The benefit of legacy admissions isn’t just that you can get into Harvard if your dad went to Harvard; it’s the promise that if you get into Harvard, your child

The benefit of legacy admissions isn’t just that you can get into Harvard if your dad went to Harvard; it’s the promise that if you get into Harvard, your children will also have a better chance of getting into Harvard. If you’re not a legacy admit yourself, the practice of legacy admissions means that once your family has climbed high enough up the American class ladder to get you in, you’re going to be able to pass that down to your children. Which of course means that ending legacy admission sort of welches on the deal and takes us marginally closer to a low-trust society in which these sorts of implicit promises are worthless.