I’d like to see a breakdown as to what percentage of employee child admits are the kids of blue collar janitors and groundskeepers versus the children of faculty or doctors. They just did a study that found that 47% of white Harvard undergraduates get in with some kind of special treatment. Harvard even has an acronym for the process: ALDC…Athletes, Legacies, Dean’s List (daddy’s a billionaire or a Senator), Children.
I’d imagine the Miami Legacy $$ donations ( and elsewhere) will be negatively impacted.This is likely a topic that gets legacy admissions at most universities brought up with Alumni donors.
The interesting thing about this topic from an alum standpoint is that there are only finite times in an alum’s life where this topic matters: ie, I’ve got a kid or grand kid looking at schools. It’s a rare thing that happens very infrequently unless you have a giant family. But from the school’s POV, it’s an evergreen issue as every year, there’s a bunch of kids/grandkids of a former alum in every potential class trying to use that as another point on the entrance resume. So in some respect it probably affects the school most.
Now, here’s the real issue imho: “I’ve been giving you money for x years and you won’t let my grandkid in? Well then you’re off the payroll!” It’s a fundraising issue (to me) along with other ethical issues it might bring up.
1 Like
I read that the Ivies and similar schools won’t even consider donor status until about the $10M mark, so I don’t think that’s an issue for most alumni. If I remember the figure, Kushner’s daddy bought his spot at Harvard for $12.5M, and that was 20+ years ago. Miami is neither the fundraising machine nor eye-of-the-needle acceptance rate type of school. Miami’s acceptance rate last year was 88.6%, so I doubt too many people are buying spots in the freshman class. I don’t think it would terribly suffer if it abandoned legacy preferences. OSU doesn’t have them, and they’ve built up a $7B endowment. Just do it quietly, and most people wouldn’t even take notice.
2 Likes
Out of curiosity, what “ethical issues” would abandoning legacy admissions bring up? From my perspective, the ethical issues lie solely with the practice of legacy admissions.
1 Like
Then it would seem to be hard to make the argument that wealthy legacy kids have an academic advantage over others.
They don’t have an academic advantage. They have an admissions advantage.
I think we are saying the same thing although I might not have been clear.
1 Like
Others make the argument they have an academic advantage because their folks leverage tutors, expensive SAT training courses, extra time on standardized tests, academic camps, athletics camps and run them through outstanding prep schools where they learn to study like a successful college student. Unless this is not true, you can’t substantiate your argument.
And despite all that, they need a legacy boost for admission. Please explain to me the societal value of bumping their privileged asses up from Colgate to Harvard. I’m having a hard time figuring it out.
FWIW, I support affirmative action because I think it serves a societal good. I don’t support legacy admits because its end result is to perpetuate classism and inequality. Now with regards to the former, I support it in that I also believe that it should be a combination of race and socio-economic background. I brought that up at a dinner discussion once where a black biglaw partner was present, and the look on his face was as if I’d just put on a white hood. So, I’m not some knee jerk liberal on the issue,
Out of curiosity, do you support legacy admits? Affirmative action admits?
1 Like
As long as Legacy admits pay full tuition, there’s absolutely no problem; after all, universities are in it for the money. As far as affirmative action; I’m not sure fighting racism with racism is the best idea. The better option is to ensure students are properly educated to successfully gain admission into college.
3 Likes
Actually, I support both, with legacy admission especially important in sustaining private colleges and universities.
Legacy admission families are traditionally quite devoted to the institution. They not only pay full tuition but often make significant donations to the colleges and universities. Similar to most foreign students, whose families often do the same, money from these families underwrites the cost of attendance of low to middle income affirmative action admits as well as other academically highly capable admits with limited financial means.
As many as 40% of the students of many of these elite private institutions are on substantial financial aid. Several - ranging from Princeton, Yale and Harvard to Little Ivies like Amherst and other NESCAC schools - have made a commitment to underwriting the full cost of attendance of admitted students based solely on financial need, and without student loans. Their admissions policies are “need blind.” A student doesn’t even need to indicate a need for financial aid on their application for admission. If they get in the college will underwrite their cost of attendance based solely on financial need. A student whose family makes less than $85k a year currently attends Harvard at no cost.
My own kid - a non-legacy applicant with a 99th percentile SSAT score, a 2050 SAT score - plus the ability to play D3 college varsity hockey and baseball - received $40k a year in grants to attend a Little Ivy college. As a retired federal official and single dad, we made up the balance with cash and student loans.
That said, I think it’s important to note that NESCAC coaches - under conference rules - only get a “push” on one or two recruits in each class…and the Admissions officers require that “push” admit to be fairly close to a standard admit. My kid wasn’t a “Push.” More than 30% of students at NESCAC colleges participate in varsity athletics.
The Ivy League applies a similar - but somewhat different - process for admission of varsity athletes. The percentage of students participating in ICA at Ivy schools is only 8-10% - primarily due to the fact that Ivy schools are considerably bigger than NESCAC colleges.
That financial aid to limited income students like my son and others is largely underwritten by Hamilton College’s (2,000 students) huge $1.3 billion endowment, built over time by donations from economically successful Hamilton families - many with multi-generational alumni. Those donations also underwrite the Hamilton College program aimed at recruiting and admitting highly capable students from targeted urban Zip Codes - who not surprisingly - often end up being affirmative action admissions. That program will likely continue in spite of the recent SCOTUS decision on affirmative action.
The bottom line is that I support a multiplicity of programs that make private colleges academically elite, affordable, and accessible to a wide range of students - including giving extra consideration to generous legacy families with deep pockets.
I’ll let you know that what you have listed happens at every 4 year undergraduate school. Not just the Ivy League
1 Like