5 ms·

Sounds like a good reason to eliminate legacy admissions if the claim is that these students can compete without the crutch.

atleastoptimal 3y ago
"legacy admissions" don't exist as an official thing, it's not like any school explicitly states how many legacy students it will admit. It's a term to address the phenomenon of those related to alumni being more frequently admitted
- detaro 3y ago
  Places like Harvard do have explicit policies to give such students advantages, so no, it's very much an official thing.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  They have "college attended" for each parent on the first page of the PDF application form. Removing that would be easy.
- tnecniv 3y ago
  It totally is an official thing or was when I applied. Statistics on legacy vs non-legacy admission rates and how legacy status was factored (the nature of the advantage you got varied by school) in were readily available when I was applying to schools.
leetcrew 3y ago
I think the argument is the opposite... they start with one or more orders of magnitude of qualified applicants in excess of capacity. and to meet DEI goals, only X% of those accepted can be white anyway. how they actually pick from the qualified applicant pool is fairly arbitrary to begin with. so as long as whatever on-campus KPIs they track for the legacy-admit population are the same, why does it really matter? I was not personally a legacy admit to my college (so no skin in the game really), but fwiw I don't think it's an entirely illegitimate thing to select for. most schools have their own distinct culture and consider that an important thing to preserve. I imagine families that try to send their children to a specific school over multiple generations probably feel a stronger connection to that school than the typical graduate, so putting a thumb on the scale to help them seems like an approach that could work. if anything, I'm more upset about how recruiting for college sports works.
- tchaffee 3y ago
  So these schools have goals to increase diversity but they want to preserve their culture? Those are competing goals. Eliminating legacy admissions would be a lasting increase in diversity.
  - leetcrew 3y ago
    I don't see those two as mutually exclusive, prima facie, unless you see "culture" as a euphemism for "perpetuating white supremacy". it certainly can be, but it can also be things like haverford's honor code, which only works when a critical mass of students find it meaningful. or it can be totally innocuous traditions like u chicago's annual scavenger hunt. elite schools can accept being each other's close competitors, but they can't accept being indistinguishable substitutes for their +/- 1 peers on the us news leaderboard.
    - tchaffee 3y ago
      Legacy admissions have a close to zero chance of increasing diversity. The entire point is that people who are just like former students get preference. By definition it's the opposite of a program to seek out those who have a different life experience than the status quo.
  - runsWphotons 3y ago
    No, it won't. Plenty of legacy admits are "diverse" now. And with increase of standards from banning affirmative action, legacy status will be the best chance of many from "diverse" backgrounds.
    - tchaffee 3y ago
      Why are you putting diverse in quotes? Do you have data supporting your claim that "plenty of legacy admits are diverse"? By definition the legacy admissions are very similar to previous attendees. You need to explain how that would increase diversity.

atleastoptimal 3y ago

"legacy admissions" don't exist as an official thing, it's not like any school explicitly states how many legacy students it will admit. It's a term to address the phenomenon of those related to alumni being more frequently admitted

detaro 3y ago
Places like Harvard do have explicit policies to give such students advantages, so no, it's very much an official thing.
Symbiote 3y ago
They have "college attended" for each parent on the first page of the PDF application form. Removing that would be easy.
tnecniv 3y ago
It totally is an official thing or was when I applied. Statistics on legacy vs non-legacy admission rates and how legacy status was factored (the nature of the advantage you got varied by school) in were readily available when I was applying to schools.

leetcrew 3y ago

I think the argument is the opposite... they start with one or more orders of magnitude of qualified applicants in excess of capacity. and to meet DEI goals, only X% of those accepted can be white anyway. how they actually pick from the qualified applicant pool is fairly arbitrary to begin with. so as long as whatever on-campus KPIs they track for the legacy-admit population are the same, why does it really matter? I was not personally a legacy admit to my college (so no skin in the game really), but fwiw I don't think it's an entirely illegitimate thing to select for. most schools have their own distinct culture and consider that an important thing to preserve. I imagine families that try to send their children to a specific school over multiple generations probably feel a stronger connection to that school than the typical graduate, so putting a thumb on the scale to help them seems like an approach that could work. if anything, I'm more upset about how recruiting for college sports works.

tchaffee 3y ago
So these schools have goals to increase diversity but they want to preserve their culture? Those are competing goals. Eliminating legacy admissions would be a lasting increase in diversity.
- leetcrew 3y ago
  I don't see those two as mutually exclusive, prima facie, unless you see "culture" as a euphemism for "perpetuating white supremacy". it certainly can be, but it can also be things like haverford's honor code, which only works when a critical mass of students find it meaningful. or it can be totally innocuous traditions like u chicago's annual scavenger hunt. elite schools can accept being each other's close competitors, but they can't accept being indistinguishable substitutes for their +/- 1 peers on the us news leaderboard.
  - tchaffee 3y ago
    Legacy admissions have a close to zero chance of increasing diversity. The entire point is that people who are just like former students get preference. By definition it's the opposite of a program to seek out those who have a different life experience than the status quo.
- runsWphotons 3y ago
  No, it won't. Plenty of legacy admits are "diverse" now. And with increase of standards from banning affirmative action, legacy status will be the best chance of many from "diverse" backgrounds.
  - tchaffee 3y ago
    Why are you putting diverse in quotes? Do you have data supporting your claim that "plenty of legacy admits are diverse"? By definition the legacy admissions are very similar to previous attendees. You need to explain how that would increase diversity.