The legacy system in colleges was invented in the late 1920s to keep Jewish students out of ‘elite’ American colleges, but today it is a preferential admissions policy that gives an advantage to children of alumni. But many institutions have begun abolishing this controversial system for a multitude of reasons.
To recognize the problem with this policy, you have to understand the magnitude of the advantage it gives to a legacy applicant. An estimate by the US. Naviance, an education software company, shows that legacies have a 31% higher admission rate than the average applicant. At competitive Ivy institutions this is a huge boost, for example, at Harvard, it’s the difference between a competitive 6% acceptance rate versus a 34% legacy acceptance rate. If this doesn’t shock you, think of it as a 160 point increase on your SAT score, as quantified by Princeton sociologist Thomas Espenshade. Thus, criticism surrounding the weight of the advantage paired with the social inequality the legacy policy fosters, have caused it to be infamously labelled: ‘affirmative action for the white’.
This socially unjust policy increases the occurrences of class inequality within the student body of institutions that allow it. The legacy system allows people who were privileged enough to attend the school to send their children there as well, and most times these affluent descendants are taking spots from other, less wealthy candidates.
What’s more worrisome is that those in support of legacy admissions claim that it encourages alumni to donate funds to the school, which allows more underprivileged students to gain scholarships. This is another way of saying that by paying extra money to the school, your child has a higher chance of entry. In fact, Michael Dannenberg, the director of strategic initiatives for policy at Education Reform Now, compares this policy to “ auctioning acceptance letters on eBay”. applicants, and 4.8% of accepted African American applicants, were legacies.
What’s more worrisome is that those in support of legacy admissions claim that it encourages alumni to donate funds to the school, which allows more underprivileged students to gain scholarships. This is another way of saying that by paying extra money to the school, your child has a higher chance of entry. In fact, Michael Dannenberg, the director of strategic initiatives for policy at Education Reform Now, compares this policy to “ auctioning acceptance letters on eBay”.
Even considering that legacy policies garner donations which aid underprivileged admissions, this argument barely even holds true. For instance, at Yale University the legacy policy, although still in action, has decreased legacy candidates from 1980 to 2010. The percentage of legacy students in the freshman class decreased from 24 percent to 13 percent, but interestingly enough, donations from alumni increased from $2 billion to $16 billion! (After accounting for inflation).
While many ‘higher end’ schools have begun eliminating this legacy system, some are a little more hesitant. But one way or another, with the increasing scrutiny this unequal affirmative action system is facing, colleges will either have to abolish the policy or become much more transparent about the details of their admission processes, which could eventually shame them into ending it all together.