The advantages that colleges offer legacy students extend well beyond admission preferences. Many colleges have various mechanisms for coaching legacies through the admissions process and for advising them about strategies for constructing successful applications, including notifying legacies of the edge that they can gain by applying early. Some universities have alumni councils that provide legacies with special advising sessions, pair these would-be students with current legacy students, and generally provide advice and mentoring for legacy applicants. In cases where legacies are rejected, some universities offer legacy admissions counseling and help with placement at other colleges. Such students are often encouraged to enroll at a lesser ranked school for one or two years to prove themselves and then to reapply as transfer students. News & World Report and other media take into account only the SAT scores and high school grades of entering freshmen, a college can accept poor achieving legacies as transfer students without hurting its standing.
A quarter of students admitted through Early Decision to the University of Pennsylvania's Class of 2022 are the children and grandchildren of UPenn alumni. It's an astounding statistic, especially considering legacy students made up only 16% of this year's Early pool. Legacy students were almost twice as likely to earn admission as non-legacy applicants. But it's not like the University of Pennsylvania is alone in offering preferential treatment in admissions to legacy applicants. Ivy Coach is featured in this podcast conducted by Jacob Gardenschwartz and Anika Ranginani and it's certainly worth a listen.
Currently, the Ivy League institutions are estimated to admit 10% to 15% of each entering class using legacy admissions. In 2009, Princeton admitted 41.7% of legacy applicants—more than 4.5 times the 9.2% rate of non-legacies. Similarly, in 2006, Brown University admitted 33.5% of alumni children, significantly higher than the 13.8% overall admissions rate. In short, Ivy League and other top schools typically admit legacies at two to five times their overall admission rates. Among top universities, the University of Notre Dame and Georgetown University are known to weigh legacy status heavily in their application processes. Last month, most highly selective colleges and universities announced their admissions rates for next fall's freshman class.
Many schools saw their rates decline to record lows, and a number of universities had admissions rates under 10%, including Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Yale, Penn, Brown, Duke, Northwestern, and Vanderbilt. In such an ultra-competitive environment, students with one or both parents, siblings, or grandparents who have graduated from the same elite school should definitely consider taking advantage of their standing as legacies. At most top-tier institutions, legacy status is a measurable plus when you're seeking to use every possible advantage to gain a competitive edge. In the college admissions process, "legacy" applicants are students with some kind of familial tie to a university. An applicant normally has legacy status at a college if a member of the applicant's immediate family attends or attended the college, but at certain schools it might also mean a grandparent, aunt or uncle, and cousin. Some institutions restrict their consideration to "primary" legacy, meaning children of alumni; others are happy to extend it in any direction, and include both undergraduate and graduate alumni.
The sample Hurwitz studied was made up of 307,643 domestic applications to 30 of the most selective private colleges and universities in 2007. The study does not name the colleges whose applications were studied. Of course, this is the band of colleges in which legacy admissions could matter the most -- at colleges that are not competitive in admissions, the admission of legacy applicants does not take away slots from others.
Legatt, who worked in admissions at Wharton before founding her company, explains that when the most competitive colleges made test scores optional, "More applicants figured, 'They're not going to look at this 1300. I can do it,' where they would have disqualified themselves in previous years." (Harvard's early-decision applications spiked by 57 percent.) For top-tier colleges, that's a feature, not a bug. "A lot of elite institutions encourage lots of people to apply, accept a small number, and keep their acceptance rate low for prestige," Fiorentino says.
Test-optional policies pushed Ivy League acceptance rates to historic lows, which only makes the schools seem more elusive and exclusive, which only makes more families want in. Legacy connections are most beneficial to a student when they apply for Early Decision . For example, Penn's The Daily Pennsylvanian says that ED, "…favors students who are legacies." The Penn Admissions Office is quoted as stating that, "Children and grandchildren of alumni will receive the most consideration for acceptance under ED. In general, over 40% of legacy students who apply during early decision are accepted." This is a remarkably high rate for legacy admissions at an institution that accepted only 9% of total applicants this year. A legacy student is someone who has a close family member, normally a parent, who attended the same college. These applicants receive special consideration during the admissions process.
At most schools, the legacy boost only counts for applicants who had at least one parent enrolled there, though some colleges may extend legacy status to grandchildren or even siblings of alumni. A 2005 analysis of 180,000 student records obtained from nineteen selective colleges and universities found that, within a set range of SAT scores, being a legacy raised an applicant's chances of admission by 19.7 percentage points. There is, and long has been, opposition to legacy admissions policies from certain quarters. It's unfortunate, but a student's test scores, academic records, and other academic achievements closely correlate with the socioeconomic status of that student. The highest hurdle for disadvantaged students in gaining admission to elite institutions is their relatively weak academic qualifications compared to those of, say, the children of Stanford or Yale alumni.
Because they're more affluent and have greater advantages, the latter tend to have better academic qualifications than the former, so they're more competitive as applicants. The problem, and it is certainly a serious one, is more a factor of the socioeconomic imbalances in our society than it is a matter of the perpetuation of legacy privileges by colleges. Assuming your legacy status will make up for a mediocre academic record. Highly selective colleges and universities are not going to admit students, legacy or not, who are unlikely to succeed.
Legacy status tends to come into play when the admissions officers are comparing two equally qualified applicants. In such cases, the legacy applicant will often have a slight advantage. At the same time, this doesn't mean that colleges won't lower the admissions bar slightly for legacy applicants from prominent and/or extremely wealthy families (but you'll rarely hear colleges admit this fact). Some schools confer legacy status on children of alumni, while others will include grandchildren or siblings. Applicants should check with admissions offices to understand how legacy status is defined at their particular college.
For example, some colleges ask legacy applicants to apply via early decision, Adler notes. As a first generation / low income Asian American parent who attended an Ivy League university, it was fortunate to help my daughter use legacy status to help her gain admission to my alma mater. I do think Asians have a significant disadvantage in the college admissions process and was happy to have legacy level the playing field. My main concern for her was would she be successful and happy at my school. Her tests scores and other credentials were in the top third of last year's class and felt she would do well.
I think all parents should make that judgment call for their children. On a broader point, I do think more and more Asians will start to the see the benefit in legacy admissions as our kids come of age to counter-act the bias against them. I don't want to be cynical because this country provides so much opporunity for those who work hard but it will be interesting if the white establishment will try to modify the rules to benefit them. We have always been fans of applying early decision for the strategic advantage that it gives an applicant, but for legacy applicants, this may be even more important.
Some schools only consider legacy status for early round applicants. This is just one example where legacy status in and of itself will not help a student who doesn't take advantage of other strategic choices in the admissions process. And if you are not in the middle 50% for test scores and GPA for a college, legacy status is unlikely to give you a huge boost. But that combination of legacy + ED can seal the deal for an otherwise-qualified applicant. Legacy preference or legacy admission is a preference given by an institution or organization to certain applicants on the basis of their familial relationship to alumni of that institution.
It is most controversial in college admissions, where students so admitted are referred to as legacies or legacy students. The practice is particularly widespread in the college admissions in the United States; almost three-quarters of research universities and nearly all liberal arts colleges grant legacy preferences in admissions. The university admits 29 percent of alumni children, as against 16 percent of applicants overall. Tying the slavery and legacy preferences together "makes some sense to me," Georgetown admissions dean Charles Deacon said. "If you're going to defend a legacy policy, surely you should apply it to" other members of the Georgetown community who were mistreated historically. Other elite universities that owned slaves are discussing whether to adopt a similar admissions policy, he said.
Last year's survey of college admissions directors by Inside Higher Ed found that 42 percent of admissions directors at private colleges and universities said legacy status is a factor in admissions decisions at their institutions. Even elite public universities such as the University of Michigan and the University of Virginia grant favor to legacy applicants. However, these two schools differ in how openly they advertise their legacy policies. UVA created its own Admission Liaison Program where children of alumni can attend special events, webinars, and even schedule a one-on-one transcript consultation with the director of the organization at any point throughout high school.
In contrast, the University of Michigan's admissions website does not make any reference to legacy status—the only statement about legacy admissions in buried in an FAQ. Today, it remains one of the ubiquitous obstacles to equity in college admissions to elite institutions. As the Crimson reported last June, Harvard applicants who are legacies are five times more likely to be admitted than applicants who are not legacies. The concept of legacy preference is blatant discrimination against low-income, first generation, and immigrant families, and to argue in favor of this unjust practice is to vindicate systemic racism and classism in the U.S. education system.
It ensures that power and access to education and resources remain in the hands of those who have had them for decades and mostly sealed-off from historically-underrepresented student populations. For those of you not familiar with the practice, "legacy admissions" means preferring the children of alumni in the admissions process. For the money, mostly, because if you make your alumni happy by admitting their kids, they might be more likely to give you money. Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, former President of GWU, made this case in support of legacy admissions, along with citing certain fringe benefits like "bridging" the generations by forming a sort of intergenerational club. "Rather than taking a stance on the issue, I have attempted to describe findings without ascribing labels to them as 'good' or 'bad,'" the paper ends. One reason that college admissions offices still genuflect to major donors is that other sources of revenue aren't keeping pace with costs.
In the past decade, many top universities have increased financial aid. Harvard, Yale, and Stanford give a full ride, including tuition plus room and board, to students whose family income is below $65,000. 27 percent of the admitted class of 2023 are first-generation students.
Additionally, 45 percent of legacy students admitted to Swarthmore's class of 2023 are domestic students of color. Though these statistics show that Swarthmore's use of legacy is vastly different than when Dartmouth invented it in 1919, the concept of legacy admissions still inherently favors some applicants arbitrarily. And the perpetrator isn't affirmative action — it's legacy admissions, which remain completely legal and a mostly-uncontested form of skewing admissions in one's favor.
When Dartmouth College established one of the first "comprehensive college application processes in 1919," it also first codified the tradition of legacy. Being a legacy doesn't assure a student of admission, but it helps. It also helps that students with legacy status usually have excellent academic qualifications. One Ivy League admissions officer told us that he doesn't need to dip down in the applicant pool for legacy students with less-than-preferred academic profiles.
Does Legacy Help At Upenn In fact, most legacy profiles were on par with or better than the general run of applicants. Due to the intensity of competition, however, he said that his school accepts only about one-third of the legacies who apply. In the big picture, legacy or even donor status may not be the biggest threat to the idealized meritocracy of United States college admissions. Legacies are only one part of the process, and it's impossible to discern the true extent of its influence in the whirlwind that is elite college admissions. When Harvard University was sued in 2018 for discriminating against Asian Americans in the admissions process, one issue that emerged was how the school's legacy practices favored wealthy and typically white applicants.
Harvard applicants with legacy status were over five times more likely to be admitted than non legacy applicants. Information such as this has put a lot of pressure on elite institutions to address legacy practices that clearly contradict an institution's claims of valuing diversity and merit more than privilege. Because private universities in the U.S. rely heavily on donations from alumni, critics argue that legacy preferences are a way to indirectly sell university placement. Opponents accuse these programs of perpetuating an oligarchy and plutocracy as they lower the weight of academic merit in the admissions process in exchange for a financial one. Legacy students tend to be the white and wealthy, contributing to socioeconomic inequality.
Legacy refers to a student whose family member attended a college or university. Some schools only consider parents when assessing legacy status, while others consider grandparents or siblings. Of course, most legacy students still need to have competitive applications to be considered. It's rare for legacy students to be admitted with a sub-par application.
That being said, because their family attended a prestigious institution, legacy students often benefit from additional resources, making the admissions process bearable. If calculus is offered in a student's high school and he or she has not taken the class by graduation, it is unlikely the applicant will be admitted to Wharton. We will follow up by recommending that the student take calculus during the summer. To broaden this answer for other programs at Penn and other institutions, academic preparation is the single most important factor in college admissions. Certain course work and higher levels of preparation are necessary at the secondary school level to provide a foundation for success in college.
In these cases, the admissions office is not trying to place hurdles in front of students. Rather, these requirements are informed by our faculty based on knowledge of the curriculum and past student performance. The thing about money is that it perpetuates itself, and nowhere is that truer than in college admissions. Colleges argue that so-called "legacy applicants" — those with relatives who attended a school — help build endowments and ensure financial solvency.
According to Forbes, such applicants to Harvard are six times more likely to snag a letter of acceptance than those without connections. A shocking 36 percent of the school's Class of 2022 was made up of legacies, a hefty leap from 29 percent the year before. The resultant lack of test scores is what Shawn Abbott cites as the impetus for Temple's admissions team to consider applicants in a different way. "In the absence of the SAT, we had to look at other components and data," he explains. "What should we reward instead of those scores when it came to admissions and financial aid?
" As such considerations assumed new importance, Temple's suddenly homebound admissions officers, with the help of Zoom, could offer one-on-one information sessions to students who might not have been able to meet with them in person. The test has been fiddled with over the decades, but along with its rival, the ACT, it became the backbone of college admissions — at least, until COVID wreaked havoc on the process. For the fall 2021 admissions cycle, only 44 percent of Common Application filers included SAT or ACT scores, down from 77 percent the year before. Although having a legacy, at best, enhances your application and at worst does nothing, the extent of legacy's benefits varies among top-20 schools.
For example, Princeton admits legacy applicants at four times the rate of their overall admissions, at 30 percent and 7 percent respectively. Meanwhile, universities like MIT and the California Institute of Technology pride themselves on their merit-based admissions processes. A legacy applicant generally refers to a student who has had a parent or sibling attend a particular university as an undergraduate. According to a WSPN survey of 252 WHS students, 32 percent of respondents indicated they have at least one or two parental legacies to schools within the rough range of the "top-20 universities" as per Niche's "Best Colleges" ranking. Legacies are more often controversially discussed within the context of elite admissions. In general, colleges and universities are most interested in seeing if your immediate family members attended.
For example, if you are using The Common Application, the "Family" section of the application will ask you about the education level of your parents and siblings. If you indicate that your parents or siblings attended college, you'll be asked to identify the schools. This is the information that colleges will use to identify your legacy status. A legacy student is someone whose parent or other family member attended the same college. Legacy students often receive a big boost in admissions at private universities in the U.S. However, many prestigious schools, such as MIT, do not consider legacy status at all.
While many applicants and students believe that legacy status guarantees a student admission to Yale, only about 30 percent of legacy applicants are accepted, according to a recent issue of the Yale Alumni Magazine. The process, the former admissions officer said, typically begins with a student's admissions folder. Legacy admissions makes sense not just because of potential donations. In my opinion, the main reason legacy admissions makes sense is because legacy admits are more likely to succeed at that specific elite college.
