What's wrong with legacy admissions?

In the case of legacy admissions, elite universities are effectively discriminating against less privileged students for the benefit of the wealthy — and some donors are enabling them.

What is the problem with legacy admissions?

We expect that the self-made will be talented, innovative and competent in all respects, ultimately bettering society at large. Legacy admissions are antithetical to this ideal. The practice discriminates against those who are less connected but more deserving in favor of the more privileged yet less impressive.

What are the disadvantages of being a legacy student?

The bigger drawback is that legacy admissions tend to reenforce a lack of diversity in a university. Historically, since most college students were white and upperclass, legacy admissions are likely to be white and upperclass. By definition, they will not be first generation college students.

Why are legacy admissions still a thing?

It is largely, almost exclusively, done by private colleges and universities. These institutions are able to thrive due to donations from alumni and friends of the college. If you want the well-off alumni to continue to write checks, you admit their children. It's almost entirely done for the money it attracts.

Is legacy admission fair?

Just 30% of college students say that legacy admissions practices are fair. Overall, 32% agree that legacy admissions could have helped their chances of getting into the college of their choice versus the 46% who say the practice may have hurt their chances.

U.S. colleges divided over whether to end legacy admissions

Do universities care about legacy?

Although being a legacy often helps students get admitted to a competitive college, many experts agree that the true value of legacy status is contextual – it depends on both the institution and the applicant.

Does Oxford accept legacy?

Legacy admissions do not exist at Oxford, Cambridge or virtually anywhere else globally. It is a distinctly American practice. It sounds unusual and quite unfair. If you compare universities outside of America — even some of the best — there is a stark difference in many dimensions.

What schools do not accept legacy admissions?

Does Harvard consider legacy?

Someone with a parent who attended Harvard is a primary legacy. Someone with a grandparent or some other relative who attended is a secondary legacy. Only primary legacies really get an advantage in terms of admissions.

Which schools have banned legacy admissions?

Although M.I.T. has stood out among the most selective institutions in reportedly never having considered legacy status, Johns Hopkins eliminated legacy admissions in 2014, and was followed by Pomona, Amherst, and Wesleyan.

What percent of Harvard is legacy?

Harvard gives preference to applicants who are recruited athletes, legacies, relatives of donors and children of faculty and staff. As a group, they make up less than 5 percent of applicants, but around 30 percent of those admitted each year.

Is a legacy good or bad?

But this is no hard-edged sports car, with a supple ride that soaks up bad roads. All of this makes the Legacy a particularly well-rounded performer.

Is Legacy a good or bad thing?

A legacy is something transmitted by or received from an ancestor or predecessor. Your legacy is the total of your life experiences, beliefs, values, and traditions passed down from generation to generation. It is the good, bad, and everything you leave behind. Leaving a legacy is important for many reasons.

Why do universities like legacy students?

The “logic” is that legacy students are most likely to matriculate, most likely to graduate, most likely to be happy with the school, and most likely to donate. They continually support the school. Students are familiar with what their parents do and did, and where they went to school.

Why do Ivy Leagues care about legacy?

In fact, legacy admission isn't just a non-merit-based advantage — it is the mechanism by which elite schools shield themselves from having to demonstrate their own merit. The first time I applied to Harvard Law School, I was waitlisted, then rejected. My mother had attended the law school three decades earlier.

Do legacy students have an advantage?

Legacy Advantage, Quantified. Children of alumni had a large admissions advantage. But when they applied to other elite colleges in the study, their admissions rates were only slightly higher than average.

What is Harvard's big dumb bet on legacy admissions?

Research published this year by economists from Harvard and Brown found that children from families in the top 1% were "more than twice as likely" to attend an Ivy League school or Stanford, MIT, Duke, and University of Chicago as children from middle-class families who had comparable scores on standardized tests — ...

What percent of legacy admissions are white?

The complaint argues that legacy admissions are tantamount to racial discrimination because Harvard grants preferential treatment to legacies – 70% of whom are white.

What percent of Yale is legacy?

Eleven percent of the Yale College class of 2027 are legacies, according to the admissions office's First-Year Class Profile. This number marks a slight decrease in legacy population from the class of 2026, which has 12 percent legacy students, and the class of 2025, which has 14 percent legacy students.

Does Yale consider legacy?

They are looking for schools' top students and you should push your legacy to be in that range. Even if your school doesn't do formalized ranks, Yale knows if your student is in the top 10ish percent of their class based on their transcripts.

Does Yale accept legacy?

Yale is not the only college in Connecticut that considers legacy connections as part of its admissions process. But it appears to do do on a larger scale than others.

Do legacy students pay less?

Legacy status may also work as a proxy for financial need.

In other words, these students are more likely to be able to pay full tuition without help from the university. “It's a way to circumvent need-blind policies,” said Richard D. Kahlenberg, an education expert and a nonresident scholar at Georgetown University.

Does Cambridge care about legacy?

Supporters of the elimination of all non-academic preferences point out that many European universities, including highly selective institutions such as Oxford, Cambridge, UCL and London School of Economics do not use legacy, racial, or athletic preferences in admissions decisions.

Do siblings count as legacy?

Yes, having a sibling who attended or is attending an institution can improve an applicant's chances of being accepted. This is known as legacy admissions.

How many Ivy League students are legacy?

At many Ivy League schools, about 12 to 16 percent of each class is made up of legacies. (The portion is smaller at some.)