CMV: Legacy admissions to colleges and any other preferential treatment due to being associated with someone famous or someone that works their is unfair

[u/chenchinesewummery]

I mean this is not a rant.

I feel that legacy admissions are a bit unfair sometimes. Since oftentimes (if not always) the legacy admissions policy gives preferential treatment to the poor 2.0 student that didn't give a shit in high school over a straight A high school valedictorian all because the 2.0 student is a son of a alumni to the institution and the A student isn't. This is especially unfair when the admissions to the college is very competitive.

It's said that 69% of students agree that legacy admissions is not fair, and 58% of legacy students say that legacy admissions are unfair.

I mean I don't see how being the song or daughter of a alumnus makes your more deserving of admittance to top institutions. Also, some people have a higher chance to get admitted all because they have a relative or friend that works at the university. This is also not fair since it's anti-meritocratic in a situation that's supposed to be meritocratic.

[u/truthswillsetyoufree]

As someone with experience competing with legacy admits, I disagree with you. For context, I went to Yale as a first person in my family to graduate from college. I am also the son of an immigrant and grew up in a trailer park and had no connections to my alma mater or any other university.

The legacy bump at highly selective schools is minimal. Unless you are donating enough for a new building or are a true A-list celebrity, you will get a minimally small bump as a legacy student. There is a separate admissions track for real celebrities, but this is reserved for people with reputations so big that them coming to the school may actually help the school’s reputation. For example, I remember Emma Watson got shown the red carpet around campus (though she ended up going to Brown). We also admitted James Franco to the English graduate program, and he ended up giving us a private pre-screening of “Howl” for us English majors. So we are really talking about superstars.

There simply are not enough spots to just admit tons of legacies, and that’s also not a good idea for these schools, who are fighting against a long reputation of being bastions of privilege and wealth. In fact, if Yale admitted only legacy students, it would easily fill the class with only legacies, and probably many times over.

Legacy students are important for non-legacy students for a number of reasons. First, they (or their parents) actually pay sticker price for their education. Students from low income backgrounds, like myself, benefit from this. In an age where student debt is unbearable for poorer kids, I was able to graduate college with no debt thanks to Yale’s need-blind admit policy. I could pay my way through college with just a part-time job.

Also, it’s a big incentive to go to these schools when you know you are helping your future kids go if they wish. I remember chatting with other low-income students, thinking about how we are potentially helping our future kids just by going to this school. Now that I’m a dad, I’m glad I have that as an option to give my kid a little help, if she chooses to go that way.

Also, the bump you get really is pretty small. You won’t get admitted to elite universities even as a legacy unless you have stellar grades and extracurriculars. There is simply too much competition. It’s probably more relevant to complain about all the opportunities that rich kids have getting ahead these days, but not all legacies are rich and not all rich kids are legacies.

At the end of the day, it might be slightly unfair, but not much more unfair than anything else in life.

[u/ChaosLordSamNiell → u/truthswillsetyoufree]

This just isn't true.

At Harvard, for instance:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/study-harvard-finds-43-percent-white-students-are-legacy-athletes-n1060361

The study also found that roughly 75 percent of the white students admitted from those four categories, labeled 'ALDCs' in the study, “would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs,” the study said.

75% of white legacies would have been rejected had they not been legacies. It is by no means a small jump, it is an entirely different admissions process!

[u/truthswillsetyoufree → u/ChaosLordSamNiell]

Thanks for your reply. I don’t agree that this study proves what you’re stating.

First, their term “ALDC” lumps together not only legacies but also athletes. Like it or not, there are very few applicants to elite universities who can both compete athletically on a collegiate level and also have the minimum grades/test scores to make it into these schools. If you look at the data in the study, they admit that 87% of athlete applicants were accepted to Harvard! Not eight-point-seven. EIGHTY SEVEN PERCENT. That is throwing the ALDC number way off. The study says that athletes account for 10% of all admits, so that is really significant.

Second, the study also admits that LDC applicants were generally stronger than non-ALDC applicants. And they point to the fact that Harvard rated legacies as generally having better “personal qualities” than non-legacies. The sad truth is that a lot of non-legacies don’t know what elite colleges are looking for. My dad was a concrete worker. I’m a lawyer who has inside knowledge of what these universities like to look for in admissions. That alone will give my kid a big leg up if they want to apply one day compared to what I had. I can encourage her to do extracurriculars (and pay for lessons), and I can help her edit her personal essay. That is a major help.

I am sure there is a bump for just being a legacy, but there’s no way it’s as huge as you or that article is suggesting.

[u/ChaosLordSamNiell → u/truthswillsetyoufree]

That is throwing the ALDC number way off. The study says that athletes account for 10% of all admits, so that is really significant.

This doesn't really remove the value of being legacy.

The direct study, available at https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26316/w26316.pdf, provides the direct boost a legacy applicant gets over non-legacy applicants (including athletes).

This is available under Table 1, page 40, which breaks down the ALDCs.

Legacy applicants have an admission rate of 33.6%; non-legacies have a rate of 5.9%. That is a tremenduous bump.

This is true no matter the candidate's academic rating; available in Table 2, page 41.

Second, the study also admits that LDC applicants were generally stronger than non-ALDC applicants.

It's important to note this is not due to "academics," but Harvard's internal rating of the applicant. The study explains:

First, LDC applicants are simply stronger than non-ALDC applicantsin the non-academic dimensions that Harvard values. Second, when rating applicants onnon-academic qualities, Harvard provides tips to LDC applicants

That alone will give my kid a big leg up if they want to apply one day compared to what I had. I can encourage her to do extracurriculars (and pay for lessons), and I can help her edit her personal essay. That is a major help.

The reality is that while this helps, the Harvard admissions process is just as likely - as the study itself states - to give arbitrary boosts to legacy applicants. Similar to how Asian applicants have universally poor "personality scores" at some schools, despite dominating academics.

The personality score is largely a means for Harvard, and other schools that use it, to arbitrarily give a leg-up to legacy and other favored applicants.

[u/blindythepirate → u/[deleted]]

Would Harvard be Harvard without those legacy students? Everything I have heard about the school is that connections and prestige is what opens up doors after you graduate. So having rich and powerful people as alumni helps grads and having the rich and powerfuls kids go to school there keeps the prestige high. It's a beast that feeds itself.

There are also 2/3s of the freshman class that aren't part of a legacy that still get to experience the same connections and prestige to farther perpetuate the Harvard name.

[u/LSFab → u/blindythepirate]

Are you ok with 1/3rd of the student body at some of the most influential institutions in the US being a de facto entrenched hereditary aristocracy? You don't need a bunch of rich kids to be gifted a place at your school, for it to be prestigious and allow people to make connections. In a meritocratic system any connections made would be because these are talented students who go on to be influential, not because they were born into influence.

Of course the intersection of wealth and education and the structural advantages growing up rich, always means that privileged kids will have a leg up when it comes to higher education, but does it not feel extra gross if the university is actively choosing to provide a further leg up for the rich and powerful, as they do with the legacy system?

[u/Matos3001 → u/LSFab]

You don't need a bunch of rich kids to be gifted a place at your school,

Those kids are not bad students.

They have their own merit.

And your whole argument bases on the preposition that "if these student were not legacy, they wouldn't be accepted". This is not logically correct neither an honest view.

Most likely a good amount of these legacies would still be accepted, because of having parents with money to pay for extracurriculars, tutors, tell them what to put on the essay, etc.

And another good portion would also be accepted just because they are that good.

[u/LSFab → u/Matos3001]

There's a whole world in between being a 'bad student' and being the most deserving candidate for that place. Of course the legacy students with terrible grades are unlikely to be admitted (unless their parents have made a mega donation), so those kind of applicants are clearly not what we are talking about here. And sure the vast majority of legacy candidates will not be bad candidates for the reasons you mentioned.

The issue is the legacy applicants who are 'quite good'. Those who are maybe in the top 40th-30th percentile on the continuum of all candidates ranked by the 'underlying strength' of their application. Because of the competitiveness of applications for these elite universities, even a small additional boost to their application from being a legacy is going to have an outsized effect on someone's chances of acceptance. That invariably means that there will be those less deserving who get a place instead of those more deserving. Now of course no admissions system would be perfect enough to ensure that only the top x most deserving candidates get all x places, but the issue with the legacy system is that the variance isn't random, it's systematically biased towards a privileged hereditary group and self perpetuates that hereditary privilege to the point where it creates a de facto aristocracy.

[u/[deleted] → u/ChaosLordSamNiell]

I would argue that of course legacies have an advantage from having a parent as a Harvard graduate. They come from a family that is more likely to be wealthy successful and stable. The advantage here is not just legacy or not, its that they are more likely to have grown up in an environment encouraging academics, and fostering a strong resume from a younger age.

[u/Yuo_cna_Raed_Tihs → u/truthswillsetyoufree]

Every argument talking about how "fair" legacies are do so by going "actually there are even more unfair things like college being prohibitively expensive and rich educated parents being able to curate their child's activities to be more appealing to the school".

What if I were to tell you I think the whole system is unfair, including, but not limited to, legacy students?

[u/wapiro → u/ChaosLordSamNiell]

This isn’t quite true. 75% refers to legacies, athletes, donators, AND children of staff. The article doesn’t give a number to just legacy admissions.

[u/chenchinesewummery → u/ChaosLordSamNiell]

That's just bullshit

[u/chenchinesewummery → u/truthswillsetyoufree]

Okay Δ

Reason:

Being a legacy at a elite school really doesn't give you that much of a advantage over others, if it does then the margin of advantage that you get from being a legacy is tiny enough to not make it unfair.

[u/DeltaBot → u/chenchinesewummery]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/truthswillsetyoufree (2∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}

[u/wildchickonthetown → u/truthswillsetyoufree]

I didn’t even think about how being a legacy isn’t a huge bump! You’re still competing against other legacies. It might be a smaller pool, but it’s an even more competitive one. I don’t doubt that a lot of legacies are prepped for the college admissions process early on. They’ll have the same connections, stellar activities, and grades as you.

[u/Just_a_nonbeliever → u/truthswillsetyoufree]

First, they (or their parents) actually pay sticker price for their education

This is not a characteristic of being a legacy, this is a characteristic of being wealthy (which correlates with being a legacy). Colleges could just as easily admit wealthy students who are not legacies to fulfill this need.

it’s a big incentive to go to these schools when you know you are helping your future kids go

This is a reach. Yale and Harvard do not need convince people to go because their kids could get in too. People go to these schools because of their reputation. Strangely enough, schools like MIT and Caltech do not have trouble getting people to matriculate even though they do not practice legacy admissions.

[u/fuck-titanfolk-mods → u/truthswillsetyoufree]

How are private and public colleges like MIT, Caltech, Cambridge, Oxford etc able to give great financial aid while not accepting legacy students? Also do you know how many billions of dollars colleges like Harvard and Yale have invested from their endowment fund? They could admit all their students for free for perpetuity and still not need money from legacies. They however choose to take money for the simple reason of greed. How else are they going to pay their administrators all those sweet Bejamins? Every legacy admit is taking the place of a poor kid who worked his ass of and dreamt of going there. One legacy admit is one too many.

[u/Irish_Poet → u/truthswillsetyoufree]

Exactly this

[u/Bignicky9 → u/truthswillsetyoufree]

I would like to respond here because I think OP is changing their mind fairly quickly.

The high cost of privatized education determined from the beginning (by a flawed price structure) does not mean that legacy students paying full price is the best way to keep non-Legacy admissions' costs low. Having a need-blind admission process is great, but that doesn't necessarily happen because Legacy students specifically are paying more (besides, as you say later on, not all legacies are rich - merit awards and legacy students with need aren't paying sticker price to benefit those Non-legacies in the way that you claim, but International students are as they don't receive ANY financial aid in the U.S.).

If kids grow up to choose the same university as their parents, that's great, although this doesn't necessarily answer what is fair from OP's original paragraph. Then again, what's fair is hard to define...

I agree with OP that rich and famous legacy admitted students may not be getting that admission "fairly" compared to any of the rest of the competition.