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Admissions rates for legacy students are much higher than for the general applicant pool, sometimes by an order of magnitude. But that raw comparison doesn’t sh
by gnicholas 3y ago
Admissions rates for legacy students are much higher than for the general applicant pool, sometimes by an order of magnitude. But that raw comparison doesn’t shed much light on how much the legacy status actually helps, as opposed to the differences among legacy applicants and the general applicant pool.
Is there any data that shows how these students compare to other students who are comparable in terms of family income, high school type, GPA, SAT? I would assume that all of these variables could be significantly different for children of alumni (especially of elite institutions, where admissions is most competitive), so it would be helpful to know what these numbers look like after removing some obvious confounders.
- whimsicalism 3y agoI've seen it before and IIRC the SAT for athletes is terrible and the SAT for legacy is not that worse than average white admission. Can't find that source right now, but here is another one showing identical SAT between legacy and non-legacy. [0] I am biased to this hypothesis probably as a legacy who also had higher test scores than the average admit, went to a shitty public school, etc. Another underdiscussed motivation for legacy admissions is that schools view it as a signal that you are more likely to attend so if they admit you they can keep their admission percentages lower. [0]: https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-why-elite-colleges-cant-give-up-legacy-admissions/ https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-why-elite-colleges-...