I applied (to Dartmouth in the 80s, and got in because I was from Louisiana, a foreign place...).
4
Rather end preferential sports admissions. In fact end organized sports programs. Yes, I know they bring in money from alumni. But those spots should go to academic students. Time for a reset on obtaining knowledge not boozing at the games and parties.
27
This is another reform that is never, in my opinion, get off the drawing table. Anyone struggling with getting their children into college knows money talks in the process. Even if the colleges say they are ending legacy admissions people know they will still find a way to grease the way for the well-heeled and well connected. This soul searching going on now by these elite institutions is only happening because they caught up in the ongoing admission scandal. If anyone believes these institutions didn't know what was going on They are wearing blinders. The billion-dollar endowments most of the elite schools have didn't just happen. Legacy is just another word for the Good Old Boy Network.
14
Colleges “Most often, they argue that it (legacy admissions) helps with donations”but with the . referenced report “ An Empirical Analysis ... on Alumni Giving at Top Universities” you attempt to counter this assertion.That paper says “Prior to controlling for wealth, however, the results indicate that schools with legacy preference policies indeed have much higher alumni giving.“
This report also say there is no causal relationship established after controlling for wealth." Controlling for wealth when the issue is the wealthy giving is odd.Further proving cause out he's very difficult as a physics graduate from Cornell I can tell you that. Much of the awesome beauty of that campus comes from very wealthy giving. There is no reason to believe this empirical analysis was ever actually published. No journal is reference.
I can tell you for sure the wealthy give a lot of money to Cornell University and make it a great price and the very wealthy have made a lot of great buildings. Some of their children drop thousand dollar bills at poker parties. Income inequality is a horrific problem in this country and I'm a great fan of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. However you do this cause no service by being so loose with your editorial.
The author should give more credibility to the Integrity of admission officers and major US research institutions.They have told you the truth and you didn't hear it.
10
If the ultra-wealthy can no longer bribe the likes of Singer, they presumably can just keep making direct hefty donations to whatever college (alma mater or not) that they would like their kids to get into. While no one is likely to admit a direct quid pro quo in college admissions or most other selective processes, money greases a lot of “success” in all aspects of our society. It would be hard to imagine that the folks who like to get their names splashed on buildings, etc. don’t gain special access.
Ideally admissions decisions would be both need- and wealth-blind, other than to advantage families with limited material assets.
3
"Consideration of race in admissions can be defended not only as a remedy for past injustices but also as an imperative for schools seeking to represent the population at large."
In which century and by whose decision will this tired mantra finally be put to rest? Perhaps a better approach is economic inequalities and not class or race?
17
Level the playing field across the board and eliminate all forms of preference. If you want true equality then you must base admission on merit alone with no racial or legacy preference.
Affirmative Action is by its very nature discriminatory putting race over merit. To rage against legacy preferences and not denounce Affirmative Action is hypocritical to the core. The push for diversity is by it’s very nature discriminatory towards qualified candidates who are denied admission.
27
Yes, end legacy admissions, but these institutions will soon be past their "sell-by" date in any case. All learning will be freely available from websites like Udemy, Alison, Khan Academy, Udacity and the like - and the network / club role of these expensive educational lodging facilities will be facilitated elsewhere.
4
@Darren McConnell
As pedagogical content becomes more freely available, connections, context and experience with teamwork will become much more valuable by comparison. Far from reducing the importance of these institutions, online education will increase demand for in-person elite university education.
6
@Wayne Not so sure. The above platforms will change access to knowledge and skills in a profound way. Only 6.7% of the world have ever been to college. Yet, through these platforms, and the future versions of same, access to the power of knowledge will be even for the first time. Yes, we can only know so many people - but my guess is that other forms of networking will evolve surpassing the need for 4 year degrees. As an Ivy League grad who got in the harder way, I'll be glad to see that day.
Bravo! I don't see how we can convict movie stars of bribing officials and at the same time approve legacy admissions policy. It is surely time to end legacy admissions.
5
Money is an important part of how the world works.
If wealthy alumni are sending checks to the school, even when none of their family members are attending the school, they are paying a premium.
They are supporting "their university", long term. Not just during 4 years.
Not that I like that the world is this way, but money is an important part of things. Universities need money to operate. And the extra money from wealthy alumni allows for admissions of less wealthy students.
Not to say the editorial is wrong, only to suggest that things are complicated.
10
@David Martin The article acknowledges your argument and quickly deflates it, stating that researchers found "no statistically significant evidence of between legacy preference policies and total alumni giving among top universities."
Things are indeed complicated; and the editorial acknowledge and accounted for that. Looks like you didn't.
1
American universities foster around themselves a community of which their alumni are part. Alumni engage on many levels - they mentor, they lead, they care, they donate.
Universities in other countries don’t do so nearly as well. Facilitating access for the next generation is a big part of encouraging alumni engagement and perpetuating the community.
Of course, the financial aspect makes it sound crass and self serving. But alumni do more for their institutions than just give money and the universities know this.
If the universities stop giving back to the alumni, a lot of alumni will themselves stop giving back, and the community suffers.
21
@Sami Paris
if alumni are only giving to the institution to get their kids in, maybe they aren't the type of people these institutions should be minting out with their imprimatur.
But why stop there? If you really want to break down America’s ossified class structures and foster true social mobility, why not make it much harder for the children of college graduates to go to ANY college, not just their parents’ alma mater?
A spell in the armed forces — two years, say — could be made a prerequisite, and would in any case do most young people a world of good. East Germany dabbled in this sort of thing, which undoubtedly helped the bright children of workers and peasants get ahead — and saw to it bourgeois children learned practical skills as fitters, bricklayers and border guards. What better way of reshuffling the deck?
Would the rich and privileged figure out ways of gaming the system? Probably. But it might be worth a try. Besides, the grandchildren of college graduates would be eligible to opt for an academic track again a generation later. The offspring of sharecroppers and Uber drivers would be able to attend the nation’s finest academic institutions, while those of the elite would be channeled into careers in coal mines, Amazon fulfillment centers or at Walmart. The daughters of doctors would become nurses, the sons of lawyers, policemen, those of pilots, flight attendants.
The lion would lie down with the lamb. If only I were king!
5
Let me see if I understand the mindset here. You are arguing that the offspring of certain persons, people deemed to have acted in a certain way that is socially offensive, should be handicapped or in effect punished for the proverbial “sins of the father?” And these persons are those who for a particular reason attended universities with a certain level of prestige and further, wish those children to attend the same? Yet, when parents from other nations, in particular third world countries, enter this country illegally, that is, without having complied with border controls nor the immigration process, and subsequently produce children here, the consensus is that the children should not suffer due to the actions of parents seeking a better life for them. And should we accomplish bringing an end to legacy admissions, why should the effort to level the field end there? Just how far would that end go towards the goal expressed? Why not bar children from entering the career field of either parent or even their grandparents, lest they benefit from contacts made and networks created? Should we also create a system (algorithms, anyone?) that removes the benefits of attending elementary, middle and/or high schools with nigh graduations and college admissions rates? Maybe blend in a counter effect to where those schools are supported with high tax rates. And what of kids who are early bloomers? Or kids who have the good fortune to be raised by two parents?
7
Can somebody explain to me how anti-meritocratic practices like favoring legacies in college admissions is unfair, but equally anti-meritocratic practices like affirmative action are OK? The classic defense has been remediation to historically socially and economically disenfranchised groups. I get that, but why should my family, who emigrated to the US in 1947, be made to pay for the past discriminatory practices of American government and society by not receiving equal consideration in college admissions? And how long will my descendants have to pay until the prior inequities have been rectified? One generation? Five generations? Ten?
37
@Jeff "Can somebody explain to me...?" The editorial already has:
"Consideration of race in admissions can be defended not only as a remedy for past injustices but also as an imperative for schools seeking to represent the population at large. But continuing to give applicants an advantage simply because of where their parents went to school is, as one critic called it, “a form of property transfer from one generation to another.”
6
@mkc If they want to represent the population as a whole then they should publicially and openly set a minimum standard for students they will accept and then hold a public lottery where the names of those admitted are announced. No preferences, no legacies, and no secret committees trying to set the "correct" incoming class. That is the fairest way, right?
7
@Jeff
I don’t support affirmative action but I do disagree with your statement about prior inequities having already been rectified. The lack of reparations and following Jim Crow laws have created systematic and generational inequalities that may never be “rectified” for African American descendants of slaves. Furthermore, all minorities face regular overt and subconscious discrimination in our society that over time creates unquantifiable stress in their lives, of which the long term impact on physical, emotional, and mental health and performance cannot be overlooked. I encourage you to think about the past and current history of our society outside of the perspective of the descendants of white immigrants.
8
If a college accepts legacy students, then they should feel obligated to actually educate them. Imagine how the world would be different today if, say, George W. Bush had graduated with even a basic knowledge of ecological principles. The children of privilege come into college with a narrow perspective; so often their education doesn‘t change that very much.
22
How can you expect colleges to admit students based only on merit if you allow a corrupt tenure system that essentially ignores faculty merit (after a fairly short time) and allows tenured faculty to remain in place at the expense of potentially better performing faculty who just don't happen to have tenure?
Tenure is sort of like legacy admission in that tenured faculty are allowed to continue teaching at the same school just because they have taught there many years before!
Face it, neither admission of legacy students nor automatic retention of faculty in a tenure system are the way any successful real world venture would operate to have the best personnel.
Admit the best students (allowing affirmative action) and hire the best faculty with no guarantee of lifetime employment. And while you are at it, get rid of the administration bloat and schedule more than the occasional Monday and Friday classes and labs.
14
@dick Um, universities have classes 5 days a week and some times Saturday. The students can pick their classes to only be Tuesday-Thursday, but then they have homework to do the rest of the week. And many students do have classes on Monday and Friday, not everyone can or wants to do Tuesday-Thursday.
I hope you understand the job of university faculty isn't just teaching. It's also conducting research and managing the department, e.g. committee meetings.
The whole reason the tenured faculty can remain in place is because they are tenured. Tenure used to mean the opportunity to take risks in doing research. Doing good research and discovering new things takes a lot of time, and pursuing truly hard and important research problems takes even more time with possibly nothing to show at the end of the day. Tenure is absolutely important for research. To constantly measure faculty performance would mean that they would have to avoid taking risks when it comes to research, which undermines the value of research conducted at a university.
Also note that teaching is challenging and is a skill that one needs to learn and requires taking risks.
You seem to want the university ran like a "real world" corporation. A lot of people want that too, but that whole attitude is extremely detrimental to the university, both for research and teaching. Your post illustrates why the last thing we should want is a meritocracy. It would destroy the university.
29
@dick
I don't know where you get your ideas about tenure, but my experience in academia definitely does not support them.
What you describe seems to me to apply - vaguely - to the university system of 30 or 40 years ago.
"Fairly short time"? I don't think so. Years to move from Assistant Professor to Associate Professor, and believe me the incoming Assistant Professors are saddled not only with hours of teaching, but usually the greatest burden of committee assignments and other extra duties, while at the same time being under huge pressure to do decent research in order to publish and thus gain tenure. More and more universities are giving weight in tenure decisions to student evaluations, which, although in principle a good idea, very often reflect attitudes of an increasingly entitled (spoiled) student population that expects to be coddled and freely vents their disappointment at any failure to do so.
Also the number of people getting tenure while I was in that world was diminishing rapidly, leading to a population of academics forced to move from one institution to another, each time with less hope of getting tenure and frequently ending up as some sort of "less than" faculty, after years (and a LOT of resources) devoted to their education.
5
I agree. Good analysis.
Another element of college admissions is an applicant's score on a standard aptitude test, but this datum points to a necessary score on another aptitude test that no one addresses.
How does anyone know that a college's faculty can teach? There is no aptitude test given a faculty, because there is none. There is no score a faculty can report on its aptitude for teaching.
The faculties of colleges & universities make much about the need for standardized test results to help them determine who can be admitted to study under them. Presumptive, they believe they can teach, but offer no proof to anyone anywhere about having such an aptitude.
Until we know if a faculty has the aptitude to teach, admitting students based on a legacy status or upon a monetary donation or upon demonstrable evidence of skill in a desired sport each correspond validly to a faculty's lauded teaching aptitude.
@Joe Gould What are you talking about? The job of faculty isn't just teaching, its also research and managing the department. Also, at the end of every term students fill out teaching evaluation for their courses and instructors. It's not perfect but it is a measure of teaching ability. To get a faculty position, you need a letter of recommendation on teaching and you need to show evidence of teaching, often through teaching evaluations. Note that teaching is about a lot more than just subject aptitude, its also about the ability to explain things and social skills in interacting with students. That would be impossible to measure by a mere aptitude test. A lot of the college professors I know are very good teachers who provide clear lectures and care about their students. And some admittedly are not as strong. The whole idea that we need to test teaching aptitude is absurd, insulting, and shows you have no clue about how a university works.
12
Each semester every student has the opportunity to evaluate their professors on teaching abilities, effectiveness, and whether students are learning the outlined objectives of the course. These evaluations are given anonymously, and after grades are submitted the results are then shared with the faculty member, their department chair and the dean of that college. Multiple peer evaluations are also conducted on faculty teaching. While students are not experts in the professors’ fields, their scores and comments carry weight.
Everyone I know teaching in higher education has a passion for teaching. They enjoy mentoring young adults. Many faculty could probably earn more money working in the private sector, but they would miss the joy of seeing the “lights” go on when students finally grasp the concept being taught.
5
Let's end all baseless preferences, not just legacies. But this also includes the ubiquitous search for "interesting" students. (winner: engineering applicant + quarterback + lion tamer?) Worldwide competition for true talent will eventually knock universities who practice both silliness and bias in admissions off their pedestals.
5
@torus
Recommended you for spotting the inconsistency, but your comment then leads me onward to realize that when the authors' marquee issue is resolved by mundane means, the question of selectivity will remain un-solved in other forms.
2
It was not always so, perhaps, but attentedence at an elite college has become a key way for young people to accumulate social capital while getting an education. Meanwhile, admission to the top tier of elite colleges has become absurdly arbitrarily selective. When the current suit about Harvard admissions made public the extent of legacy and special admissions, it became clear just how rotten that part of the admissions system had become.
Schools like Harvard and the Ivies, with their vast endowments, are best placed to end legacy admissions. They don't have an urgent short-term need for the funds they (personally, in some cases after I wrote Harvard) told me legacy policies bring... and in time, those new, fairer admits would be likely donors, too.
Frankly, given the large number of qualified applicants, schools like Harvard would be best off doing a first admissions round that applied a reasonable threshold of qualification (good [not perfect] grades, superior [but not stellar] test scores, reasonable [not preposterous] evidence of engagement and public responsibility), then apply a lottery among the large number of applicants who would meet this threshold.
After all, there's very little reason to believe that admissions officers do any better than random guesses in knowing which highly qualified applicants will truly make the most of the opportunities you really do get at an elite university.
11
@Pquincy14
I agree, I think a lottery system to choose from among the large number of more-than-qualified applicants that good schools get would ultimately be the fairest. Students who didn't get chosen by any schools they liked could take a gap year or two to actually learn something about the world by working, traveling, or joining the peace corps or something.
Students who'd had a productive gap year could maybe be given a leg up in the next round of applications. I think more students should take a year off to grow up a bit anyway.
8
It's all about the money, as, it seems almost all issues in American life come down to.
Legacy will certainly come into play in weighing the merits of two - or ten - qualified candidates where it is the last consideration.
But legacy as a consideration up front, or where otherwise a candidate would be rejected, should be eliminated. As others have suggested, the leverage to persuade some institutions to abandon legacy admissions could be done by restricting Federal funding for the institutions. Then they could weigh the worth of that funding versus future donor value. As private institutions, they can choose the route.
3
People here keep talking about 'meritocracy' as if that was unquestionably a good thing. I think it needs to be pointed out that the term 'meritocracy' was coined in 1958 by the sociologist Michael Dunlop Young in his satirical essay 'The Rise of the Meritocracy'. Mind you, he was describing a future dystopian society wherein the class system has been replaced by a different class system ruled by those deemed to have merit (as defined by the ruling class, of course) - 'the best and the brightest' you might say. He was deriding the idea as another undemocratic class system, not promoting it.
If an academic meritocracy were to really be put in place, it would have to account for EVERY disadvantage or extra advantage that students might have. Impoverished but bright students with inadequate family support would have to have their applications given extra weight. Students whose parents had gotten them into every extracurricular activity available and had been able to hire the best tutors would have to have their applications discounted to subtract out all that unfairly purchased advantage. Only then could the true unadulterated 'merit' of each student be weighed. Is that not the logical end to the goal of the kind of 'meritocracy' we're talking about? Basically, it's almost like eugenics applied to college admissions.
Is that what we really want?
8
And what if the most 'meritorious' students were considered to be those who spent their days in socratic dialogue, deep contemplation and meditation? What if the hallowed halls of Harvard were filled with daydreamers and poets, and the bourgeois strivers eager to rule corporate America were considered unrefined, and were relegated to mere state schools and technical colleges? That would be a meritocracy of a different sort, would it not?
6
@S.B.
" Impoverished but bright students with inadequate family support would have to have their applications given extra weight. Students whose parents had gotten them into every extracurricular activity available and had been able to hire the best tutors would have to have their applications discounted to subtract out all that unfairly purchased advantage"
If none of that mattered - either for or against you - all those efforts (extra tutoring etc.) would stop. So no, you wouldn't have to account for, or discount for, any of that.
Yes, that sounds ideal.
As a Harvard grad, I am totally in favor of this. I've spent years trying to defend the legacy policy, but it was indefensible in the 80s when I was a recent grad, and even more so today.
I'm also in favor of ending athletic scholarships. They are a contradiction in terms.
28
Also as a Harvard grad, I agree. And Harvard College shouldn't charge tuition either; it doesn't need to with its massive endowment. And the undergraduate institution is not necessarily a force for good when at one point up to 40% of its graduates were being recruited by Wall Street, helping to plunder the economy into the Great Recession.
23
@PJF
as a Harvard grad, I second your comment (and third Alex's). There was also a lot of emphasis on taking a consulting or banking job if not l-school, med school or grad school. School did a bad job of creating a vision for alternate realities, though it seems things are a little better now.
2
The significance of legacy admissions pales next to athletic recruitment and the courting of large donors. But it’s bad optics. It should end.
11
"Preferential treatment for legacy admissions is anti-meritocratic, inhibits social mobility and helps perpetuate a de facto class system."
Legacy admissions are the tip of the iceberg. Segregation of institutional advantages exists all over the campuses I have struggled through. First, there is study help available only to residents of the on-campus dorms that only the privileged can afford. Second, there are Fulbright and other scholarship seminars which discriminate against off-campus and 'unusual' attendees. Third, there is a language or code of advantage that those students with 'educated' parents share with their children that is not public or distributed to the marginalized student. Fourth, there are advantages, commitments of faculty attention, resources that are offered to those students judged clandestinely by professors to have a future in academia, namely those students who somehow know about TA positions available, or lab work that they could do, that is not offered democratically to all students. Fifth, there is a culture of 'professionalism' in graduate schools that is a thinly veiled substitute for class-prejudice. And the list goes on and on.
3
When I found out the US has legacy admission,
...I could not believe it.
The American establishment has no commitment to
...meritocracy at all.
Very enlightening.
5
Harvard and other legacy schools receive a considerable amount of Federal grant money. How long would legacy admission policies continue if the President-any President-were to make grant awards contingent on abandoning legacy admissions?
4
How we present this is important. The first numbers in the article are a bit misleading. It doesn't seem like all that much when one says that the odds of acceptance for all legacy applicants and direct (parental) legacy applicants are, respectively, 23% and 45% higher than non-legacy applicants. That makes it look like this problem: if I have one apple and you have 23% more apple than I have, then you have only one apple plus a quarter of another apple. That isn't, however, the case here? The odds of admittance are, for instance, 5 and 6% at Stanford and Harvard. At Harvard the probability of acceptance for all legacies, as reported here, is 33%. That is, all legacies, parental and otherwise, are more than 5 times as likely to be admitted to Harvard as non-legacies. Moreover, if the pattern holds, Harvard primary (parental) legacies will have a probability of acceptance that is even higher than 45% average for such applicants at this kind of university. Given that, primary (parental) legacies are likely to be more than 9 times more like to be admitted than non-legacy applicants.
6
I think efforts to reform admissions should be focused on the arms race that has resulted from college rankings. Colleges put way. too much money into marketing...even Harvard. makes the entire process more pressured and phony.
5
The end of legacy admissions would mean the end of the business model of Harvard and Co. They need to be connected to the elite to prove their status as top universities and gain donations. Being in the elite is basically a hereditary issue though, so how could that work. You do not go to Harvard for a good education but rather to meet the right people.
5
Wealthy schools like Harvard, don't benefit as much from legacy students. It's the school that struggle financially that benefit the most. The legacy students and their families give back to the school. They stay involved by hosting students, running alumna clubs, helping with ceremonies, and annual donations. They can be counted on to raise money for a new building or fund a scholar.
The percent of legacy students is low, but their impact large. A legacy student paying full tuition and whose family donates money will support scholarships for students who otherwise couldn't afford to attend. I was thankful for the legacies that paid full tuition and indirectly funded my scholarship. Should my daughter also attend the same college, I'll have a closer tie to the school and be more likely to include the college in my will.
11
@Anne
They don't benefit as much relative some others, but they still benefit a lot - and the absolute amounts are huge with elite schools.
My future father in-law talked his way into a very kind financial aid package, as an alumnus, for his daughter (at the Univ.of Chicago), which I wish I had. My grandfather delivered ice by horse and wagon to the Anatomy Dept. there, but that didn't help my bill's any. Legacy has its privileges....
I think people overexaggerate the actual effects of legacy admissions. I’m a current college student, and one of my parents attended Harvard and the other Yale. I was not accepted by either, but instead was accepted by, and now attend, an equally selective and prestigious private university, one which I had no familial relationship to. I cannot imagine legacy is the determining factor that people say it is, given my own experiences.
7
Just because you didn’t get in as a legacy student doesn’t mean that legacy admissions are overblown.
15
@Cory Lambert
The statistics cited in the editorial do not document the extent and effect of legacy admissions, so this anecdotal example does illustrate that it could be overblown.
2
Because your parents did not give enough money to their alma maters.
And as a caucasian male from suburban NYC with an off the charts MCAT score and a 4.0 from a prestigious liberal arts school I didn’t get into fairly pedestrian medical schools because.... well... I was white. I didn’t sue anyone or make a fuss. I ended up going to a very prestigious medical school but it was still astounding seeing the level of prejudice in the process and the handicapping of my application on account of my skin color and zip code.
I sympathize with Asian Americans who have experienced the same discrimination and I’m not afraid to talk about it or call it what it is - discrimination.
There’s a lot of injustice in the college and graduate school admissions process. Legacy admissions are a very minor component.
36
Alternative take: The reason you didn’t get in to these ‘pedestrian’ medical schools because other applicants were better qualified.
Knowledge (as assessed, however imperfectly, by standardized tests; grades are notoriously-subjective, even — if not especially — at ‘prestigious’ liberal arts colleges) is only one of the many characteristics required to be a good doctor. You’ll also need strong communication skills, collaborative abilities, intellectual agility, patience, perspective, empathy, and *ahem* humility.
14
@Rachael thanks for your comments. Since my story is anecdotal to an outsider it is understandable that one might consider that there were other variables involved in the selection process. Let me explain further.
My test scores and GPA were 99th percentile and I consider myself an excellent grammarian and essay writer. So on paper let’s just pretend that I am an ideal candidate.
I applied to 19 medical schools. 10 granted me interviews. So of the 10 schools where I was granted an interview - well let’s just say at that point I had to sell myself. Let’s not address those schools and consider that I had poor interviews at those which I was ultimately rejected from.
I’m more focused on the 9 schools who rejected me outright - simply on the basis of my test scores and GPA. Most of those 9 schools had average entrance scores far below mine. It is those schools which rejected me simply on the basis of an ethnicity and geographical quota system. That is the basis of my discrimination claim.
Perhaps that sheds more light on the story.
24
@Jason could it be that you were rejected because your grades were so good that the mediocre schools felt that it will be a waste of their slot to give you admission since most probably you will get admissions from far better schools? I’ve heard of this happening in admissions to the PHD programs in engineering schools.
Let's say we enforced college admissions that are "blind" - the panacea proposed by various end-legacy-preferences proponents. Who polices that rule? The government, peer pressure, the NYT opinion pages, public indignation? OK then, once enforced, colleges and universities may only consider SATs, GPAs, appealing extracurriculars, superlative essay writing, eloquent recommendations (identifiers and high school IDs blanked out), and further achievements like exceptional talent in the arts, or winning INTEL ISEF science fair projects.
The upshot? An admitted class with far fewer first-generation college kids, fewer disadvantaged kids, fewer underrepresented-minority kids. And more "legacy" applicants than are admitted under the present system. Because children of highly-educated parents are the ones who had home-environment and economic advantages going into the process. Who had parents who put education above all else. Who therefore ace the various metrics that would count for everything under a "blind" admissions system.
Beware the unintended consequences of what you wish for.
12
@Lise
Interesting hypothesis. It does appear that parental commitment to education is the key ingredient in life. Some people simply win the "womb lottery".
I am a first generation American -- my mother was born in Hungary and lived through the Nazi and then Russian occupations. She valued education and raised me to study and work hard. She put education above all else. When I got to an elite college I knew I belonged there -- and I knew there were legacy kids who did not. I wasn't bitter -- just continued to study and work hard. And I have done the same for my kids. We need to somehow figure out how to get all children to study and work hard.
3
That’s not necessarily true for all “blind” admissions. “Need blind” admissions means other factors can be considered but not ability to pay.
@Lise
Next they came for the magazines on the coffee tables...
The colleges claim that less than 2% of students are admitted as legacies. Many more are athletes needed to fill teams, and musicians needed to fill orchestras.
Do you feel less cheated, if you don't get in because they needed an oboe player or a lacrosse defenseman?
11
@Jonathan
Just sayin'. You have to be pretty disciplined to be good enough to play oboe in many college orchestras. Oboists also tend to be pretty bright. I'll bet most orchestra instrumentalists are good students and overall bright lights (perhaps, good test-takers?)
11
@Jonathan
As a parent of musicians, and a veteran of the college admissions process who is extremely knowledgeable about how it works, believe me when I say this: no one is recruiting oboe players. That’s an urban myth. Athletes? Quite another story.
13
Short of illegal discrimination, private schools should admit whomever they want for whatever reason they want. I'm not in favor of legacy admissions--or athletic scholarships or any other special admissions. But I'm also not in favor of coercive and intrusive government intervention.
8
Private institutions get loads of federal money. Pell grants, research grants, arts grants. They are also getting lots of other benefits through their tax-exempt status. None of them are subsisting entirely on their own funds.
26
@MEM
Actually, very few top schools are truly private. If they were research funding would dry up. Those fewschools that are "truly private" and take no government money are largely third rate sectarian institutions, and they can take in whomever they desire.
12
@MEM
If private schools should be allowed to admit whoever they want, then these schools should not do so on tax-payer's dime; they should be stripped of their tax-exempt status.
11
Others have complained that when the Times writes about college education it writes only in terms of a handful of prestigious schools and overlooks the large majority of schools where getting enough qualified students of any origin over decades is a institution endangering issue.
In business it is well known that the best source of new business is old business. Only the college or university that enjoys, has enjoyed and is sure to enjoy in the future unweakened demand can afford to put aside the interest in developing a reliable and consistent source of new students.
Legacies who do not donate much money do contribute to developing a cadre of people who will speak well of the school and encourage others--not just their own children--to attend and speak well of the school.
Whole families become attached to one school, not just for a few years, but over generations. Even Harvard is loath to surrender such allegiances. While Harvard can take the risk, most colleges would be foolish to do so.
13
Yes, end legacy college admissions. And, along with it will go the vast sums of money those families donate to their alma maters. And, our the window will go scholarships for deserving middle and lower class students.
7
But the study in the article cites that legacy alums don’t donate more than non-legacy alums. So there actually isn’t a real financial incentive to accept legacy students at higher rates compared to other students.
7
Just for argument's sake, if the extremely well qualified and enthusiastically recommended child of an alum applies to a college, are you saying he/she should not be admitted simply because of his/her legacy status? Should my child not apply to yale because I am an alum? So then what? Brilliant Harvard alum kids go to Yale and vice versa? Would that be more equitable?
4
No one is remotely saying that. People are saying that children of Harvard parents shouldn’t get extra privileges in the admissions process when they apply to Harvard.
12
@RE You miss the point. Your child would have every right to apply, legacy or not. He/she just would not command special consideration because of legacy status.
11
@RE
It should be legacy blind. That isn’t difficult to understand.
Here’s a different perspective from someone with an ordinary middle class background admitted to a super-elite school. The school employed legacy preferences.
I benefit from the legacy system. Here’s why.
The powerful families are not going to give up their power and influence voluntarily, and the university is a good place for we ordinary mortals to mix with them on meritocratic terms outside the socially exclusive country clubs.
12
@Paco
A point that lifetime insiders miss. But the truth is, they could eliminate legacy preferences , and you'd still be meeting the sons and daughters of the wealthy and powerful.
2
It may be true that "there is no statistically significant evidence of a causal relationship between legacy preference policies and total alumni giving among top universities.” But I strongly suspect that an alumni (especially a wealthy one) isn't likely to keep supporting a school if their child doesn't get in (assuming of course that the student is bright and hard-working).
4
But if the studies all say that legacy preference does not correlate with giving, then it doesn’t matter that a jilted parent stops giving, right? Because you will be equally likely to have other non-legacy parents donate. It’s not like legacy parents donate more than other parents.
5
Goodness. Explain to me why getting a college degree is so bloody necessary for getting a good job. Maybe people those with college degrees should have easier access to better paying jobs. But overall I think people should have plenty of opportunity for a good job and good middle class life without going to college. Oh, wait, shareholder profits and the "innovation and disruption" of robots taking peoples jobs is much more important. And having a bunch of stressed teens all attending college and wanting A's just to get a job is much better for the university.
The purpose of the university is education and research. Period. Not upward socio-economic mobility.
The whole notion of a "meritocracy" is childish and cruel nonsense. People aren't admitted to college or hired just for merit, fit, maturity, and personality should also be factors. If you create a meritocracy, people will game the system and avoid taking risks so that they "demonstrate merit" rather than doing their job. You know, like publish or perish and the academic job market. People don't take research risks anymore.
Then the editorial board recommends calling legacy admissions and other bright ideas. Great, the university will hire more administrators to do the tallies, and to make their jobs expand in scope. Rather than hiring more professors. Which results is overworked professors, struggling postdocs. Together with the stress students.
And you wonder when college became so cruel.
4
Society benefits from educated people, which necessitates college grads. Education is not just job training. It's a contribution to our shared future. That doesn't diminish the less educated; nor should it make being a PHD a joke in the view of those with HS diplomas.
4
@karen I almost entirely agree. Certainly the mission of the university should first and foremost be education. And people deserve dignity, respect, and a decent life irregardless of their level of education. I certainly don't think PhDs should be treated as a joke.
The only thing I would disagree with is I dislike the idea that anything "necessitates college grads". At the very least not everyone needs to go to college. College is a great pathway to education and enrichment and should be open to those who are interests and will thrive in the college environment. But there are also many other pathways to education and enrichment and they should also be encouraged. The value of the university as an educational institution is why it is so important to protect it from everyone going to college just to get a good job and from elitists at the NY Times. We need to preserve the university for those who want to learn and discover.
@James not to be nit picky but "irregardless" isn't a word. The word is regardless. Irregardless would be the exact opposite as "ir", a prefix denoting "not" negates the already negative "regardless" making it a positive.
I don't have a personal stake in this debate; I'm an Ivy League graduate who was not a legacy and has no children. I can understand the argument that legacy admissions reinforce alumni loyalty and generosity, but I can also understand the view that they are an unfair allocation of the limited number of admissions available at elite schools.
If it were my call, I would eliminate legacy preferences as well as all other preferences not directly linked to academic potential -- no racial, economic, geographic or other preference or limits. But if we are not going to do that I don't think that legacy preferences are more unfair than the others.
16
Here are two ideas:
1. If a private or public school continues to give preferential treatment to legacies, ban its faculty from receiving federal grants. There's no Earthly reason tax payers should subsidize the practice.
2. Don't allow state schools to preferentially admit legacies at all (again, because of the tax-payer thing).
Do those things and legacy college admissions will disappear overnight.
4
But aren’t legacy accepted students more likely to enroll than non-legacy accepted students with similar credentials? And isn’t that good for the college?
10
@Doug
Why would it be?
As a commenter below notes, the issue here isn't legacy admissions so much as it is the staunch belief of the New York Times -- and of many other important institutions, -- that only certain colleges really matter. The belief drives reality; an excellent New York Review of Books article from a few years back noted that parents who'd happily attended state institutions and led successful and productive lives have become driven by the notion that their children must attend better, more selective, more prestigious colleges than they did. The upshot is that a relatively small segment of the college-age population is frantically chasing the few available spots at elite colleges, while the colleges themselves pull out all stops to increase applications, decrease admits, build more and more unnecessary buildings, recruit more graduate students who will never land academic positions -- all in the name of increasing their rankings. The fact is, there's a limit; even with a drop in college-age students, there are too many talented students for the few spots available at these colleges. Editorials such as this one (which I agree with, actually) only add fuel to the fire by again stressing that only a very few selective colleges can prepare one for life.
48
@Awestruck Spot on!
1
@Awestruck
Thank you. 100% agreement with this comment.
I do not like legacy admissions, but this editorial makes several logic errors. "Between 2010 and 2015, the admission rate for legacy applicants at Harvard was higher than 33 percent. It was 6 percent for non-legacies." That is meaningless unless one controls for the academic quality of the applicants.
“there is no statistically significant evidence of a causal relationship between legacy preference policies and total alumni giving among top universities.” Statistical analysis cannot make a causal conclusion, other than a correlation.
Now, I think the federal government should offer a deal to all colleges. End legacy admissions, and all other admissions affected or influenced by donations, or give up the ability to accept tax-deductible donations. One of the not-so-hidden secrets is that a large and growing pool of donors are 'current parents', who 'promise' donations for their child's admissions, i.e., tax deductible tuition. The college development office screen these parents for their giving potential. Traditional loyal alumni are not the biggest problem.
6
Consider also how this legacy advantage carries over to hiring practices. An August article in either this publication or the Washington Post (forget which) quotes a West Coast executive who stated that he immediately separates applications into two piles, one from only the most elite schools and the other from "less qualified" candidates. The former makes the initial cut. while the latter goes immediately into the dust bin. Talk about the benefits of generational advantage.
16
@Susan Car;ey This is unfortunately true. People from Harvard lean towards people from Harvard rather than, University of San Francisco or, San Francisco State. Even though, they former students may have accomplished the same portfolio. Its a protective, outdated club.
9
"Brand loyalty" has been what legacy admissions are all about.
But now the Ivy League doesn't need brand loyalty--there is always another customer eager to fill the place of the "family" members who don't contribute enough after graduation.
20 years after I graduated from Brown, I got a letter asking for $20,000 to mark that anniversary. Didn't pay, and, whether or not it was connected, my son's subsequent application was rejected. He may not have been the best applicant in the pool--but he did have a perfect SAT score, so he was not manifestly feckless.
We took that rejection as a statement that my 20 years of checks to keep us in the "Brown family" were insufficient.
That was the beginning of the unraveling of my own attitude about the Kool Aide of American scholastic elitism, which, like so much else here, may have been corrupted by money.
Was a time when admission to elite schools was known to be simply a matter of money. When they tried to sell the Ivy League as a meritocracy, that's when the lies began.
51
@Claudia Yes, back in the day there were "Harvard families" and "Princeton families" and "Yale families". Legacy admissions were a lot about building brand loyalty among the elite, not explicitly about giving elite children a leg up compared to non-WASPs and women, who weren't even admitted.
The Ivies use admissions to build a "community" whatever that means to them at the time. I don't support legacy admissions, but there is too much emphasis in general on Ivies.
1
Are you sure some other winnow will produce better results? And what is the end game exactly?
5
Yes, what is the end game?
I come at this with a pretty unique perspective. I’m a legacy of an Ivy and black American. A good chunk of the black Americans I went to school with were also legacies (for most of us, our parents went to school together). Black Americans at the most elite schools are the minority within a minority - most black students are either African/West Indian immigrants or the children of African/West Indian immigrants. Without legacy admissions, the black American contingent at elite schools would be even lower than it is today. Until elite schools want to institute Affirmative Action specifically for black Americans (which is how it should be anyway, if, as the author says, Affirmative Action is to be a “remedy of past injustices”) or find some other way to address the lack of black Americans at these schools, I 100% advocate for keeping legacy admissions in place so that black American students remain at these schools.
15
Good point. The local kids that went to the Ivy League were children of a Nigerian immigrant neurosurgeon married to a white American. Grades were adequate. They are building a legacy. Of course Nigerians are a downtrodden people saddled with a kleptocratic government and terrible overpopulation so there is some sociological justification.
1
@HDGThis, of course, is the Thomas Sowell thesis, that it's the negative culture that came out of certain parts of Great Britain that continues to hold back black Americans. Hmm. True, no doubt. But there are all sorts of less competitive cultures. Denmark has been trying to "fix" Greenland for centuries, with what results? Russia is backward. And back to Sowell, if it's those white cultures that harmed blacks (note here that slavery also existed in the West Indies, to say the least), then what about J.D. Vance? Do his co-ethnicists deserve affirmative action? In plain English, it's a mess. End of all of it, including legacy admissions. And by the way, the Times would not be running this if they did not think that SCOTUS is going to side with the Asian plaintiffs in the Harvard case.
I think private schools are exactly that and should not have to listen to the government or anyone else about their admissions policies. The marketplace may ultimately bring them down if their lack of diversity becomes a weakness. As for public schools, meritocracy should prevail with an eye towards diversification. However, if there is a “tie” in the admissions process, legacy could be a tie-breaker. Are you saying families who have a life-long passion for, investment in through donations, etc in their school should be purposefully denied a fairer shake for their families? I travel all over the world, and one thing I see as a secret sauce for America, is our university system, particularly the land grant universities and the great private schools. Foreigners are baffled by the fact we have to pay so much and then continue to give money and maintain an extraordinary passion for our schools. This passion is a major contributing factor to the robustness and scale of our superb university system.
22
@Geoff Williams
There is some merit to the argument that private institutions should be private and not follow any governmental rules or societal pressure in admissions processes. However, they should then be denied any and all government aid.
The purpose of that investment by taxpayers, which is what all government aid is, is to benefit all of society and to expand access to education throughout all classes and races. If an institution doesn’t see itself as part of that mission, then it doesn’t need nor should it receive any taxpayer-funded aid. Let private schools be truly private in all aspects.
This is especially true for religious schools. They exist to indoctrinate children into specific religions, not to create well-balanced citizens who respect civic institutons and all religions within our society, as well as the rights of atheists to live free of religious intrusion. Private evangelical colleges, such as Hilsdale and Liberty, have specifically stated missions to institute theocracy and overturn parts of the Constitution that expand rights beyond white heterosexual Christian males. That they receive tax-exempt status and any aid from the very government they seek to subvert and taxpayers whose rights they seek to abolish is not only laughable but also highly anti-democratic.
The theocratic mission of evangelical institutions is a major cause of our current, highly destructive culture wars. Let “god”, not taxpayers, finance those schools.
5
Can’t disagree with anything you said, you don’t want to follow govt rules, you don’t get help and you should be very careful about how you handle your non-profit status
1
Maybe colleges are looking to diversify their payor mix with softhearted alumni parents. With all seriousness the CSS profile, the College Board questionnaire that parents complete to qualify for institutional aid, suggests families can spend up to 47 percent of their net income on higher education tuition costs for their children. The CSS profile protects the first 52K in salary; after that they assume 22 percent of the remaining net income can go toward tuition. It quickly climbs. Families with legacy parents might be more willing to fork over their 47 percent either in savings or parent PLUS loans or a second mortgage on a property on either coast.
This is the real issue in higher education. Who in the US should ever be asked to spend 47 percent when there is $1.4T outstanding in student loans? The colleges already got all of that $1.4T (less interest). Tax free.
6
The legacy advantage today may be overblown -- and I say that as someone with no horse is this race (I'm first generation college and attended a good State University with no regrets).
My wife went to a top 20 elite (non-Ivy) Northeastern college and has given regular amounts to the school for years.
Two years ago my daughter applied to my wife's alma mater and -- on paper -- my daughter had the ACT's, the grades (from a top-ranked high school), the extracurriculars/leadership and music and sports accomplishments that should have allowed her to get into the school on her own merit. Interpersonally, she is exceptional (so I don't see how she could have bombed the interview) and has stayed off of social media.
My daughter wasn't accepted by wife's alma mater -- not even wait-listed.
From what I've seen the admissions priorities for some of these top schools have changed -- and it is not to help legacies.
11
Just because your daughter didn’t get in doesn’t mean that legacy admissions isn’t rampant at private institutions. It just means your daughter didn’t get in.
15
@Xavier Montgomery
. . . and I’m just saying that the legacy advantage is all that some are claiming it to be.
My suspicion is that the spike in applications caused by the common app has let personnel in the admissions office engage in rampant favoritism. When you eliminate slots allocated to sports, legacy, diversity, etc., there are incredibly few slots left at these schools that are truly open to fair competition and there is a very large pool of applicants with basically the same qualifications vying for those slots. I suspect if tools like those used to uncover insider trading we’re used to study these admissions decisions, I’d bet you’d find links between the folks in the admissions office and the students winning these open slots.
3
@Sam,
So then you agree that legacy admissions are contributing to unfair and unbalanced admission? If they are taking up slots that otherwise would be given to students who don’t have all these ‘extra’ statuses.
3
The service academies have among the highest economic outcomes 10 years post graduation, superior to many of the Ivies.
Maybe the whiners should try getting an appointment to Annapolis, West Point, the Air Force, Coast Guard and Merchant Marine Academies, and maybe our august private institutions should forego Federal support in order to keep Washington out of their affairs.
7
The arguments on this thread in favor of legacy admissions smell of entitlement and privilege. The college admissions process is opaque for a reason--every legacy admission is a spot taken away from someone more qualified, but less privileged. Because of this, legacy and celebrity admissions hurt the reputations of these universities much more than they help them.
8
@abearson Um, I'm sorry. What exactly do you think is being taken away? Because it seems to be a lot more than a mere spot at a school.
I don't care about the legacy admissions issue. I just don't like a bunch of elitists obsessed with "meritocracy" and admissions ruining the university and its educational and research mission.
It almost seems as you think peoples opportunity for upward mobility and good-paying high-status jobs is being taken away. In which case, you've got much bigger problems than legacy admissions.
1
@abearson
Thank you for mentioning celebrity admissions. First it was pretty actresses getting into elite institutions but now we have reality TV stars and social media influencers getting in for no other reason but fame. The fact that they are already so well-positioned in society should count against their acceptance while hard-working nobodies are desperately trying to get a leg up on the ladder of success.
Why is it that these celebrities can’t simply attend their local state school? Is it because they don’t actually qualify and thus, rather than do the remedial work needed at their local junior college, they can simply buy a spot at an elite institution?
3
End preferential treatment for athletes.
237
I have a hard time understanding why collegiate athletes are brought into conversations about legacy admissions. How college sports should be handled is a separate issue, but at least the athletes are admitted based on skill and ability that they themselves actually have. No parent can purchase that hard work and determination with privilege or environment. If Tom Brady’s son turns out to be a mediocre athlete, you will not see him on an elite college team.
2
@Ashlyn
But if Tom Brady's son is a splendid athlete, but doesn't know the multiplication tables, you may still see him on the elite college team AND in calculus class... slowing the whole class down,
4
@Ashlyn They're admitted based on athletic "skill and ability"? So what?? Educational institutions are supposed to exist for the purpose of educating, not providing people with a chance to play organized sports. And as for parents behind the scenes, yes they can and do purchase greater opportunities for their kids to develop as athletes and thereby win athletic scholarships. My partner taught at an all-girls hockey "academy" in Vermont where hockey came first, second, and third, and studies came a distant fourth. All of the girls were expecting to get offers of hockey scholarships to Yale or other Ivies. Attending that academy is far from cheap.
3
College admissions will never be truly merit-based until they are anonymous and only merit is taken into account. Let the chips fall where they may. If 90% of students admitted to the Ivy League school turn out to be Asian as a result, so be it. I'm the rare liberal opposed to affirmative action - because it masks systemic problems rather than solves them. To really solve the problems, we need to divorce school funding from property taxes and reward teachers properly for what they do, and generally tackle systemic inequality, not slap a band-aid only at the university level and call it a day.
57
@UA
Affirmative action, or the newer term/program/mindset, is definitely a band-aid, but at this point - nothing is happening about the systemic inequality - and AA etc. has benefitted probably hundreds of thousands of students over the years whose prognosis for success would have been mediocre at best. If someone's calling it a day with AA for college acceptance, I haven't heard it. But those other changes are part of the liberal/moderate Democratic candidate debate right now, and they are going to require a lot of effort to bring about.
1
What makes these institutions what they are is the very reason everyone would love to be part of them. If you dilute it, then eventually they are no longer what everyone wants to be a part of.
These institutions have managed a delicate balance that includes some legacy, some new; some poor, some wealthy; some great with numbers, some great with social skills.
Just like it would be wrong for anyone to tell the NYT what the right blend of reporters is to put out a great newspaper, it is wrong for the NYT to presume it knows what the right blend of students is to run the greatest universities in the world.
26
Please - meritocracy is bogus, “merit” is a reflection of the culture of whoever is in power. And alumni have the right to look out for their families too. If we didn’t have such a winner take all society college students would still want to go to schools that their parents did. What’s the right system? It starts with making sure all people can get the education they need - not just whoever meets the current faddish definition of “merit.”
7
@Gary if you needed a brain surgeon, would you be so dismissive of merit based admissions policies at med schools and specialty training?
Be careful here, many of the movers and shakers in the Democratic party are beneficiaries of this system and they have every intention of passing it on to their kids. You are putting serious money at risk if you pursue this plan. If, on the other hand, this is just more pablum you are feeding the progressives during primary season before returning to the center for the election, then carry on.
9
@Bruce1253: Malia and Sasha Obama.
Chelsea Clinton.
To The NY Times:
You are focusing on the wrong issue.
The real issue is income/inequality and the enormous power of corporations and the wealthy. In the U.S. top schools like Harvard/Yale etc serve as gatekeepers to “good” jobs and high incomes and a decent life.
It should not matter what college one goes to in order to have a decent life.
The issue is not legacy admissions - the issue is an unequal, “winner take all” capitalist society.
42
This may be a stretch, but to me the legacy preference echos the anti-immigration movement. A university shows preference to its own to promote multigenerational lineage, which naturally keeps out those who are not part of the school's culture. It's a purity issue with alumni constituting a special privileged class of people. Someone needs to remind them that new blood revitalizes old institutions.
16
1. I think legacy admissions are discriminatory. Parents who had the opportunity to go to a prestigious school should be able to provide their children with opportunities in life to succeed - good books, good schooling, fast internet access etc etc. These children probably already have an upper hand. Why should they get the added advantage of legacy admissions. This discriminates against other students who are as smart or smarter but dont qualify for legacy admissions.
2. It is not just a race thing. Even though majority of the legacy admissions have historically been white, the next wave of legacies will include a lot of browns/asians. But just because minorities are getting legacy admissions does not make it right. It still discriminates against others (irrespective of race).
3. Some people talk about a sense of community/sharing experience. This reasoning is absolutely flawed. I bet that most harvard students do not settle in Boston and most Yale students do not settle in new Haven.
4. If donation money is the issue, then make the process more transparent.
a. Allocate a certain percentage of seats (lets say 10-15%) to donation based admissions.
b. Create a minimum for test scores and high school GPA etc for these donation based admissions.
c. Auction these seats. This way, colleges can get maximum donation based on the schools ranking, prestige and demand.
d. Allocate the funds to provide for scholarships and necessary facilities.
13
Let's go after all baseless preferences, not just legacies.
My children attended an elite Northeastern secondary boarding school. All the students knew how they ranked -- academically, on standardized tests and on other college admissions touchstones such as extracurriculars, community service, leadership roles and the like.
Surprisingly, college admissions results did not follow the distribution of these criteria. Some students at the very top of the supposed pyramid got no Ivy admits, while others with no apparent ranking advantages did.
Why?
The college admissions adviser gave me a quiet, off-the-record explanation.
She said there were only four "hooks" that really mattered. A student needed at least one to get a top-tier (Ivy+) admission.
First, was the applicant a student of color?
Second, was the applicant from a rich family who had a legacy relationship with the college, or from a REALLY rich family who would signal a significant gift?
Third, was the applicant an accomplished athlete in a sport the college or university emphasized, with special value for women athletes (Title IX) or sports such as crew or lacrosse (we're talking Ivies here)?
Fourth, was the student a child of the school's faculty or administration?
She also explained that, all else equal, a student from a public school would have better chances than an applicant from the prep school.
My proposal: end ALL these preferences.
All that should matter is merit, objectively evaluated.
122
@Stuck on a mountain: I almost agree ith what you are saying except for one thing. I think that truly less priviledged people should be given a little more preference. And this should be irrespective of race.
13
You clearly haven't seen the number of students admitted from the truly elite independent schools if you think academic and extracurricular achievement doesn't matter. So does having an interesting personality with something to contribute to the community. Those qualities aren't mutually exclusive with the "hooks" the counselor discussed. I think she was trying to make you feel better.
5
@Stuck on a mountain
What, after all, is merit? Grades? What value your high school? SATs? ACTs? Service? Leadership in clubs or on teams? Poverty? And who decides on your merit? Is bringing more money to your college a meritorious act? College admission is influenced by legal cases, social mores, and publicity.
3
Huge omission by this article is that legacy students admitted at Ivy League colleagues have SATs and GPAs completely on par or in excess of all applicants, and much much higher than students admitted due to race preferences.
Finally, without the donations from legacy families, need scholarships would be severely weakened.
60
@Mark: If they have such great scores then why do they need legacy admissions. And where did you get your data from. What is your source.
And if donations is the main issue, give a certain number of seats to those who donate. Why give special preference to those who do not donate but are legacy children.
11
@prat shea Students often are counted in multiple categories. I'm sure Malia Obama got counted in the "under-represented minority" group. Many of such students are from affluent black families - they're not all poor and disadvantaged. A legacy may also be a recruited athlete. He may also be a top applicant with outstanding SAT's/grades - just everything. Double-counting is allowed!
2
How do you know this? What source are you getting this from?
I went to an Ivy League college, as the first person in my family to ever graduate from college. Although I didn't know the term "legacy," I understood the concept. Although my impression was not simply that legacies got a "leg up," but that they were virtually guaranteed of admission.
2
Kudos to the NYT Editorial board for writing this OP-ed.
I agree with everything that you have written.
Thank you!
9
I graduated from an elite (non-Ivy) university in the early 1990s -- non-legacy. Last year, when touring colleges, my daughter fell in love with that university, to my delight. Despite her high SAT scores, rigorous coursework and high GPA, we knew it would be a stretch, as it is for every applicant, given it's ~6% admissions rates. She decided to hedge her bets by applying binding early decision -- with both of us hoping that, plus her legacy status, might gain her admittance to her dream school. However, she was deferred early decision, and then rejected with the regular decision pool -- although the rejection letter ruefully mentioned her family connection (for what it's worth, I regularly donated to my alma mater, though not more than a hundred dollars or so per year).
I am annoyed that despite credentials far better than those that gained me admission in the late 1980s, my daughter was deemed not good enough for this university. But I also believe that as a legacy her application probably at least got a second look -- and given the insanity of the admissions game, that second look can help for other kids that are legitimately academically qualified. I do also, however, support the notion of transparency of legacy admissions -- if it indeed continues to give a leg up, those universities that consider it should be straight up about it.
11
Admission should be double-blind. No legacy advantage, no race advantage, no "personality" advantage.
43
@Jason :totally agree. may be just some advantage to truly poor students who beat all odds to get to that point.
2
@Jason Well I call your bluff to college admissions “advantage” - you will have to fund all school systems equally. That means Detroit Public Schools will get the same funding as the Grosse Pointes. My city is not full of stay at home former professionals now chauffeuring their precious children from Chinese to SAT tutors. Yes, do lecture us about how merit works and fairness.
1
Selective college admissions are the opposite of meritocracy. Legacy admission, quid pro quo for big donors, cheating on SATs, affirmative action, special lanes for athletes, special consideration for children of celebrities and the politically powerful, flat out bribery and a host of tricks employed by those already on the inside. Even famous journalists move their kids to the front of the line. It’s nauseating. Employers could clean up the system by hiring without regard to college brand. As it stands now, selective college admission is the single most corrupt institution in America.
26
@Rick
add FacBrats to your list. Harvard is big on them.
Early in the history of the United States, we did away with mechanisms that British aristocracy used to maintain economic and political power, such as primogeniture (all property passes automatically to the first born instead of being divided among the children) and entails (legal structures that prevent large landholdings from being divided (as seen on Downton Abbey). Legacy preferences are a relic of the same old-world thinking: treating a subset of places in private colleges as the birthright of legacy applicants while less well-born applicants compete for the remaining spots based only their achievements and some other factors.
17
@Rob
Are you sure the system we replaced that with is better? All I see is opportunism rewarded. The most aggressively ambitious egotists who care the least about others win in the US. If that’s meritocracy - I’d rather see random numbers picked out of a hat.
Public maybe, but for private schools everyone needs to stay out of it. The schools are private for a reason...they don't want the government meddling in their operations anymore than they already are. There are plenty of schools for someone to go to if they are displaced by a legacy admission, however they would not know it or have anyway of determining it.
As I see it there are far too many mediocre colleges with less than stellar students. College has slipped to the point where most colleges and universities are just a few more years of high school, which was never the intent. The root of the problem is what I call "Big College" (similar to Big Oil and Big Tobacco) where it is all about the money and nothing else. When I see colleges spending extravagantly on food, rooms, amenities, etc it is obvious the original intent of college, learning, is a tertiary objective. Learning how to learn in college has been replaced with targeting a specific job as if it was a trade.
Once you move out of the top 100 or so schools you are settling for mediocrity especially if it is a public school. We can't possibly dumb college down anymore. Look at where we are at compared to the rest of the world. It's disgraceful.
10
@Jim...
I doubt that there is a single college or university out there that don't take a hand-out from the federal government.
And there certainly ISN'T A SINGLE COLLEGE or UNIVERSITY that doesn't take a hand-out from cities and states through their tax-exempt status that gives them police and fire protection with only minimal contribution to the actual cost of the services that they receive.
6
If a legacy student is not up to the task, he will fail in the university. That is, unless he cheats in almost every course. Now, we know that happens. The universities have been more vigilant in detecting cheating, but more work must be done
4
@Kevin "If a legacy student is not up to the task, he will fail in the university. " False. Even when I went to college at an Ivy League school in the 1970's, it was very very difficult to fail, even w/o cheating.
7
Why should we wait for legacy student to fail? They should be cut off before they even set foot on the college campus. Even if they fail out, it’s not as if their spot will be given to a more deserving student. If a legacy is truly equal to other applicants, they should be able to get in on their own.
2
@Chauncey
The percentage of legacy students that are excellent candidates is likely no less than that of all high school graduates. It is probably higher, due to the likelihood of a better home environment conducive to reading and to study.
3
There is an assumption that individual legacy students are less qualified than other applicants. No data were presented to support this belief. While this may be true of some legacy admissions (the Donald Trump’s of the world), should legacy applicants be discriminated against when their credentials are as strong as other applicants?
I would suggest that legacies may be more motivated to succeed at their legacy school than students without a connection. They are also more likely to accept an admission offer when they have multiple offers. Remember that selective schools only get a portion of the students they accept.
The performance of legacy versus non-legacy students needs to be studied. How they do can be determined by looking at test scores, high school GPA and college GPA, as well as academic honors. To suggest radically changing how admissions are done needs to consider to be fact-based. Not only based on how well students look on paper prior to admission but also how they perform after enrolled.
18
@Joel Stegner
All things being equal, legacy students win.
In many cases when a legacy student does not have an equal case for admission, their legacy status allows them to win.
Of course when a legacy student is has a better case to make, they also win.
This is why we assume legacy students have weaker applications. The fact that they (at least some of them) have to rely on legacy is proof that their academic qualifications are weaker.
3
@Joel Stegner:
" There is an assumption that individual legacy students are less qualified than other applicants" - If they are as smart as the general pool of applicants, then why do they need legacy admissions. Just apply with the general pool and get admission just like the rest do.
5
No one is advocating ‘discrimination’ against legacy students. They are advocating that legacy students should not be given an extra advantage. These are two completely different things. Also, if the claim is that they are strong students, then they should be compared to other general applicants. If they don’t need their status to get admitted because they’re strong students, then get rid of the status because it doesn’t matter anyway right? Or does it actually matter? They can’t have it both of ways.
4
I’ve made a few comments on this thread and am finally despite spending almost two decades in the US and being married to an American woman am beginning to understand a little about what has always puzzled me about America.
You don’t mind nepotism or a little bit of corruption. It’s about who you know not what you know. And you don’t mind pulling up the drawbridge as long as you, or your child, get yours.
Lots of comments about ‘so long as they are qualified’, doesn’t matter if someone else is more qualified just so long as little Donnie can add and subtract, or ‘a sense of community’ because George’s Grandad went here. Absolutely the way to keep outsiders out of ‘our’ group, let’s keep it all very clubby.
Donald Trump isn’t the outlier. He is the US.
38
Yep.
But can you point to a country that is a true meritocracy? I can’t.
4
@Al
I can point to a fair few that are better including ironically the UK. I went to Cambridge and my son to Oxford. Legacies are actively discouraged.
6
@David
"Donald Trump isn’t the outlier. He is the US"
But his brain is still in Munich.
I disagree on many grounds. What I will say here is that my kids will be fourth generation at a particular Ivy League school. This school has received professorships, classrooms and more in donations from my family over the years. What I can say with certainty is that if they reject my kids, I will reject them in terms of future financial support. They know this.
21
@DRS Of course, those donations are the primary reason universities use the legacy system. It doesn't always work, but the odds are with the system. The big question is what does the university really use that money for? I'm afraid it is not actually for professorships and academic excellence, no matter what they say. It is most often to purchase more real estate and expand the university's power.
6
@DRS I think the Ivy League School will do fine without your donation and maintain their excellence. There are many alum whose children do not gain admission despite their legacy status, yet who donate millions for other reasons than buying their children's admission. In addition, there are top schools that do not admit based on legacies and also maintain their excellence.
15
Why in the world are your kids entitled to admission simply because of a family history of attendance and donations? Do they deserve a slot more than the non-legacy striver whose main qualification is merit and for whom the ivy credential will be more helpful in terms of social mobility than it would for your kids. I ask you to consider the greater good- not just what’s nice for your family.
12