Legacy Admissions

What is legacy admissions?

Legacy admissions is a policy that grants preferences to the children of alumni. The policy has been particularly important in the Ivy League and other elite, private schools. The logic has been that children of alumni may be among the most eager applicants, as they have learned a lot about a school literally at their parent’s knee. In addition, legacy admissions is a sort of business strategy. At these private, elite universities, alumni represent a huge chunk of the donors who regularly and generously give to the college.  It makes sense, from a business perspective, to cultivate these donors with the abstract promise that their children will be given special consideration when they eventually (inevitably?) apply for admission. It also makes sense that satisfied parents who see their progeny running around the campus of their alma mater will continue to give–and perhaps give so that their grandchildren, too, might be given the same sorts of preferences.

Legacy admissions is all about perpetuating the American elite

The thing to remember is that not so long ago, the Ivy League schools and the other private, elite schools of the east coast really were just for the elite.  That is to say, the rich and powerful. While most of these schools had admissions tests of some kind, the fact was that kids from families who were neither rich nor connected to the powerful had little chance to get in. And when some people, like Jews on the Lower East Side of Manhattan began to “crack the code” and be accepted in greater numbers, these schools just changed their admissions policies to protect the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant elite and keep the Jews out (the best presentation of the evolution of admissions policies in the Ivy League is Jerome Karabel’s The Chosen:  The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton).

While many thanks have changed in the admissions offices in the Ivy League–especially since the advent of affirmative action policies–legacy admissions have remained an important part of the Ivy League and other elite, private colleges and universities. We might also want to keep some perspective.  Back in 1980, 24% of Yale’s freshman class were legacies.  In 2014, the percentage had dropped to only 13%. Of course, 13% is still significant:  about 216 students out of 1660 in the first year class.  But it ain’t what it used to be. And ironically, what forced that relative decline in the percentage of legacy students, in many respects, is the policy that the Supreme Court has just rejected:  affirmative action.

Legacy admission is not just for white people anymore

At most of the Ivy League schools and at many other elite, private colleges, white people are now in the minority. And many minorities have passed through the halls of these schools over the past 40-50 years, such that their children now have that legacy preference. I recently attended my Dartmouth reunion, and met quite a few folks–of a variety of ethnicities–who had children who had graduated from Dartmouth.

The fact is, legacy admission is still about perpetuating the elite.  But thanks to other sorts of admissions policies, including affirmative action, Black, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous people also are benefitting from legacy admissions. It is not a racist policy.  It is a business-oriented policy that is protective of the interests of the community that the private institution serves.

This may all seem unsavory, but legacy admission is not the same thing as affirmative action.  Legacy admission–in the first quarter of the twenty-first century–is an institutional preference that is not at all based on race…at least not anymore.

Legacy admission vs. wealth as a path to entry

According to a 2023 study by some Harvard researchers, the real boost for admission is not legacy status, but wealth. Raj Chetty (who has done a lot to dispel myths about how higher education really works in this country) and his colleagues have shown that more than any other factor, wealth of the student’s family is the best predictor of admission.

Money talks. The rich have more access.

This is no surprise.

However, I have been surprised by the “surprise” that so many have expressed when they have discovered that families in the top one-percent of have a better chance of admission.  This is just the elite replicating itself, once again.

Legacy admissions and “yield”

Since the rise of the US News rankings in 1983, colleges have been increasingly protective of their “yield rate:”  the percentage of offers of admission that are accepted by their recipients.  Harvard has a high yield rate that hovers around 80-85%.  Other universities have a low yield rate: lots of kids apply but few really want to go there.

US News tracks this as part of the rankings:  the higher the yield rate, the “better” the college. The fact is that even at not-so-selective schools, children of alumni have a higher propensity to accept an offer of admission than a kids whose parents did not attend.  And what is true at the not-so-selective schools is also true at the very selective schools.

However, some of this link between yield and legacy has disappeared, as the Ivies have tended to show a clear preference to admit legacies in the Early Decision round–when the nominal yield rate is already 100 percent. The University of Pennsylvania used to make it quite clear–on their admissions website–that legacies would need to apply ED if they wanted the legacy “bump” in admissions. Interestingly, such language no longer exists on the Penn website.

Because of this important link between legacy status and yield, we may find that some of the less selective schools may hang on to legacy preferences (either by public pronouncement or more likely by quiet maintenance of the status quo), even as some of the most selective schools abandon them (definitely with great fanfare and a public relations campaign to match).

The future of legacy admissions

What will happen to legacy admission policies in light of the Supreme Court ruling eliminating affirmative action?  Already there is another court case against Harvard pressing for the elimination of legacy admission.

Already a few highly selective, private colleges have eliminated legacy preferences:  Wesleyan University, Amherst College, Johns Hopkins University, and Carnegie Mellon University have been among the first to strike the preferences. A few public universities have done away with it, too, but legacy admission was never as important at public universities as at the elite private schools, and these enrollments were never tracked quite as carefully, as lots of Michiganders who attended the University of Michigan have kids who also attended, and many a loyal UT-Austin family have struck up rivalries with neighbors whose families are loyal Aggies.

My sense is that it will be harder for the Supreme Court to strike down a business practice that is not discriminating by race–but by wealth and income or the ability to donate.  If children of Black alumni get the same preference as kids of White or Asian alumni, then it may be more difficult for SCOTUS to consider this a discriminatory policy except on the issue of ability to pay.

Still, colleges and universities that still cling to legacy admissions policies are on notice that the public at large is not all that happy with those preferences.  Kids on campuses are protesting against these policies. It’s hard for Boards of Trustees to defend the policies in this political climate.

Then again, one of the reasons why parents are willing to shell out so much money to pay full price for these elite schools is the “connections” they will make with the movers and shakers of America.  Every family wants their kids to attend school with kids whose names are Rockefeller, Kennedy, Bush, or Clinton. They know that what they are paying for is not so much a classroom education where one learns from particularly brilliant professors. Rather, they are paying for access to the elite of America. And some of that elite is, indeed, the aristocratic families of this country (which formally has no aristocracy). Doing away with legacy admissions altogether could fundamentally change the Ivies.  And if getting into an Ivy were purely based on academic merit alone, would anyone really want to go to school with a bunch brilliant people who had no access to the elite, who had no social or financial capital at their fingertips, who could not make a few phone calls and open doors to power and influence?

I’m not defending the practice.  But two questions bear consideration.

First, can a private institution decide whom it will serve–as long as it is not discriminating on the basis of race or otherwise violating the law? We do allow, for instance, some schools not to accept students of a particular gender (yes, Wellesley, I’m looking at you). Some colleges (Liberty, Bob Jones) discriminate on the basis of religion:  you gotta toe the doctrinal line if you want to attend some schools.  SCOTUS also has indicated that businesses can refuse service to particular people on the basis of their religious beliefs.  Country clubs can decide not to admit someone, and they don’t have to give a reason for the rejection.  Even Rotary Clubs and Elks Clubs and Lions Clubs–as private entities–are under no obligation to accept someone for membership–as long as they are not breaking any anti-discrimination laws.  Therefore, to what degree can colleges be free to set their own admissions policies, popular opinion be damned?

Second, if legacy preferences were entirely eliminated, along with all other non-academic, non-merit factors in admission (including the wealth of the family), would these institutions have the allure that they do now?  We all cannot be rich, but maybe we can rub shoulders with them?  We can’t all be from American dynastic families, but maybe we can hang out and drink beer with them, and maybe have one as a lab partner? If admission to the top private universities were simply a matter of academic merit alone, would everyone still want to go to them?

Does it help to be a legacy when applying to college?

Sure, it helps to be a legacy if you’re applying to the college to which your parents attended–if you’re applying to one of those schools that still exercises legacy preferences.  At least as so far as we know, right now.

But it also helps if you’re an athlete.

It also helps if you’re a musician.

It also helps if you’re an artist.

It also helps if you want to study Portuguese and the college is desperately looking for students to fill Portuguese classes.

And by God, it definitely, incontrovertibly helps if your parents can shell out the full price for the cost of four years of tuition, room, board, fees, and beer money.

You get the idea. Being a legacy is just one hook amongst many when it comes to applying to college. And that hook may be disappearing. Or it may not.

But being a legacy at the top Ivies, aka, “the holy trinity” – Harvard, Yale, Princeton) – isn’t what it used to be.

And it may be that the preference will go away altogether.

Wondering if your legacy status will help you get admitted?

If you want to chat about the possibilities and the pitfalls of exercising your legacy status, give us a call.  There is no right or wrong answer to this question–at least not at the moment. What you need to do is examine your goals, your preferences, and your own moral compass.  We can help you sort through the issues to come up with your own approach.  So don’t hesitate to give us a call or contact us on our website.

Mark Montgomery
Educational Consultant